posted by Sun_Tzu,
The Alienware Cup lower bracket finals have been played as ua Na`Vi continued their journey in China by facing off against their The International 2012 nemesis cn Invictus Gaming for the opportunity at a re-match against cn LGD.Cn in the grand finals. The grand final will be played tomorrow, July 9th at 13:00 CEST and will be a best-of-five series.

After a rough start in China, Na`Vi made their comeback in style.


ua Na`Vi vs. cn Invictus Gaming



Game 1


iG went for a safelane Spectre by cn Chen 'Zhou' Yao together with my Wong Hock 'Chuan' Chuan on the Chen for the super early tower push and an Io to round out their bottom lane, facing off against the Bounty Hunter of ua Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov. This meant that Na`Vi had chosen to put ua Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich on the safelane Alchemist rather than challenge, with the support of a Visage and ee Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov safelane jungling with Enigma, with the possible rotation to put pressure on cn Jiang 'YYF' Cen playing the offlane Nature's Prophet, who ended up giving away the first blood in a 2-1 trade favouring Na`Vi. Finally ua Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin took the Outworld Devourer to the mid lane, where he dominated cn Luo 'Ferrari_430' Feichi on the Magnus.

While Na`Vi were getting slightly ahead on lanes, it was the early aggression which ended up benefitting them the most, as they found a few key kills without engaging Dendi for the early fights, including taking out Zhou who ended up buying back and getting relatively little in return, only to die again a few minutes later.

While things looked a bit grim for iG, they managed to find a good kill on Dendi at mid 15 minutes in as well as turning things around on Puppey and XBOCT, as Na`Vi engaged one by one in fairly unorganized fashion. Na`Vi did turn things around a bit with a few kills in the following two skirmeshes, as well as being able to take an uncontested Roshan kill, putting the Aegis on Dendi at 17 minutes and starting up their tower pressure action.

After taking a single Tower at mid, Na`Vi ended up doing relatively little with the Aegis, as iG were able to pick off XBOCT and Puppey on the top lane, stalling any further pushing until the very end of the Aegis duration, allowing them to claim the bottom Tier 2 Tower, leaving both teams with two Tier 2's still standing.

After Na`Vi had wasted so much time, iG were the ones putting on the aggression as they found out Puppey at mid lane, with Ferrari Blinking in to use a single target Reverse Polarity on him and blowing him up before he did anything in the fight. With the numbers advantage, Funn1k fell as well causing iG to back off with two kills in the bank. Na`Vi however gave chase, killing off the Io twice and finding a crucial kill on Zhou, almost getting Ferrari on the back end. However as Ferrari lived he was able to initiate another fight outside of Roshan, dropping the Reverse Polarity on XBOCT, eventually getting the kill but only after Zhou fell during a big Black Hole by Puppey. This allowed Na`Vi to put another Aegis on Dendi at the half hour mark.

This time around Na`Vi put the Aegis to work, after finding a pick-off on YYF in their own jungle they pushed in at mid at 31 minutes, claiming the first Barracks of the game before backing off, coming out on top of the chaotic teamfight that followed, as iG chased head long into a team with Track, using buybacks to return for further suicides. In the end Na`Vi pushed in at 34 minutes at bottom lane, trading a few more lives before the five minute bloodbath finally ended, with Na`Vi coming out the clear winners.

The deciding fight of the game began at 38 minutes, as Na`Vi charged in at top lane, losing Dendi but dropping Zhou who had his buyback on cooldown after being picked off earlier, with Puppey landing a crucial Black Hole and XBOCT slapping away with his massive farm lead. As their third set of Barracks fell, iG finally called the 'GG'.


Game 1 End Screen


Game 2


Before the horn even sounded Na`Vi got their first blood, as iG tried to go ward the Radiant Ancients only to be greated by an Unstable Concoction by XBOCT's Alchemist followed by a two hero Impale by de Kuro 'KuroKy' Takhasomi on the Nyx Assassin, causing cn Zeng 'Faith' Hongda on the Jakiro to go down and force iG to back off, allowing Funn1k to start out his game trying to farm the Ancients, which did eventually get blocked by Faith after Funn1k had gotten one stack off.

As the lanes settled, XBOCT was back on the bottom lane farming away while KuroKy handled the pulling, as Puppey on the Chen went to jungle near the mid lane, where Dendi was drawing even with Ferrari on the Puck. This left Zhou on the safelane Phantom Lancer backed up by the Chuan Rubick, with YYF heading into the safelane jungle with his Dark Seer, only heading to the offlane after having gotten a few levels up.

iG decided to bring the early aggression to the mid lane, having their supports rotate in to claim two kills on Dendi early on, however losing Faith in the second gank 1 vs 3 due to a well timed Hand of God from Puppey. As Faith ended up mostly parking his Jakiro at the mid lane, Kuroky rotated in to try and get some kills off, however as he only caught one with his impale and Ferrari did a good job juking Na`Vi's attacks, with Chuan there to help out as well, the fight went 2-0 to iG instead.

The winning combination for iG in the first fifteen minutes was Ferrari and Chuan going 7/0/1 and 0/0/6 respectively, creating the space for Zhou to accelerate his farm with the Hand of Midas, out-pacing even XBOCT in terms of net worth. While Na`Vi slowly clawed their way back over the next few engagements, even halting the progress of Ferrari by finding two kills on him, Zhou managed to keep on living through fights and getting bigger and bigger, hitting 10,000 net worth at around 20 minutes in.

Once Dendi got his Black King Bar up, Na`Vi kept on taking fights as they lacked the abilities to bring him down, allowing Na`Vi also to pick up an uncontested Aegis for him as he made his way back into the game after his difficult start with three deaths, surpassing Ferrari at 8/3/5 compared to 8/3/2 after another won fight at mid lane 24 minutes in, which also netted Na`Vi the final Tier 2 Tower, while they had yet to lose a single one of their own.

At 30 minutes iG had been ganking at the top lane, finding out Funn1k and lingering just a bit too long, allowing Na`Vi to catch up to them and claim the lives of three along with YYF wasting his Wall of Replica, giving Na`Vi the opening to take the next Roshan as well at 31 minutes, which respawned just before iG would have been ready to fight again. As they headed down mid lane, to be rebuffed by another Wall of Replica and backing off without losing anyone.

At 34 minutes Na`Vi finally broke the base and claimed the first Barracks of the game, claiming two kills and losing none before they rotated up top and taking the second lane of the game, eventually losing XBOCT after YYF respawned and dropped yet another wall, forcing Na`Vi out of the base and expending the Aegis of Dendi and losing Puppey as well on the retreat after a well executed chase by Ferrari, which still was not quite enough to kill Dendi twice.

Na`Vi got a bit overeager to end the game at 38 minutes, as XBOCT ran in and tanked the Tier 3 at bottom lane, trying to ignore the iG heroes in favour of his objective. This did not pan out, as iG were able to drop another Wall and Ferrari dropping his Dream Coil, helping create the opening for iG to finally kill off Dendi along with the Na`Vi supports, forcing them out of the base even as nothing seemed able to really take down the massive XBOCT with his Black King Bar, Heart of Tarrasque and Assault Cuirass.

At 40 minutes Na`Vi found a far better fight outside of the iG base, as Ferrari jumped in to initiate seeing that Dendi was missing from the lot. However Na`Vi turned it around on them, first bursting down the Puck and then turning their attention on Zhou, who got Hexed up and Shackled to a tree, allowing XBOCT to slap him down. With the Wall down as well again, Na`Vi had their opening to claim the Tier 3 at the bottom lane, even though the buyback from Zhou did eventually chase them away again.

After losing yet another Roshan fight at around 43 minutes, Na`Vi had all they needed in order to force the end to the game, running up the high ground for the last time and bursting down both YYF and Ferrari, hacking away at the Barracks as iG called the 'GG'.


Game 2 End Screen


Game 3


iG went for a surprising aggressive trilane with Zhou on Anti-Mage together with Visage and Treant Protector, against the Storm Spirit of Dendi and a Keeper of the Light, which ended up finding the first blood as well as a secondary kill on Dendi with Soul Assumption from Chuan doing work. Meanwhile Puppey started out in his own jungle, however due to warding by iG he ended up dodging to the offensive jungle, where he got lucky finding a kill on the Radiant courier. This left Funn1k on Windrunner agains YYF's Nature's Prophet at bottom lane, and XBOCT on the Lifestealer facing off with Ferrari's Outworld Devourer at mid.

While iG near forced Na`Vi to abandon the top lane entirely, the early teamfights went slightly better for Na`Vi, trading equal while being a fair bit behind, but yet being unable to find kills on Zhou, who was quickly getting out of control as he had near perfect kill participation for iG. However as the fights moved around the map a bight clash with Na`Vi diving behind the bottom Tier 1 Tower was highly costly, rendering the first conclusive outcome to a teamfight as Na`Vi ended up losing their whole team, only to respawn and re-engage in a desperate attempt to keep themselves in the game.

It wasn't until nearly 20 minutes in that Zhou died for the first time in the game as he got caught by a Black Hole solo farming the top lane. However the kill more than likely came too late, as Zhou already had his Battlefury as well as his Yasha up, sitting on 5/1/7 after the gank.

As Na`Vi took a yet another desperate fight at 24 minutes on the bottom lane, iG claimed 4 deaths for no comeback and giving iG the opening to push the mid lane. While Na`Vi respawned to try and fight, Zhou now had his Manta Style and was far too big for them to kill, claiming the Barracks and even though further kills were exchanged, Zhou got away with 11/1/10 by now and almost enough gold saved up for his next big item, far too much for Na`Vi to deal with.

Another three dead for Na`Vi after a Smoke attempt into the Radiant jungle opened it up for iG take Roshan, putting the Aegis on Ferrari while Zhou was a recipe away from finishing off his Heart of Tarrasque, not bothering to go back to finish it however as they instead took a fight at mid lane, killing three and forcing the 'GG' call at 31 minutes.


Game 3 End Screen


Game 4


In game four we saw a different kind of offensive dual lane from iG, as they abused Earthshaker's Fissure in order to pull the creeps in to the Dire side Ancients for YYF to farm, depriving XBOCT on the Gyrocopter of a lot of early farm and forcing Puppey on Chen to go and try to pull the creeps back instead of jungling, with not much luck. Instead Na`Vi decided to try pushing the bottom lane, taking a fairly early tower although losing out on pulls for Io and Gyrocopter for it. Meanwhile at top lane Zhou was back on his Anti-Mage and backed up by Shadow Demon, finding the first blood against Funn1k on Bounty Hunter, getting off to a good start once more. Finally at the mid lane Dendi on Dragon Knight was trading farm with Ferrari on Puck, doing better than he should have given the lane setup but not well enough to make up for XBOCT dying at bottom lane as well, as iG were effectively winning two of the lanes.

As the first Relocate was used in order to bring XBOCT into a fight on top lane, YYF landed a big Ice Blast, blowing Kuroky and XBOCT up in seconds, but Na`Vi were still able to trade some kills with the power of Track, and by the time of their second Relocate around 13 minutes, Na`Vi pulled off a team wipe, punishing iG for chasing them after losing the initial two heroes. Suddenly Na`Vi had built up a massive gold lead of 8,000 and pushing it further as they kept on pressuring down towers, claiming more and more map control.

Zhou went for an early Vladimir's Offering after his Battlefury, trying to be sneaky and snipe a Roshan kill with it, but as Na`Vi scouted it out the Roshan instead went their way, only to have YYF once more landing a big Ice Blast over the pit and having Ferrari jump in on top but failing to steal the Aegis, getting a kill on Funn1k and popping XBOCT's extra life right away, but paying for it with his own life. As Na`Vi found out Zhou right after with a Relocate gank as well, they had their opening to push at mid.

The next big fight happened at the mid ramp outside iG's base just past 20 minutes in, where once again the respawned Zhou went down only to buy back and engage again, forcing Na`Vi to turn around and run. Still as they returned to the fight they found yet another kill on Zhou with the relocate on top lane, as iG were not respecting their inability to split push against the Na`Vi lineup.

By 24 minutes Na`Vi were at the bottom lane pressuring the Tier 3, taking it down before backing off in order to wait for their Black King Bar's to be back up, as Track gold had already afforded them three times magic immunity before the 25 minute mark, with even Kuroky's support Io having picked up one for himself. Once they had them back up, they went back in and claimed the Barracks, moving on to mid lane, putting out some damage on the Tower before backing off to wait for Roshan.

iG were trying to find themselves a way back into the game, using a Dream Coil in their own jungle in order to try and find a kill on Kuroky, only to have him use a Black King Bar charge and Tether out to nearby Funn1k. With this opening Na`Vi headed in through mid, claiming the Barracks and moving on to top lane as Zhou tried to baserace them, only to give it up and walk all the way back to his own base, only to give up his own life, causing iG to call the 'GG' at 30 minutes in.


Game 4 End Screen


Na`Vi claim the 3-1 win over iG and get their shot at revenge against LGD.Cn tomorrow at 13:00 CEST.

Final Standings



1st - $25,000
2nd - $12,000
3rd - cn Invictus Gaming - $7,000
4th - cn DK - $5,000
5th & 6th - cn TongFu & my Orange NeoES - $3,000
7th & 8th - world LGD.Int & sg Zenith - $1,500
9th & 10th - cn RattleSnake & my MUFC - $1,000

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