https://www.facebook.com/pg/dota2/photos/?tab=album&album_id=297893156942815 Courtesy Dota 2 facebook page.
The Main Event of the International 2017 continues today! Day 5 is here and the tournament is reaching its conclusion. First up today is Lower Bracket action Invictus Gaming will take on LGD-Gaming. After that it’s the lower bracket semi-finals, the winner of Newbee vs LGD.Forever Young will play in the Grand Final. Last today is more Lower Bracket Action with Team Liquid facing the winner of the earlier Invictus Gaming vs LGD-Gaming. YOu can watch all of today’s action right here;
Main Stream
Newcomer Stream
In today’s first match I like LGD-Gaming. I have doubted LGD-Gaming in the past, I thought OG would knock them out of the tournament. LGD-Gaming showed a surprising amount of resilience in that series and I feel a lot better about LGD than I do about Invictus Gaming. In Invictus Gaming’s losses they showed a lot of questionable drafting. In game one against Newbee IG drafted a lineup without much burst damage. This really hurt them in the later stages of the game when their Legion Commander could no longer engage for the team. In that game IG also picked Monkey King as a support; Monkey King has a 36% winrate at TI7. I dislike that pick because I believe there are many superior support picks for engaging teamfights; like the Earth Spirit they picked in game two of that series.
Newbee vs LGD.Forever Young is a pick-em game. Both teams have looked fantastic in their wins. I suppose LFY could be given a slight edge for sweeping Virtus.Pro but I feel VP were a weaker opponent than Invictus Gaming. I look forward to interesting drafts followed by amazing teamfights and I really hope this series goes to a game three.
Lastly Team Liquid will face the winner of the previous Lower Bracket series. Liquid looked fantastic earlier yesterday when they swept Team Empire. If Liquid were playing today after only that series I would give them an edge for that performance. Liquid’s series against Virtus.Pro was a marathon. Game one was 103 minutes and honestly it could have gone either was despite VP being on the defensive for at least an hour straight. After that victory its understandable that Liquid would lose game two relatively quickly. Liquid did bounce back and take a hard fought game three, Miracle- had a rough early game but he did carry on Anti-Mage. I worry that if Liquid draft like game one of this series a better team (like either of their possible opponents) won’t just wave clear and survive. A better team could wipe Liquid after a bad high ground push and win the game.
