Yesterday, FnaticRC and Team Empire played the Lower Bracket final, an intense match where the winner would move on to the grand final. That would result in a rematch vs Natus Vincere and a chance at taking first place. The set went to three games and Team Empire moved forwards in the end, thus repeating the final of last StarLadder.
Game #1
Natus Vincere was granted a freewin first game since they came from the Winner Bracket. The BO5 started out with 1-0 for Na`Vi.
Game #2
The game started out with Puppey spamming the mousekey grabbing Wisp as his first hero of the day. The draft can be seen above, most noticeable is the Tinker played by Funn1k. Empire opted to send Tinker supported by Jakiro and Undying offensively, contesting the trilane of NaVi. XBOCT still got farm but Empire scored some kills while mid and top went well. The tanky Lifestealer was the main issue for Empire aswell as the risk of suddently getting backstabbed by a Wisp combo. Funn1k controlled the fights excellently together with Goblak and Silent, all of them managed to stay alive long on low health and turn the fight multiple times. The Dire advantage scored Empire a few Roshan kills and eventually they managed to push inside the base of NaVi. NaVi gambled on a teamfight just outside the base, trying to catch the supports offguard. It backfired and Empire massively won the fight and continued to steam down the raxes. GG was called and the Winner Bracket advantage was nullified; 1-1.
Game #3
Empire went for a similiar trilane this time around, but this time it got shut down hard by the Phantom Lancer-centered trilane from NaVi. NaVi took control of it, secured the farm aswell as a bunch of early kills. This game was a different story than the previous one, whereas the former game was slow paced and this one featured a lot of early action. Phantom Lancer went for a quick Diffusual + Vlad and the Bear for Midas + Radiance. Empire couldn't stay in the race and since NaVi had carries which snowballs really well lategame it was hard to catch up. A carry such as Gyrocopter is reliant on a solid start, otherwise it gets hard to make an impact. There was some hope when Empire won a big fight at their tier 2 tower botlane, but it was just a smaller kick from a short leg. Eventually NaVi won the game. 2-1.
Game #4
The start of game 4 saw both offlane heroes enter the jungle to secure themselves farm and avoid getting killed by the opposite trilane. Both teams were focusing on farming and stacking the jungle to farm even more efficiently. Na'vi was the first to take action with Puppey getting two early crucial ganks on Empire's core farmers Void and QoP. Empire answered with some 4-man ganks and pushes, but Na'Vi was once again more time sufficient, taking an early gold lead. Empire however made sure to always get kills in return, but Na'Vi showed some clutch performances and Empire's AOE combo barely worked out. 23 minutes in, Na'Vi took out top rax without contention, as Empire was cautious to not get caught off 1 by 1 and Void's Chronosphere was on cooldown. It was two minutes later when Empire called the GG after Void was nuked down within seconds, not being able to utilize his ulti properly. Puppey showed a clutch performance on his Lion, causing a lot of troubles for Queen of Pain and Void.
Na'Vi goes home as the StarLadder StarSeries Season 4 winner, ending this year with a bang. It is their fourth StarLadder win in a row and the tournament seems to be their home ground.
Empire has struggled twice against Na'Vi this tournament, but proven that they are worthy to be at the top off the European scene.
Prizes: Star Series Dota 2
1st place: $8000 -
Natus Vincere2nd place: $4000 -
Team Empire3rd place: $2000 -
Fnatic Raidcall4th place: $1000 -
Virtus.proStandings and all information you need regarding StarLadder Season 4 can be found here.
VODs from the game will be uploaded to both Sheever's and BeyondTheSummitTV's YouTube channels, as well as our VOD section.
