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A disappointing sequel for Team Liquid to yesterday’s marvelous performance

Team Liquid dropped quickly to EHOME 2-0 after great BO1 finish yesterday, utterly dominating Virtus.pro with their Huskar. The first draft was a pretty greedy one, with Doom(MinD_ContRoL), Alchemist(FATA-), Slark(Matumbaman) and Lich(KuroKy-) with a Winter Wyvern(JerAx) on the side of Team Liquid, and Tusk(eLeVeN), Spirit Breaker(KaKa), Lina(Cty), Templar Assassin(oldchicken) and a surprise Elder Titan(LaNm). This EHOME lineup took advantage of Team Liquid’s relatively slow start to get Templar Assassin(oldchicken) and Lina(Cty) ahead, using Elder Titan’s Natural Order to skyrocket Templar Assassin’s and Lina’s damage to ludicrous levels.

Natural Order, Split Earth, Echo Stomp, Ice Shards and Psi Blades. A spectacular end to the back-and-forth that was game 1.

eLeVeN’s Tuskar, man. If you needed to first ban a support against EHOME, that’s the one. He extended fights, using Blink-Walrus Punch, Ice shards and Snowball to disengage and re-engage for oldchicken and Cty to land their combos multiple times. Liquid opted for speed and maneuverability, picking up Blink Daggers on Doom and Slark in spite of the potential counter-engage potential by Spirit Breaker and Tuskar. It was a well executed draft, but a poorly positioned fight between Radiant Secret Shop and top rune allowed EHOME to isolate to utterly decimate Liquid with Ice Shards, Earth Splitter, Echo Stomp and TA psi blades. Natural Order kept TA’s damage high against mitigation, allowing EHOME to quickly finish 4 of Liquid’s heroes and forcing MinD_ControL to retreat without killing Cty. LaNm made an insane shot call to doom push a lane after the fight, and Liquid, with no buybacks, lost the game thanks to the damage output of Cty’s lina and oldchicken’s TA. (Kill score 26-26)

In game 2, Team Liquid drafted much more conservatively, picking up a mid-lane Alchemist(FATA-) and Juggernaut(Matumbaman), giving MinD_ContRoL his trademark Clockwerk. Another surprise by EHOME was the mid-lane Ursa, which Cty piloted amazingly, taking first blood on Alchemist with an Earth Shock and an Orb of Venom. Cty would dive and die under tower, but always managing to kill Alchemist first before dying. His two solo kills on Alchemist allowed him to snowball his experience lead, and lead the game with his Ursa, even forgetting his Aegis in the Roshan Pit. EHOME sealed Liquid’s fate with their early advantage, getting Viper, Earth Shaker and Ursa so much farm that they could easily take down Liquid’s carries without getting themselves killed. EHOME played it safe, taking the game at 58:30, 20-52.

Once both Liquid supports were spotted(Wyvern by a dire ward and KuroKy showed in bot lane, Ursa dived onto FATA- like a bat out of hell. Without a nearby support to save him, FATA- gave up first blood, and died a second time only 1 minute later due to the same dive again.

A clash of the titans afterward as VG and EHOME exploded into action as EHOME walked 5-man down their bottom lane, catching out fy’s Earthshaker and Fenrir’s Silencer with two excellent Ice Shards trapping the VG supports into the trees one after another. EHOME maintained this aggression, rotating Bounty Hunter and Rubick into BurNing’s bottom lane and then immediately afterward into the middle lane onto Super’s Shadow Fiend. 1 to 5 kill score at 5 minutes as EHOME settled down into the laning phase. eLeVeN’s Tusk punished VG thoroughly by allowing EHOME to take 2 kills one after another in the mid lane onto Super’s Shadow Fiend and iceiceice’s Slardar, and the game went downhill for VG from then on. eLeVeN would continue to make one play after another, cutting off and separating retreating VG heroes with Ice Shards, utterly destroying VG in every teamfight as he would buy enough time for oldchicken to reactivate Refraction which was extremely effective against VG’s meaty spells and attacks. 12 minutes in, the kill score was 6-15, with oldchicken snowballing out of control.

When the game ends like this, you know you’ve done something really, really wrong.

This was iceiceice’s first game on Slardar in Nanyang Championships, and it looked like he couldn’t do much to stop eLeVeN from viciously beating VG’s co-ordination, looking fully in his element on Tusk. Iceiceice, in an interview with Chinese media after the series, said that “I’ve started practicing Slardar 1-2 months ago and I told my teammates. They didn’t believe me and said it was a stupid hero, so I stopped practicing it. Suddenly a month later, every match has Slardar, so that’s that, not much to say.” Together with old chicken, eLeVeN would pick off VG heroes one by one with one Ice Shards after another. EHOME would continue deleting VG heroes in the mid-game with their insane advantage on oldchicken’s Blink-Deso TA, the game ending in 26 minutes with iceiceice calling the gg for his team. Team Secret was watching the game play out, and I’m sure Tusk is definitely on their mind after seeing eLeVeN’s performance. As I write this live, EternaLEnVy and MiSeRy are interacting with their fans in the VIP section, taking photographs and signing autographs.

Suddenly an Anuxi, Team Secret in the front row, BibleThump being autographed by Puppey.

The crowd today was divided between EHOME and VG. The fanfare was lively with people chanting “EHOME! EHOME!” during the EHOME vs Team Liquid series, but people were generally more silent during the EHOME vs VG game was the audience was divided with no common thing to cheer for. It made for a quiet crowd as people would only start cheering for important kills on EHOME’s cores by VG’s heroes. All eyes were on BurNing and Super to show up for VG against EHOME after a disappointing game 1. In Game 2, VG gave BurNing last draft Clinkz and Super Queen of Pain, against EHOME’s Ember(Cty) and Dragon Knight (oldchicken), Clinkz was too maneuverable to stop, and he kept taking out either LaNm’s Ancient Apparition or kaka’s Nyx at the start of the fight before be snowballed out of control with a Desolator and BKB against all the magic damage of EHOME.

The great teamfight potential of EHOME depended greatly on magic damage, and once VG got their BKBs, they simply rolled over EHOME.

In game 3, VG came hot out of the gates, with iceiceice reprising his role as Beastmaster once again vs EHOME. Super got his second phase Alchemist, and an easier start as he was setup in a lane against Shadow Fiend. fy drafted a surprise, Windranger after what Daryl “iceiceice” Koh Pei Xiang would later explain as a “decision that was made after an elaborate discussion” (fy-god gets what he wants in English). It was a VG highlights video soon enough as BurNing took first blood off of a mispositioning by Kaka and started to snowball experience for his Queen of Pain.

An extremely fortunate play, the seige creep aggroing onto eLeVeN and providing vision to prevent his juke. If not for the creep, BurNing and fy would have been fogged, perhaps allowing eLeVeN to get away.

BurNing has been insanely good on his Queen of Pain in the Nanyang Championships so far, only dropping one match which was the 2-0 by Secret of VG. Queen of Pain looks to be BurNing’s comfort pick as he continued to land 3 to 4 man Sonic Waves onto EHOME in teamfights, bursting down oldchicken’s Shadow Fiend and EHOME supports quickly once VG had initiated. Hometown hero iceiceice also turned up in Game 3 as he went brown boots into Necronomicon 3 by 24 minutes, which allowed him to solo kill supports with his Primal Roar. This game featured an extremely organized Vici Gaming, which was missing from yesterday’s Winner’s Bracket Finals.

LaNm’s Frustration after losing

LaNm looking very disappointed after losing to VG. EHOME will only play on another stage in the ECL2015 The Autumn Tournament.

Perhaps this route of qualification is more beneficial to VG as they are able to play more tournaments games as a team, allowing BurNing to adjust to the team and vice versa. Vici Gaming turned the tables onto EHOME with a 28 minute mid-lane rax timing and a 30 minute gg-call from EHOME.