Western European (WEU) Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) delivered an interesting matchup between Team Liquid and a rising Team Entity. Both teams walked into this series with previous losses. Both teams still have the potential to qualify for the Arlington major. But at the end of the day, Liquid walked away having secured at least tiebreakers for the Major. However, things are still spicy in the WEU DPC Division 1 with only OG officially scoring the slot to the Arlington Major.
Credit: Liquipedia.net
A slow drowning for Entity
Team Liquid starts the series off by getting first blood on Dzmitry “Fishman” Palishchuk’s Dawnbreaker straight after the game begins and bounties spawn. Entity almost gets the trade on Samuel “Boxi” Svahn’s Nyx assassin but he gets away on low hp.
Following the laning stage, both teams held the same amount of net worth. Considering Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko’s Doom has an innate ability to create a gold lead, this can only be considered a win for Team Liquid. At minute 18, Entity went for a team fight versus Team Liquid. Sadly for them, it ends in a team wipe in favor of Team Liquid and a 3k gold lead.
This teamfight was a real knockdown for Entity as Team Liquid pressured more and more of the map. Team Liquid kept on building the lead, until minute 27 when Tobias “Tobi” Buchner’s Enigma got a big three-man black hole, resulting in a team fight win for Entity. But still, the gold lead remained in favor of Team Liquid.
After losing the fight, Team Liquid returned to a more passive play style, choking Entity into small areas of the map. This led to Team Liquid amassing a bigger and bigger gold lead as Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen’s Naga siren kept pushing out every wave with her illusions. A prolonged team fight lasting from minute 35 to minute 37 leads to Team Liquid killing several of Entity’s heroes. Team Liquid proceeds to enter Entity’s high ground. To counter this, Entity used buybacks on all their heroes but Doom, though all of Team Liquid were able to retreat without losing a single hero. Team Liquid keeps Entity in their base, leaving no space for them to farm gold. After getting the third Aegis of the Immortal, Team Liquid walks into Entity’s base resulting in a final team fight. At minute 47, Entity called GG.
A wave of despair for Entity
Game 2 started rather slow in comparison to Game 1. The first blood happened after 2:30 minutes with Bane dying to the offlane combo of Skywrath Mage and Magnus. After this, it was a slow descent for Entity as Team Liquid kept building up the gold lead. A team fight at minute 21 makes the game completely in Team Liquids’ favor.
After the series ended, Team Liquid’s captain Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi arrived at the post-match interview. Jorien “Sheever” van der Herijden asked the first question in regards to how iNSaNiA ensures a good mindset for the game. “I woke up at 5 AM super ready to play, but then I realized it was 5 AM and I had to sleep again. The game felt like a LAN knockout game, it was super fun”.
The second question asked by Sheever was in regards to high-pressure games. Sheever asked if Liquid prepares differently for these high-pressure games, in difference to a normal online match. “We’ve played a lot of high-pressure matches, and we always do pretty well in them”.
The third question was who iNSaNiA would vote as MVP. iNSaNia says “for me, the MVP would go to Michael “miCKe” Vu, but everyone on my team played super well.”
When asked about their final game versus OG, iNSaNiA tells the panel how he wants to beat Tommy “Taiga” Le. “We are prepared to beat Tommy’s ass. He’s gotten a bit too confident in pubs lately”.
Different ways of drafting
After this, analysts Ioannis “Fogged” Loucas and Robson “TeaGuvnor” Merritt had some questions regarding drafting. TeaGuvnor asks about how iNSaNiA feels in regards to Entity often first picking the same two heroes. “I feel you need to be confident in your draft, and maybe you feel a small adjustment to the draft is all you need”. He continued, “Old Team Liquid used to be very stubborn in drafts too. We used to lose a game and still first pick the same two heroes so you need to believe in your drafts”.
“I always struggle to draft versus Team Secret and I feel I ruin our games versus them. Drafting versus Entity felt like drafting versus a regular team again”.
A final shoutout to the staff around Team Liquid
The final question was about the staff surrounding Team Liquid players. iNSaNiA went on thanking the people around them.
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