picture courtesy of EPICENTER
Virtus.Pro took down one of the LGD dragon heads in less than 50 minutes to secure themselves a top six finish at The International 2017 and an over one million dollars prize.
With three Chinese teams and one CIS representative left in the upper bracket after the first day of TI 7 playoffs matches, Virtus Pro unleashed some of their specialties to take down LGD Gaming. In his interview with GosuGamers, Pavel '9pasha' Khvastunov mentioned that VP will try to use some of the tactics that brought them the upper hand at the Summit 7 against LGD Gaming. Interestingly enough, with their first series of the main event, Virtus Pro used two completely different hero line-ups, which raised the eyebrows of some fans, who were probably hoping that VP might repeat the madness from the Summit house where they won the entire event using a total of 81 heroes.
If that’s bound to happen at TI7, it remains to be seen, but for now, VP already stands out with a rather innovative build on the Night Stalker.
Game One
In the opening game vs LGD Gaming, Virtus Pro came prepared with a draft meant to nullify LGD’s teamfight. They opened the draft with Night Stalker, the usual suspect, followed by a Crystal Maiden and surprised the Chinese with an offlane Omniknight that countered both the Lich and the Troll Warlord with the Guardian Angel ultimate.
VP’s draft, although it could also be read as a strong meme response at Valve’s opening segment for the seventh International (Kaci-Omnikight, Slacks-Crystal Mayden), proved to be a very good mix of burst damage with huge mana sustain coming from the CM aura that allowed them to play the full aggressive CIS Dota. What made their game even more interesting was Ilya 'Lil' Ilyuk's choice of rushing Helm of the Dominator. His ganks suddenly became even more effective as he prioritized a Centaur neutral creep for the Stun and with a flawless laning stage, VP were able to push LGD’s high ground at the 22 minute mark, forcing the GG call.
Game Two
With such a convincing win in game one, Virtus Pro returned to the KeyArena stage in very good spirits and once again slightly out-drafted the Chinese, forcing a fast pace game with a lot of pushing options. Lil got to play Chen, and drew the first blood as soon as the neutrals camp spawned and he was able to control a Troll creep. The midlane also went smooth for the Russians, with Vladimir 'No[o]ne' Minenko having fun on a Venomancer, bullying LGD’s midlane Leshrac.
While in the first game of the series Lil clearly stole the show, game two was all about Roman 'RAMZES666' Kushnarev who had a clean execution on Faceless Void. Saved a few times by his teammates with clutch Force Staff usages, Ramzes found the perfect initiations in all the big teamfights to propel his team towards victory in less than 30 minutes.
Virtus. Pro’s victory over LGD Gaming sends them in the upper bracket semifinals where the LGD sister is waiting. LFY vs Virtus Pro upper bracket semi-final is scheduled to take place tomorrow, August 9th at the end of the day.
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