The absolute leader of Group A, Invictus Gaming, who gave away only 2 maps during the group stage, meet Team Spirit, who made their way to the playoff after failing on the first game day. A clear favorite against a clear outsider. But Team Spirit is going to the Stadium to fight, not to give up!
The first map
A chic, balanced draft from Team Spirit. But will they have enough pace against the fast Invictus Gaming heroes with an excess of various damage? If the teams survive to Late on equal Net Worths, an incredible battle awaits the audience. Let's look at the playoff opening map.
Team Spirit makes a lot of mistakes. They play well, farm faster, disperse their heroes better, but then they get together, come up with nonsense and go on an unnecessary attack. The first run when Mars had a hundred gold left before Blink. Then they take a fight against a pack of bkb with cores of Invictus Gaming and can't do anything. Team Spirit plays better, but they make much worse decisions.
30th minute. Invictus Gaming leads 10 thousand gold and decides to go to the high ground. Collapse acts ahead of time, bursts in, gives a spear to Leshrac, blows up an enemy mider in a second. Invictus Gaming is dumbfounded, and Spirit flies into the attack, catches up, catches two more. Good job! They stepped in and fought back in a critical situation.
Invictus Gaming continues to push, Morphling is exposed in the center. Invictus Gaming is going up to the high ground again. The gorgeous furrow of Elder Titan, the spear of Mars in Monkey King, the arena in the rest. Morf is buybacked, blows up the enemy carry, and the other Chinese team players run away.
The Spirit players understand that they cannot sit and wait for the enemy to come and finish, they need to act on counter aggression. They enter the enemy forest, Leshrac leaps into the crowd, not expecting that all the bark Spirit got bkbs. Monkey King puts the arena, but we don't press bkb, Mars throws him out of the arena with a spear. Minus Leshrac, Slardar is shot, Monkey King uses bkb to only escape from the fight, but he is also overtaken. Collapse has reserved his arena for him. Minus five performed by Yatoro. Rampage! And immediately to the high ground. Spirit doesn't stop for a second.
Team Spirit demolishes the Tier-3 tower. They understand that only two Invictus Gaming heroes have spent their buybacks, go to shooting range-4. IG presses the glyph, Spirit is delayed, they decide to continue beating the Tier-4, they want to knock out more buybacks. They understand that Leshrac has no buy. They dig into the Throne. Just to beat. All viewers immediately have terrible flashbacks, as Natus Vincere went to the Ancient at the last The International, but did not have time and lost; how Virtus.pro went to the Ancient against Team Liquid but did not finish off 120 hp and lost.
But what nerves of steel Team Spirit players have. In such a tense situation, they spread control over enemy heroes, not letting them get to them. Not once have two controls been wasted in one hero. Morf presses bkb, toggles, and delivers the Ancient to Invictus Gaming. Wow! What a map! What a start of The International. Such games were worth waiting for two years! 1-0 for the CIS team.
The second map
What nonsense Team Spirit has. But how cool it is! This draft shows how young Spirit is not afraid to play against one of the favorites of The International. They are not afraid to pick, as if on a high. They are not afraid to play on the edge, with urgency.
But if emotions are put aside, then, of course, the draft of Invictus Gaming looks several times more powerful. Strong Ultimates, the most powerful Late, burst, explosive damage. Everything is cool, except for the lines that Team Spirit should close in their favor.
Team Spirit starts the second map in the zone. As expected, opponents on the lines are beaten. By the eighth minute, they are leading about three thousand gold, all three of their cores are in the top of the Net Worth, TorontoTokyo in the center leads about a thousand gold and two levels against Emo.
A great start, but too much desire prevents Team Spirit from consolidating its advantage. One unsuccessful run, the second, the third. They start inventing some nonsense, trying to strangle the opponent here and now instead of gaining a critical mass and finishing.
Cool, bold move on Roshan, when Spirit just came up, kicked the rivals out of the Rosh Pit, went in, and brazenly finished off Roshan. Aegis, a second chance to earn a significant advantage. But Spirit continues to run after frags, they press the towers less than they would like, they make mistakes.
At the end of Aegis, they decided to climb up and beat the Tier-3 tower, not suspecting that the Chinese would attack 30 seconds before the Aegis fell out. But Invictus Gaming smartly focuses TorontoTokyo, quickly blows it up for the first time, flies into the back line, turns off Legion Commander and a couple of supports, deals with the remaining Shadow Fiend, finishes off the rest of the team. That's all. The game is done. IG is turned over.
Team Spirit tried. They had a couple of good fights defending their base, but it's too late. They let the opponent go too much. It seems that they fought off at the expense of buybacks, but the gap by this time was already about 17 thousand gold. In addition to the two lost sides.
Invictus Gaming played as reliably and carefully as possible. Before each run, they seemed to remember the first map, when Team Spirit was able to return to the lost map and did not give the opponent a chance. GG. 1-1. What, Spirit, did you think it would be easy?
Bet on TI10 with 1xBetThe third map
A simple, aggressive, attacking peak of Team Spirit, they returned like this after a failure in the group. But will these heroes be enough against the Major champions and some of the favorites of The International 10? The draft of Invictus Gaming looks incredibly powerful. Team Spirit's only chance is an unmistakable snowball. IG will punish them for the mistakes. They will return to the game, their heroes will get the necessary boost in pace, and the game will be over.
Team Spirit starts cool. Once again, the lines are won. Once again, good early moves. And once again excessive aggression. They are carried away again, making a critical mistake. Juggernaut, who has chosen a combat build through a sabre, immediately begins to lag behind in farm, and Storm Spirit, who returned to the game after the starting ***, begins to wreck the entire map.
Team Spirit flew forward by inertia. But each of their attacks crashed against the impregnable wall of Invictus Gaming heroes. Too dense Mars and Spectre, the elusive Storm Spirit is too unpleasant a pair of supports. And 7 thousand of the gap at 20th minute turn into 20 thousand of the Chinese team's breakaway by 30th minute.
In the 40th minute, Invictus Gaming led by 40 thousand. And Spirit was just stalling in the hope of something. Maybe a miracle would happen. Maybe Invictus Gaming players will get afk, suddenly a bug will occur in the Dota, and a couple of IG heroes will simply disappear from the map. Team Spirit was openly stalling for time, not wanting to give up in their first playoff match at their first The International.
But when the live heroes on the map ended, when the buybacks ended, when the buildings on the base of Team Spirit ended, the players still had to recognize defeat. They looked decent, very decent. But the opponent turned out to be of much higher class. Then they will need to break through the Lower Bracket without mistakes, which is quite real. After all, today the team showed that young guys can play Dota as well as experienced Chinese champions.