Coming into the South East Asia qualifier as the big favourite, Rave has been eliminated by their Korean rival MVP.Phoenix in third place, just one position short of being guaranteed a wildcard spot in The International 5.
With the win, MVP.Phoenix has been guaranteed a top two finish in the qualifier and will face their sister team MVP.Hot6 later today to determine who will be going to The International 5 to compete in the main event and who will be going as a wildcard.
Rave came into the qualifiers strong, tying MVP.Phoenix in the tougher group B with 10 points. Due to their prior 1-1 series against MVP.Phoenix, both the teams had to play in a best-of-one tiebreak match but MVP.Phoenix got the better of Rave to be placed in the winner bracket of the playoffs.
Rave on the other hand, had to start in the lower bracket against TnC. After successfully defeating their countrymen TnC in the first round, Rave played MVP.Phoenix again (MVP.Phoenix lost to MVP.Hot6 in the winner bracket final) in the lower bracket final similar to their tiebreaker game, Rave was unable to defeat MVP.Phoenix.
That ends our TI5 run, wp to the MVP's well deserved. It has been a long year for me competing. Thank you for all the support. ~!
— Jio Madayag (@Jeyostyle) June 1, 2015
MVP.Phoenix vs Rave
In the first game, MVP.Phoenix went for an extremely BKB-counter line-up with four heroes (Winter Wyvern, Beastmaster, Shadow Demon and Queen of Pain) having the abilities to lock down magic immuned heroes. Rave was able to keep the gap low in the early phase of the game but once the team fights break out (eg. the first Roshan fight), the low cooldown ultimates from MVP.Phoenix prevailed.
After that fight, Rave was significantly down and was unable to move too far away from their base. MVP.Phoenix spent the next few minutes taking down all of Rave's outer towers followed by a high ground siege after they secured the second Aegis. The stark difference in farm was clearly visible in MVP.Phoenix's first push on the bottom lane (after picking of Shadow Fiend) as the Koreans faced no issue taking down the tier-three tower.
Despite the commanding lead, MVP.Phoenix cautiously backed off after the Gyrocopter respawned but went in for another push a minute later. This time, MVP.Phoenix managed to kill the Gyrocopter and immediately retreated as he bought back. However, MVP.Phoenix's third push was the nail in the coffin for Rave. After the death of Shadow Fiend and Vengeful Spirit, Rave called the "gg" and conceded game one.
Game 1: Shadow Fiend left all alone to fight Beastmaster, SD and Winter Wyvern.
In the second game, Rave tried to surprise MVP.Phoenix by picking up Clinkz, a hero they have never used in an official previously, to couple with their Io-Tiny combo. MVP.Phoenix on the other hand, was ready to counter it with high mobility and long ranged heroes such as Earthshaker, Storm Spirit, and Queen of Pain.
The game went bad very quickly for Rave. Facing a difficult offlane for Clinkz to farm, Rave switched their Clinkz to the safe lane and moved the Dark Seer to the offlane. MVP.Phoenix quickly took advantage of the Clinkz and picked him off twice alongside the Rubick who was supporting him. Subsequently, MVP.Phoenix picked him off again in the jungle to severe his farm.
Rave took several cracks at recouping their losses by ganking the supports via Relocate but timely rotations from the Storm Spirit and Queen of Pain routed their attempt. Down by 12 kills in 19 minutes, MVP.Phoenix pushed high ground but their overextension gave Rave four kills on top of the Aegis and a glimmer of hope to come back into the game.
MVP.Phoenix waited for the Roshan to spawn to secure the second Aegis and went for a second push. This time, MVP.Phoenix once again overextended and gave away another small lead but the Koreans made no mistake in the third push. MVP.Phoenix expanded their Aegis to kill the Rubick and Clinkz, and destroy the top melee barracks before they retreat. Rave was unable to stop the following push on the middle lane.
Headline image from BTS flickr.
