DK scored two straight wins against NewBee to advance into the upper bracket finals. They will be facing Invıctus Gaming tomorrow, who are currently on a winning streak.
The winner of the upper bracket match will secure a slot on Starladder's LAN finals on 17 April. Before that though, there will be an elimination battle between the two teams who lost today. LGD and NewBee's match will start at 8:00 CET tomorrow, the game being another best-of-three.
Game 1
The game started quite evenly, with both teams securing farms for their carries, a Weaver for DK and a Spectre for NewBee. DK had a slight lead on the start because of the better gold and experience gain of the jungling Chen, but NewBee caught up because of their better offlane hero in Batrider. It was Spectre who got the first blood, which he acquired right after reaching level 6.
Despite Centaur's difficulty on the lane, he was able to get experience and gold due to his team's tower sieges. He was able to get his dagger not too long after Batrider got his. DK has complete map control, claiming a 6-0 tower lead by the 20th minute, but NewBee is showing poise by smart rotation using smoke ganks. Spectre finished his Radiance on the 24th minute.
With a 15,000 gold lead by the 28th minute, three Centaur creeps and an Aegis to aid them, DK decided to push middle. It went sourly for them though, as they engaged wrongly and they ended up losing the aegis, three heroes and a buyback. That put Spectre on a commanding lead on the carry race, and NewBee racked up a number of kills after that. It was Newbee's turn to be overconfident though, as they lost three heroes and then Roshan on a middle lane push attempt on the 32nd minute.
The game transitioned to multiple periods of farming and teamfight, with almost all teamfights ending on equal footing. The big teamfight which had a major effect happened at the 58th minute, on which Newbee won on a 3-1 trade, while forcing two buybacks. DK had a crucial error on the 60th minute, with the Weaver and Nyx losing a manfight to a very tanky Dragon Knight.
Without buyback on the Weaver, NewBee easily managed to take down the mid melee barracks of DK - the first one to fall on this game. They got greedy however, and they also tried to push on the bottom lane. That is where the unfortunate happened, where it was DK's turn to win a team fight and pick off core heroes without buyback. On an anti-climactic ending, DK pushed straight through the middle and there wasn't much their enemy could do without their cores.
Game 2
DK went with familiar heroes, a Weaver carry and an offlane Centaur. It was iceiceice's turn to use the tanky initiator though, as Mushi moved back to his natural middle-lane position with a Templar Assassin. NewBee had completely different cores: a carry Lifestealer, an offlane Nature's Prophet, and a middle-lane Venomancer to hopefully counter Templar Assassin.
Shadow Shaman was able to pick up an illusion rune, on which he sneakily showed one of the copies on the bottom lane before surprising with a gank on the middle lane with his fellow support teammate Naga. Because of that, DK got the first kill just one minute into the game and raced into the lead.
This game, contrary to the first one, is totally controlled by DK. Similar to the first game, they have already secured all outer towers of the enemy by the 20th minute. The difference on this game, however, is NewBee's Nature's Prophet isn't able to push because of the potential of DK's team to catch and punish him (DK had four heroes with a Dagger, and the hero without is the agile Weaver). Despite the lead though, DK was having trouble on going uphill against the annoying AoE skills of Alchemist, Venomancer and Ancient Apparition. NewBee also showed signs of life after winning a 3-1 fight on the 26th minute.
DK looks content on increasing their lead, as they were farming all over the map while their enemy was contained on their base. Mushi's Templar Assassin was melting the enemy heroes as his team won a 3-1 trade on the 36th minute. By that time, DK already had a very commanding 20,000 lead on the gold and experience graph. The end happened at the 43rd minute as DK just barreled across two lanes simultaneously, and NewBee cannot do anything much about it. Mushi had 7,800 gold at one point in the game, and another 8,500 when the game ended.
