Digital Chaos made short work of Team Freedom by beating them 3-0 and securing a spot at The International 2017.
Rewind to TI 6. Digital Chaos, a team that not many had expected to do well made it to the grand finals, where they lost to the eventual champions Wings Gaming. A year later, DC will be going to Seattle again with a completely different roster, but with similar promise to be the dark horse. After beating Complexity Gaming 2-1 in the loser bracket finals of the NA Qualifiers, DC took on Team Freedom in the grand finals and put out a performance worthy of the grand finals.
Game one:
Game one saw DC go with Timbersaw, a hero that has sort of fallen off the ranks in the current meta. Lifestealer with two good vehicles in the form of the Spirit Breaker and the Puck rounded off their lineup. Team Freedom started the game on the front foot, killing off the Timbersaw five times in the first 14 minutes. Some sweet Vacuum-Wall combos from Jing 'Sneyking' Wu saw Freedom win two consecutive ganks and skyrocket to a 15-6 lead in terms of kills. They had around a 3k lead at the 20 minute mark when it all started to go wrong.
Freedom went on to Mason 'mason' Venne's Lifestealer and dumped their entire arsenal onto him. But he was kept alive with a perfectly timed grave from 'Dooyoung 'DuBu' Kim and managed to infest into a nearby catapult. With the Wall of Replica down, Digital Chaos stamped their mark on the next team fight and there was no looking back. With a farmed Lifestealer tearing through their structures, Team Freedom threw in the towel at 34 minutes when Troll was brought down with no buy back.
Game two:
We don't see a lot of Medusa but whenever we do, it's mostly with a Drow Ranger and in the middle lane. Why? Because she needs to level up fast, which the mid lane provides and she needs early game damage to farm up, which Precision Aura provides. Team Freedom went with a safelane Medusa for Yawar 'YawaR' Hassan in game two and in retrospect, it wasn't the best decision.
The game was hanging in the balance till the 30th minute. Team Freedom were making space for the Medusa to farm while getting a few kills here and there. Sneyking's Legion Commander (do we all love that hero or what?) was farmed quite a bit with 96 duel damage while Digital Chaos weren't too badly themselves with a farmed Bristleback and Enigma. The tides turned in favor of DC a bit when Nyx, Lina and LC went for a pickoff on Abed 'Abed' Yusop's Puck. Though they got the kill with the dues, Quinn 'CCnC' Callahan had to expend the Laguna to break the Puck's Linken's. They were so closely clamped together, it gave Sang-Don 'Forev' Lee the perfect opportunity for a three man Black Hole. After that, it was bad fight after bad fight for Freedom. The worst part? Yawar wasn't farmed enough till DC came knocking on the door (or more realistically, the racks).
With an insanely farmed, right clicking Bristleback (Sange and Yasha, Assault Curiass and +50 attack speed talent) backed up by an Enigma with a 100 second Black Hole cooldown (15% cool down reduction + Octarine Core), there was no way for Freedom to carve a way back. The Medusa ended with stats of 1/5/5 and hardly contributed anything to the game.
Game three:
By the time the series got to game three, the momentum was strongly with DC and Freedom weren't too high on morale. First blood was secured by Abed's QoP when CCnC missed a stun on to him and the two exchanged right clicks. Batrider tormented the Necrophos in the bottom lane. Top lane was the only place where Freedom were getting decent farm, but that was on an Earthshaker and he couldn't stop the Bristle from doing the same. The highlight of the game was Abed and Bulba trading Nightmares to keep each other alive in an epic clash in the middle lane. With the Queen of Pain leading the charge, DC steamrolled Freedom in just 32 minutes, stacking up a 14k net worth advantage in the process.
While Digital Chaos take the plaudits, one can't help but feel sorry for Team Freedom. The team had just been formed a few weeks ago and they nearly made it all the way. As for DC, it remains to be seen if they can repeat TI6 history this year!
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