picture courtesy of Epicenter
The battle of the sister squads, LGD Gaming and LGD.Forever Young, for a spot in the grand finals at Mars Dota 2 League, saw a magnificent series and a win for LFY.
After both LGD Gaming and LGD.Forever Young made quick work of their opponents in the previous rounds, they found themselves staring down each other and ready to battle for a spot in the Mars Dota 2 League grand finals. The losing team would be demoted to the lower bracket where they would have one more shot to reach the grand final – if they could win the lower bracket finals. With both teams already set to appear at The International 2017 in the near future, it would be interesting to see how the 2 Chinese squads squared off.
Game One
LGD Gaming took an early lead prior to ten minutes, racking up a 6-2 lead along with almost complete map control via objectives. LFY were happy to sit back and allow the Radiant squad to have their space until just prior to fifteen minutes when they decided to attempt to quell the pressure on their top tier 2 tower. The fight went completely in LGD’s favour and they proceeded to push down the tower and continued to control the entire game. From this, the Radiant squad transitioned into a kill on Roshan and looked set to take the game.
With just under twenty five minutes passed, LFY seemed desperate to find some sort of way into the game and attempted to take a fight soon after LGD had ripped through them. But LGD were prepared and wiped the Dire line-up from the map and with that, LFY threw in the towel, giving game one of the series to LGD.
Game Two
The early game once again went in LGD’s favour as they took control of the map, but this time LFY did not find themselves falling too far behind. After giving the Radiant a bit of space in the early game worked against them in the previous game, it was not the case this time around and by twenty minutes they were ready to focus their efforts to the high ground. While the game was far from over, LFY were definitely in a commanding position, which allowed them to slip into the Roshan pit and claim an uncontested aegis.
The game continued with LFY keeping their lead, but by thirty five minutes, LGD were buying themselves some much needed time to come up with a way back into the game. With this happening, LGD managed to steal an aegis and cheese away from the Radiant, and the lead which LFY had surmounted begun to slip away slowly.
But it was too little too late for LGD, even after things looked promising for them for a brief moment. With fifty minutes passed, they had nothing left in the bank and called GG, tying up the series at 1-1 and taking us into a decisive game 3.
Game Three
Game 3 was all LFY for the opening ten minutes as they controlled the pace of the game and ensured themselves a 9-1 lead in that time. Only 5 minutes later, with a 7 thousand gold lead, LFY claimed an aegis and absolutely destroyed the Dire’s line up. The game looked completely in the bag for LFY at this point and LGD seemed to be in serious trouble.
With barely twenty minutes passed, LGD found a great opening into the game as they managed to claim a few kills after the Radiant team over-extended a bit. But the brief respite ended as thirty minutes approached when LFY decided that it was time and marched through onto the mid lane high ground to drop the barracks. LFY backed off again, making sure that they did not throw the game away with any major errors.
With forty minutes closing in, LGD attempted to contest a Roshan kill and it ended in disaster as they were wiped from the map and the game. With no hope left in sight, LGD threw in the towel, giving LGD.Forever Young their spot in the MDL grand finals. For LGD Gaming, their journey would not end here, as they would face the winner of the next series – Newbee versus OG, for a spot in the grand final.
