With six losses consecutively, Mineski is eliminated from the MDL Winter Series.
With the last four series on the first day postponed until tomorrow, this will be the last round of the group stage for the first day. At the same time, this series will decide Mineski’s elimination. If Team Secret wins 2:0, Mineski will be eliminated.
Game One
Team Secret’s lineup resembled close similarities with Alliance’s drafts during Starladder. They aimed to abuse the pushing ability of Chen and Lone Druid and end the game with a farmed Spectre while he participates in fights with Haunt. However, they added their own flavors in it with the addition of Earth Spirit, which is also a very strong mid-game team fight hero. Mineski’s lineup seemed to be aggressive but lacked answers to the pushing power of Secret. Although they have strong gank potential, it seemed unlikely to execute if Secret gets ahead.
With the activeness of Earth Spirit and Chen, Secret completely dominated the early game creating space for the Lone Druid. Spectre had participated in almost all fights with the strength of Haunt. By 14 mins, Secret was leading the scoreboard 16:2. With enough gold accumulated, Secret began to demolish the towers of Mineski, taking six towers within eight minutes. At this point, Secret’s Chen had more farm than Mineski’s Slark. Secret took Roshan systematically after all outer towers were taken. Although Mineski was able to kill off Spectre and Earth Spirit as an exchange, they couldn’t stop their high ground being breached by 24 minutes. Although Mineski still wanted to seek another opportunity for comeback, Secret crushed this thought marching into the Mineski base two minutes later. Team Secret took game one with ease.
Game Two
Secret resorted back to their Lone Druid and Spectre in game two with Earth Spirit and Chen being banned in the first phase by Mineski. Mineski opted for a more team fight oriented lineup with Dark Seer and Death Prophet. Secret again recreated Alliance’s Starladder lineup with the addition of Puck.
The top lane was disastrous for Secret as Mineski put up an early ward in between the ancients and the big jungle camp that Puppey failed to deward. As a result Misery’s Lone Druid was killed off twice very early. Secret was able to retaliate with a kill on the Death Prophet. Mineski could not pull ahead during the first night with the Night Stalker due to a successful smoke gank and sharp map sense from Secret. Although Mineski pulled off a few successful objectives, Eternalenvy’s Spectre was able to initate multiple decisive ganks. 15 minutes into the game, Secret managed to pull ahead in terms of both gold and experience. Lone Druid was given plenty of time to farm for his Radiance while his teammates deter the aggression from Mineski. Even though Death Prophet obtained the Aegis, Secret was able to overwhelm Mineski with the fresh Radiance on Lone Druid. Secret team wiped Mineski and successfully took down the mid tier 2 tower. In team fights it seemed like Sven could never find a target to hit with the continuous kiting of Secret’s heroes. Although Mineski put in a lot of effort into resisting the next waves of aggression by Secret, this game was almost a complete outdraft. 36 minutes in, Mineski surrendered and was eliminated from the tournament.
Tomorrow MDL will start off with the round 5 of the group stages that was scheduled originally for today, and both winner’s bracket matches which will be Bo3s.
