Team Empire defeated Virtus Pro 2-0 in the first game of the Dreamhack Dota 2 Invitational. Empire looked solid despite giving Virtus.Pro the advantage in the early phase of both games.
Team Empire defeated Virtus Pro in the opener of Dreamhack Dota 2 Invitational in convincing fashion.
The game started out with both teams exchanging the kills before the creeps spawned. However, due to a miscommunication on Empire's side, Chaos Knight gave away the First Blood just milliseconds before Puck was able to kill off the Warlock..
Virtus Pro went for the offensive trilane with Razor which successfully stopped the Chaos Knight from getting a good farm it wanted early on. After a few exchanges in kills near the Radiant's jungle, Chaos Knight only had four creep kills by eight minutes. VP's solo safe lane had the highest creep kills at that point
VP started grouping up before the 10th minute mark and started to pressure down towers while Empire's more mobile line-up could not find anyone to pick off nor defend their outer towers. By 16 minutes, five of Empire's outer towers are down.
While VP was overcommitting to taking down towers, Empire made the right call by trading their towers for VP's outer ones on the other side of the map. Empire teleported back as the tower goes down and capitalizing on their mobility to successfully pick off a few heroes that were on their way out.
Despite the gold difference of 4,000 in favour of VP, VP's persistence on taking Roshan was a game changing decision. Empire managed to pick off the Shadow Demon before the fight started and punished VP once again as they went into the Rosh pit two minutes later.
Another overcommitment from VP to killing off the Puck in a fight lost them another war and VP just gave up and called the gg.
Game two started off relatively quiet with VP's Dark Seer abandoning the off-lane. Five minutes into the game, VP was farming slightly better in the laning phase with Juggernaut to top the creep kills list followed by Alchemist and two other VP heroes.
The First Blood of the game happened before the 6th minute with Juggernaut sneaking behind Keeper of the Light and Omnislashed him to death. The quick teleport support from Magnus and Nature's Prophet however, secured the revenge kill for Empire.
VP once again started aggressively pushing down Empire's outer towers and was heavily reliant on Venomancer's Plague Wards to do so. Both the outer towers of Empire's bot lane were destroyed by 8 minutes. Free farm Alchemist bought his Shadow Blade at 9 minutes despite dying once to a four-men gank on the safe-lane.
VP started pushing the mid lane and managed to pick off a couple of heroes before retreating. Empire tried to sneak a Roshan but VP came over quickly enough to delay their Roshan kill. A big fight broke out at Roshan's gate which Empire came out on top, killing off the Venomancer and the Juggernaut. The Aegis was given to the Alchemist. VP still had the map control with five of Empire's outer towers down and a gem to deward.
At the 26 minutes, Alchemist bought his Assault Curraiss and it was Empire's time to start pushing into VP. A few chaotic fights later, Empire took advantage of VP's off positioning and took the Roshan again. The Aegis did not last long in Alchemist's inventory as they lost it in the next fight due to some heavy miscommunication between Alchemist and the rest of the team. The team was slowly picked off near VP's base although Empire did force a few buybacks.
VP counter-attacked and took down two of Empire's barracks but backed off as Empire heroes were respawning. Empire mounted for a push in mid and successfully kited the Juggernaut multiple times with their mobility and took the game.
The next game in Dreamhack Dota 2 Invitational will be the game between the Qpad Red Pandas and Team Empire. This will be Red Pandas first official tournament match since their official roster announcement two weeks ago.
The game is set to begin on the 17th of March at 21:00 CET.
All the games of the Dreamhack Invitational will be casted live by James '2GD' Harding.
