dota2-banner
All News
article-headline
Dota 27 years agoAndreea "divushka" Esanu

Newbee defeat Wings Gaming to reach the ESL One Genting Grand Finals


image courtesy of Newbee

The second semifinals of the day in the Arena of Stars from Genting, Malaysia, featured an amazing best-of-three series between the two Chinese forces, Wings Gaming and Newbee, who fought for the last spot into the ESL One Genting Grand Finals.

Game One

For the first game of the semifinals, Newbee went with a minus armor strategy developed around Slardar and Templar Assassin as well as securing the infest bomb combo for themselves. Wings on the other hand wanted to play a push strategy with Dragon Knight and Mirana, both enhanced by the Drow Aura, but their game plan was shut down perfectly from the laning stage by their adversaries.

To counter Wings Gaming's game plan, Newbee sent both supports in the bottom lane with Damien 'kpii' Chok’s Slardar and simply crushed the lane. The first blood came only 30 seconds into the game on Chu 'shadow' Zeyu’s safe lane Drow Ranger, and the kills continued to go in Newbee’s favor despite Wings rotating almost their entire team to protect Shadow. Two minutes into the game the kill score was already 3-0 in favor of Newbee with all the deaths happening in the bottom lane. Forcing all the rotations from Wings, Newbee had secured free farm for their Lifestealer and were able to start the five-man push really fast.

By the 20 minute mark Wings had no tier two towers left on the map and were extremely underfarmed, the gold and experience difference being already close to 10k in Newbee’s favor. An Aegis secured for Song 'Sccc' Chun 17 minutes into the game resulted in a rampage for the Templar Assassin, as Newbee was feeling confident enough to dive Wings in their own base. The TI6 Champions tapped out before the 30 minute mark, admitting that they had no chance at a miraculous comeback.

Game Two:

The second game of the series featured the first competitive apparition of Necrophos since the new patch was implemented. It was Wings Gaming who gave the hero a first try and utilized him in the midlane for Zhou 'bLink' Yang. By the end of the draft phase it felt like Wings had one too many cores as they geared for a late game scenario with Morphling, Centaur Warrunner, and a roaming Mirana. Newbee went with a Drow aura stat themselves.

The start of the game looked identical with the previous one: Newbee sent an aggro trilane with a Weaver support to get the first blood on Shadow’s Morph before the first minute mark. At the same time, Sccc had a very rough time in the midlane against Necrophos, which gave Wings a glimmer of hope for the mid-game. They still lost all their tier two towers before the 20 minute mark, and it seemed like they would fall to Newbee with a 2-0 game score. But the TI Champions slowly built their comeback using the high round advantage when defending their base. Three defense fights won consecutively, a Gem of True Sight snatched from Newbee, and Wings were back in the game.

With every minute past, Newbee’s lineup strengths were fading away and they started to instantly melt to Morphling’s shotgun combo, which, eventually, forced them into a decisive game three.

Game Three:

For the decisive game, Newbee banned Necrophos in the first round and went with almost an identical lineup with game two, the only difference being a Medusa pick for Sccc. Wings went again with a pocket strategy and carefully developed their draft for a last pick Broodmother by drafting the Earthshaker and Dazzle while banning Keeper of the Light and Queen of Pain.

The Broodmother pick almost worked as Wings were able to take the top lane towers fast and force Newbee into early teamfights to defend the rest of the buildings. However, the high ground push was almost impossible for Wings, and their huge advantage didn’t matter anymore. With Medusa reaching the late game scenario, Newbee were able to stand strong with every engagement and, once Sccc reached level 25, the 25% lifesteal talent came into play which basically rendered him immortal. Wings' continuous efforts to breach Newbee’s high ground were futile, and no Aegis or Cheese was enough for them to deal with the Dire defense.

The game went past the hour mark with long fights and amazing plays coming from both teams. But in the end it was Newbee who took the first lane of barracks and went straight for the throne via top lane after Wings were left with no buybacks on the Broodmother and Earthshaker.

Author
divushka-avatar
Andreea "divushka" EsanuI can resist anything but temptations... Follow me @DivDota

All Esports

Entertainment

GosuBattles

Account