Escape appeared confident in the early game and it showed. The early lead they acquired shrank away as nerves appeared to get the best of them. Fnatic managed to maintain their farm despite falling short in the laning phase, moving on to strangle Escape from the rest of the map and the 2016 International.
Escape Gaming drafted a lineup focusing on night time vision, picking a Night Stalker support. They backed that up with a mid Axe and Slardar off lane to initiate. Fnatic chose a decently heavy push strategy by picking up Shadow Shaman and Templar Assassin reinforced with a front line Tidehunter.
The laning phase was extremely slow resulting only in a first blood on Slardar, but once Tidehunter hit level six he smoked with Shadow Shaman to get a pick in the Radiant off lane. It was a complete disaster. Swift rotations from Escape to aid their Night Stalker resulted in a triple kill for Max ‘qojqva’ Broeker’s Axe. The failed attempt contributed to a timidly approached game doubling down on the thought of elimination. Escape’s attempt at a smoke gank went much smoother. Once Axe picked up his dagger they managed to get a kill on Fnatic’s Tidehunter, losing their own Silencer in the process.
The early game favored Escape in terms of kills but the Fnatic heroes were still finding their farm with two Fnatic heroes topping the net worth charts going into the mid game. At this point Escape was bleeding kills and miss firing on ganks. Nai ‘MidOne’ Zheng Yeik began dancing around Escape, grabbing up multiple kills. At 20 minutes Fnatic began their second Roshan attempt and managed to do so regardless of Escape lingering around the pit but failing to find an angle to engage.
A clash shortly after in the middle lane left two Escape heroes dead and Fnatic pushing up the high ground. After grabbing the melee barracks with zero deaths they backed off and moved forward with their push in the top lane. Fnatic lost their aegis, but this did not deter them from their goal. They dropped their Serpent Wards on the high ground and proceeded to take a second lane, killing three heroes in the process. With Fnatic set to take mega creeps Escape threw in the towel at 26 minutes and were eliminated from the 2016 International.
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