The time for mistakes is over. Both Infused and mTw lost their first round matches. Because of the schedule, both teams had a big pause of one and a half day to think about the mistakes of round 1. Then they went into the lower bracket match against each other.
Game 1: Funzii and syndereN got too farmed
In contrast to Virtus.Pro two days earlier, Infused does not allow syndereN to play with Invoker. Instead, the team captain of mTw gets Natures Prophet to play with. Infused is trying to achieve victory with a Rikimaru and Brewmaster combination, while mTw adds Lone Druid as well as Night Stalker into the mix. That is a lot of chasing power.
While Infused gets more hero kills out of the teamfights, mTw's strength lies within farm. After 40 minutes, the three heroes with most creep kills are on mTws side: Natures Prophet, Lone Druid and Night Stalker. Even though mTw can keep the lanes pushed very well with Lone Druid's Radiance on the bear combined with Nature's Prophet's ultimate, Infused kills Roshan multiple times, forcing mTw to avoid teamfights.
Since mTw was avoiding them, Infused decided to force a teamfight, by pushing mid onto the tier 3 tower. This push failed massively and brought Riki and Brewmaster into the situation of being dead without buyback. mTw consequentially takes top and middle barracks and wins the first map after another teamfight win, in which Infused tried to kill Funzii's Lone Druid but were unable to achieve.
mTw
InfusedBANS
PICKS
Game 2: Maximum summoning power
With Enigma, Broodmother, Venomancer and Chen on mTw's side, the Dire's pushing power looks infinite. At the same time, Morphling secures them at least some late game strength. It was obvious from the beginning, mTw would play with a 4+1 strategy. Infused on the other side has the much better teamfight with Earthshaker, Sandking and Faceless Void.
Chen starts in the Dire wood, grabs two Dark Troll Warlord which are excellent for early pushing because of the summoned Skeleton Warriors, and with the help of his allies, tears down both top towers. The incredible map control advantage allows mTw to go for Roshan, take it, kill Crystal Maiden and push the last remaining outer towers right after it.
For Infused, it becomes more and more a problem that their main carry, Wagamama gets outfarmed by syndereN, Funzii and Sockshka at the same time. This way, although the Swedes manage to kill the Morphling in the middle lane, they cannot push against four, lose a teamfight and give Roshan to mTw once again.
This this Roshan, mTw can force the push onto the bottom barracks, use the Aegis in Morphling wisely and gain the creep advantage. All this happens with not a single tower lost from mTw. It's not a kill heavy game, mTw's push heavy strategy combined with Morphlings single target damage output with Eye of Skadi and Ethereal Blade allows mTw to overpower team Infused.
However, this has to be done carefully. The brute force push on the middle melee barracks gives Invoker a triple kill, resulting in Infused counter-pushing and taking down both outer middle towers of the Dire. Roshan still goes to mTw for the third time. Just as the first time, the Aegis allows mTw to savely push a lane and take down the remaining Barracks. Second game is won by mTw as well.
Infused mTwBANS
PICKS
This result sets team Infused on 7th place in The International West qualifiers. mTw is allowed to continue its fight through the lower bracket, next enemy is Quantic Gaming in the second lower bracket round.
Get more information about the games in the match details.
