In the battle between two of the biggest teams in the eastern scene, LGD.INT manages to overcome, MUFC 2-1. LGD.INT will go one to face NeoES.ORANGE in the Grand Final, with Orange taking a one game lead.
| MUFC vs LGD.Int | ||
 Winter dabeliuteef TFG WangWang FzFz | vs |  Pajkatt MiSeRy God 1437 Brax |
In the first game, LGD.Int went for a fairly orthodox line up. With an aggressive trilane of Naix, Gryocopter and Leshrac, a middle lane of Lone Druid and a solo safelane Magnus. This left them with strong lanes, which they were expected to win. MUFC did quite the opposite. A defensive dual lane of Queen of Pain and Shadow demon was always going to struggle against LGD.INTs tri-lane, however much Dark Seer could help from the jungle. A melee mid, like Night Stalker, would be expected to have a rough time against the Sillabear. The only lane MUFC weren't expected to outright lose was the offlane Bounty Hunter, who can fare well in a one on one situation.
Things quickly turned out worse than expected, Pajkatt dominated the farm in the midlane, Bounty Hunter got first blooded by the Magnus and Queen of Pain struggled against the trilane top. While early rotations by the bounty hunter helped out, the effect was not significant enough and Naix's farm was barely interrupted. Additionally, Bounty's absence lead to Magnus being granted complete free-farm.
The first big turning point in the game happening at just 10 minutes. MUFC dive deep on the top-lane to get a much needed track kill on the Lifestealer. However they do not account for the teleport of the Magnus who picks up an easy double kill, managing to get his blink dagger ludicrously early. From this point onwards MUFC are only capable of desperately trying to catch up to their opponents. Whatever gains they make, LGD.INT immediately pull back.
By 15 minutes in, LGD.INT have won a team fight and taken the tier one and two towers in both the top and bottom lanes in just a few short minutes. MUFC are left with little hope of a comeback and compete control is granted to LGD.INT, who by this point seem to just be messing around. The Aegis is granted to the support Gyrocopter, ultimates are wasted to try and catch a courier and they enter the base to take the tier 3 tower at just 20 minutes. The barracks is then taken after a two minute team fight in which only a few heroes die. It's not long till the GGs are called and we quickly move on to game number 2.
In our second game, MUFC's line-up was dominated by the pick-up of an Anti-Mage. They constructed their trilane, with supports of Rubick and Lina around the strategy of getting him the highest amount of farm possible. LGD.Int's line-up was ill-suited to dealing with the last pick of Anti-Mage. They had clearly hoped to run a defensive dual lane involving the Naix, with Chen farming up their jungle and Dark Seer comfortable in the offlane picking up core support items for a powerful midgame push. Instead they were forced to construct a ramshackle offensive tri-lane consisting of Dark Seer, Windrunner and Chen, with Dark Seer and Chen utilising LGD.INTs jungle to gank supports and disrupt the Anti-Mage.
This, inevitably, did not work especially well. MUFC got the first blood on the Dark Seer and used the space created by the under-leveled LGD supports to gank mid, killing Lifestealer and then Dark Seer again on their way back. Meanwhile fzfz was winning the top lane, killing God's Magnus early on, and buidling up a healthy CS lead.
Still, Dabeliuteef was struggling to pick up the farm his team needed him to. It's difficult to pin this down to anything but poor play, as he only had to solo up against a Windrunner, with the Chen and Dark Seer only able to have minimal impact. His farming is impeded yet further as his team decide to press their early advantage and he joins in with the fighting. While early team-fights are equal, MUFC are able to take all LGD tier one towers by just 17 minutes. With enigma holding a Mekanism and a Blink Dagger and Anti-Mage growing ever closer to his late Battlefury, it appears as if MUFC are gaining control of the game. An excellent smoke gank nets the Anti-Mage two kills and he finally settles down to dedicated farming.
With MUFC relenting on their pressure upon LGD.INT to allow their Anti-Mage to begin farming space is opened up for LGD.INT to try and make something happen. Luckily a present falls right into their lap, as TooFuckingGood walks right into a sentry ward, giving up both his life and the Gem. With MUFC's main catalyst gone, LGD.INT are able to take both Roshan and a Tier One Tower.
Shortly later, after some inconsequential scraps, LGD.INT get another big pick off in the Anti-Mage. As they push forward they manage to pick of a trickle of MUFC heroes, one by one, and end up taking a Tier 3 tower. Through some excellent defending by the Nyx and a buyback by the Enigma, MUFC are able to keep their barracks by the skin of their teeth.
The game quickly develops into a tense affair. Anti-Mage is relentlessly farming, picking up more and more items. But it seems that his more immobile team is being left behind and he goes on the search for yet more gold. This is demonstrated rather well as after a brilliant teamfight by MUFC, in which they took two heroes for free. The MUFC supports are left loitering around Roshas, while Anti-Mage is killing creeps miles away. A great pick off by the Magnus next LGD.INT three kills for nothing, which they use to take a melee rax and their second Roshan of the game. While Anti-Mage manages to take a Tier 3 tower as this is happening, it's beginning to feels as if the momentum is firmly in LGD.INT's favour.
Yet, Anti-Mage is acquiring gold at an unsurpassable rate and he's soon left Naix trailing in the dust behind him. However the game has entered a ludicrously steady period, in which it will stay for the next 25 minutes. Anti-Magi kills everything on the map, again and again (despite being maxed) while LGD.INT grow gradually stronger as a team. It feels, now, as if both teams are just waiting for that one big pick off and great teamfight that will finally exhaust their oppponent's ability to buy back.
LGD are soon able to take their third Roshan but they are not able to do anything with it. The game stagnates till about the 65th minute. A huge team-fight ensues at the next Roshan, nearly all heroes on the map buy back at least once but when the dust settles MUFC are left standing. The use the time they have to take a barracks, and then return, yet again, to farming buybacks.
Bit still, for the betting man, LGD.INT are looking like the stronger bet. MUFC are just relying on the Anti-Mage, as well as TFG is playing on the Nyx. LGD are simply building up good amounts of farm on a number of heroes such as the Windrunner, the Naix and Magnus. Finally, at around the 75th minute, it appears they can finally press this advantage. Anti-Mage is picked off in the river, and instantly buys back. LGD.INT push to the MUFC base and look to be tearing apart their opponents. However a fantastic manavoid, combined with some great impale stuns and a huge black hole, instantly knocks out both the Naix and the Magnus. With neither having buyback all is lost, and Anti-Mage rushes to demolish what is left of the LGD base. A climatic end to what had been an exhausting and tense game.
To much surprise, MUFC once again gave up the Magnus, Lone Druid, and Lifestealer in the first pick phase of game three much like what they did for game one. To ensure that game one would not happen again, MUFC picked Shadow Fiend as their only hard carry in hopes for an early finish in game three.
LGD.Int sent their trilane to the top lane in hopes of MUFC babysitting the Shadow Fiend on the safe lane. However, they faced a solo Queen of Pain which was significantly harder to kill compared to the Shadow Fiend. Shadow Fiend laned mid against Magnus.
MUFC's two roamers, Shadow Demon and Leshrac successfully assisted in taking the First Blood against the solo Lone Druid with help just seconds away from arriving. LGD.Int rotated their two supports to the safe-lane to help Lone Druid out. MUFC supports subsequently killed Magnus in the mid lane.
The gold graph at ten minutes was starting to tick towards MUFC as they picked off a few more of LGD.Int heroes. With such a farm-oriented strat, LGD.Int could not group up to be on the offense although the Lone Druid has been pushing down towers uncontested.
LGD.Int continued overextending going into mid-game and at one point, traded four of their heroes bar the Lone Druid for a sole Dark Seer. However, LGD.Int stepped up their game 20 minutes in and won a teamfight. Apart from that, LGD.Int also punished four of MUFC's heroes consecutively for farming past the river. Magnus bought his Blink Dagger at 18 minutes.
As soon as MUFC respawned, they sneaked into the Rosh pit and took down Roshan before LGD.Int could mobilize to defend the Aegis. An engagement broke out as soon as the Roshan went down, Queen of Pain blinked into the Magnus who prematurely used his Reverse Polarity and lost them the fight. Lone Druid who has not join a single fight in this game has farmed up a whooping 200 creeps by 28 minutes.
At 34 minutes, it appeared that MUFC has dragged the game for too long as they lost a big engagement in the Radiant jungle despite having a great start. It took almost all of MUFC just to bring down the Lifestealer and Lone Druid just cleaned up after his team. LGD.Int took down the Roshan and the Lone Druid picked up the Aegis.
LGD.Int capitalized on their teamfight advantage and pushed into MUFC. Some of MUFC's heroes got picked off again before the fight and LGD.Int took down the rax and eventually, the game.
The grand final game between NeoES.Orange and LGD.Int will be beginning shortly. Tune in to David 'Luminous' Zhang and David 'GoDz' Parker from BeyondTheSummit for more action from GEST The Challenge.
