The last match of the season between GosuLeague champions mTw and Russian powerhouse Moscow Five came to a rousing conclusion with the latter fighting back after going down fast in the first game to draw mTw in a sixty minute thriller.
mTw established early dominance right from the start with an full push lineup, aggressively taking down towers at the top lane and threatening for a top barracks push at the fifth minute.
While Moscow Five were able to respond with a couple of early kills off the back of the burst damage provided by Tiny and Queen of Pain, it soon became evident that they were unable to stop their towers from falling. All outer towers were down for Dire by the twentieth minute.
After getting a Radiance on Lone Druid and a couple of other core items on the rest of their heroes, mTw returned to the top lane for a barracks push and after successfully clearing out Moscow Five at 23 minutes, they took top barracks and the GG call from Dire came shortly after.
Counter to how the first game went for mTw, they decided to opt for a popular DotA global strategy with Ancient Apparition, Prophet, Clockwerk Goblin and Spectre with assists from an Extort Invoker. However, effective laning by Moscow Five kept them in the game despite an early 24 minute Radiance by Spectre.
It was an even game going into mid game and Anti Mage was getting caught out being overly aggressive. Enigma's Black Holes gave Moscow Five the lead and set up space for the Radiant to slowly turtle up their carries. Meanwhile, Vigoss' Night Stalker was dominating the night with a 17-4 kill score at one point and a Black King Bar, Satanic and a Aghanim's Scepter.
Moscow Five were able to slowly take barracks by initiating pushes into mTw's base and despite buybacks giving Dire space to defend the pushes, it eventually came down to Anti Mage overpowering mTw and Moscow Five were able to claim game two of the best of two series.