After the two days of round-robin matches for the last chance qualifiers, the playoffs have begun. The LCQ Upper Bracket featured big teams like Team Liquid, Team Secret, and T1 duking it out for the last two remaining spots at The International 2022. All four matches of the upper brackets were insanely close series that went the distance each time. As Day 3 is right around the corner, lets recap what happened over the course of these four matches.
Virtus Pro and Vici Gaming’s back to back hour long matches
In the third series of the LCQ upper bracket, Virtus Pro took on Vici Gaming in a clash between Western EU and China. Game one wasn’t anything too crazy with Vici Gaming coming out on top with a Sniper, Primal Beast and Chaos Knight draft. However games two and three is where things really kicked off. The remaining two games in the series went for an hour each and featured some great play and huge team fights.
In game two of the upper bracket LCQ, Virtus Pro Yamich’s Undying by the end of the game had a Overwhelming Blink, BKB, Echo Sabre and Abyssal Blade. You don’t get to see support heroes get close to that kind of farm, so it was an absolute treat to see. Game three which went on for a little less time also became a slug fest. But in the end, the Visage, Bloodseeker and Shadow Fiend draft of VP managed to swing the favor in VP’s way. You can check out the full DotaBuff match breakdown here.
Resolution and Zayac carrying Team Secret on his back
The newest additions to Team Secret had their moment to shine in the LCQ upper bracket series against Xtreme gaming. In a intense reverse sweep, Team Secret’s offlaner and roamer held the team on their backs. With Resolution’s Lycan and Mirana becoming the true carry of the match rather than Crystallis. While Zayac’s Nyx Assassin had countless great positioning and even greater stuns that enabled Secret to clutch out the series.
Shadow Fiend’s return
Its always nice to see heroes that aren’t meta defining return to the front lines. Shadow Fiend hasn’t been an insanely popular hero prior to The International and was more of a pub hero. However, in the LCQ’s Shadow Fiend’s pick rate has been at an astonishing 40%. And what’s even scarier is that the win rate for SF is at 61%. The last time that Shadow Fiend saw competitive play was with the Raze build, which focused on magic damage. However currently, players like Nisha or M1cke are opting for more of a right click build.
Dotabuff’s rankings of hero popularity during the LCQ
Liquid channeling their inner Arkosh
In the last match of the LCQ upper bracket, Team Liquid faced off against Polaris. And in game three, Team Liquid had quite an interesting draft. Team Liquid drafted a Pudge, Sniper and Tidehunter draft against Polaris. But what made Liquid’s draft interesting, and caster TeaGuvnor pointed this out was that the draft might have taken inspiration from another team.
The draft came from NA’s finest and arguably most meme-ist team Arkosh Gaming. Their draft was nearly identical to Arkosh’s draft agaisnt Simply Toobased back in the NA DPC. However, the draft changed slightly with the inclusion of Tidehunter rather than Beastmaster. But even with the change, Team Liquid pulled it of better than Arkosh themselves, as it won them their series against Polaris.
The upper bracket continues tomorrow with T1 facing off against Secret and VP taking on Liquid. These matches will be a great watch as these are some of the best teams in their respective regions. So, stay tuned to Esports.gg for more TI coverage.
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