posted by Sun_Tzu,
The final two teams of the Western Qualifiers went head to head today to decide who would get the direct spot for The International 2013 and who would have to meet up with the second place finisher of the Eastern Qualifier on location in Seattle in order to decide who will get to take the Wildcard spot. Coming in from the winner bracket after having made a strong run the whole tournament through was fr dd.Dota, while de mousesports were looking battle hardened after having to slug their way through the losers bracket, looking stronger for each game they played during the final few days.


fr dd.Dota vs. de mousesports



Game 1




dd went for the offensive trilane, with ru Airat 'Silent' Gaziev picking Chaos Knight, backed up by Undying and Bane, as they faced off against de Dominik 'Black^' Reitmeier on Lifestealer along with Rubick and Leshrac for back-up. This meant that fr Titouan 'Sockshka' Merloz picking up a surprising Razor to go against de Max 'qojqva' Broecker's Lone Druid on the top lane, skilling early Static Link in order to neutralize the Spirit Bear, leaving Dark Seer for fr Thibault 'Funzii' Calonne as he faced off with de Adrian 'FATA-' Trinks on Juggernaut in mid.

Much of the early aggression was as expect at the bottom lane, with dd scoring the first blood, but as the dd supports were trying to do just a bit too much, mouz were able to find counter kills especially with FATA being far more active than his counterpart in rotating to be part of engagements.

While mouz were shooting up on kills, with FATA and Black tied for highest net worths on the map and ahead of the rest by a fair margin, it was clear that the only lane dd had won was the Razor against Lone Druid by a slight margin, as although Funzii had roughly equaled FATA in terms of creep kills, FATA's far better luck with finding kills and being active in fights set him ahead.

Surprisingly for a team with Undying, Dark Seer and Chaos Knight, dd looked highly squishy in teamfights, with Razor not yet having the items to be the tank he is in the later game, as well as Bane often dying before the engagement really getting on it's way. Lacking the same means to initiate fights and burst down people as well as having no answer to Omnislash, the game went fast out of hand for dd.Dota.

As FATA got an early Aghanim's Scepter and hit level 16 at just over 20 minutes, the very next fight his Omnislash was enough to take out both supports before dd could even react, giving mouz the opening to force their way up the high ground, taking out the top lane Barracks, which saw dd.Dota call the 'GG' at 23 minutes, with the game well and truly out of their hands.


Game 1 End Screen.


Game 2




With dd picking up the Phantom Lancer for Silent along with Keeper of the Light, mouz surprisingly enough sent only qojqva on Lifestealer to contest the lane, while dk Troels 'syndereN' Nielsen on Lina and de Pascal 'paS' Lohmeier on Sand King spent the early game chasing ua Artur 'Goblak' Kostenko's Chen out of their own jungle, before rotating down to help qojqva out. As soon as they did, Goblak returned up top to annoy Black, who was playing the Gyrocopter on top lane up against Sockshka on Batrider, leaving Funzii on Clockwerk up against FATA on Puck.

While mouz got the first blood on the bottom lane, things were still looking ok for dd, but with FATA again rotating early to help out, his Dream Coil helped score a few important kills, which helped him get the early snowball rolling, along with allowing qojqva to step up and take the farm lead. While things were going well for mid and bottom, the tradeoff for mouz was Black having a slightly worse start at top, coming in behind Silent on net worth for the early game.

While things were looking better than they had in the previous game, the advantage was still slowly gathering for mouz as while both teams traded kills, qojqva was finding the majority of his teams kills while dd was unable to lock him down or hope to kill him. With mouz playing far more active, splitting up into effective ganking teams and finding kills all over the map, they deprived dd of any safety before they were ready to group up and fight.

The never ending aggression of mouz saw them rising above even their performances the day before, as they ended up exceeding even the kill a minute pace. With qojqva leading the way, it felt as if with the new playstyle mouz was showing off Black was more of a red herring than anything, akin to us Team Dignitas before them using ca Kurtis 'Aui_2000' Ling as a decoy, pulling the focus of the enemy team while FATA made the big plays and qojqva got out of hand.

The decisive fight came at 36 minutes, with mouz jumping in at mid with qojqva popping out as the one man wrecking crew he was, along with the Dream Coil and Call Down, dd were just too far behind to survive it, as they were forced to call the second 'GG' of the series.


Game 2 End Screen.


Game 3




As dd once more allowed mouz to get their hands on the Lifestealer for qojqva, the whole team ran up top and found out fr Sebastien '7ckingmad' Debs on Bane, allowing FATA on Juggernaut to score the first blood and getting his Bottle before creeps had even spawned, giving him a great start against Funzii's Queen of Pain in middle lane. As the lanes settled down, qojqva and backed up by Keeper of the Light and Rubick were left to face off against Silent on Weaver with Goblak on Treant Protector and the Bane, the power of which ended up catching mouz off entirely as they tried to fight up against them, losing three heroes and giving dd back to advantage on the top lane.

With top going well for dd and Funzii having the natural advantage last hitting against a Juggernaut, it was up to Sockshka on Razor to round out of the lane wins for dd, as he took on Black's Lone Druid, once again showing that the surprising match-up actually seems to favour the far less common Razor pick.

Being completely outplayed on top lane, the mouz supports ended up rotating out, abandoning qojqva to his fate as Silents chewtoy, the exact opposite of the previous game. The big difference from previous games was that while FATA had been able to make a huge difference with his movement, dd looked a lot more prepared for it this time around, with Goblak dishing out Living Armor to help give them the time to react to the aggression coming out of the Juggernaut, to the point where at 15 minutes in an attempt by FATA and the Rubick played by paS to pick off Bane ended not in the death of 7ckingmad but in the turn-around kill on the Juggernaut.

The big spell for paS to steal this game turned out to be Living Armor, which for a minute helped stem the tide of death coming out of a bloodthirsty dd.Dota lead by a hyper aggressive Silent, but the item and damage advantage and the ability of theirs to take away mouz damage still forced mouz to turn and run, as dd pushed the Germans further and further into their own territory.

On the back foot, mouz realized they needed to try and avoid getting picked off, playing safer than they had during the early part of the game and focusing on punishing overextensions from the dd players. This stopped dd's lead from growing, but was still not enough to help turn the game around, nor provide a true answer to the ability of dd to deny so much of mouz output, as became evident when they were forced into a fight at around 33 minutes, losing three heroes and giving dd the opening to take the middle Barracks.

While mouz could do nothing but stand by and watch as dd took the top lane, they instead mounted their big defense at 38 minutes on the bottom lane, where slightly sloppy play and overextensions from Sockshka and Funzii as well as lucky Entangles and Bashes from Black's Spirit Bear helped keep the game alive for a few more minutes. Three minutes later when they returned to take the high ground mouz was not as lucky and dd played it safer, once more removing the damage and turning it around on mouz as they claimed their first win of the series.


Game 3 End Screen.


Game 4




With Black being put onto a safelane Alchemist backed by Lina and Bane and Silent taking up a Gyrocopter and heading out together with Treant Protector and Rubick, both teams settled in to farm during the early game this time around. While qojqva saw an opportunity to go to the offlane and pull with his Lone Druid, Sockshka decided to head into the jungle for the early levels, fearing the tripple lockdown that mouz had going for them. This left Funzii on the Magnus up against FATA on Puck in the middle lane.

While Black shot ahead on net worth as was to be expected, mouz were not being as active as they had during the first two games, being well aware of how difficult finding kills against Living Armor would be. This opened it up for dd to make use of their aoe abilitities to claim the early kills in the game, with mouz having to wait for overextensions in order to even it out some minutes later. As the laning stage came to an end, both teams were virtually dead even, accounting for Silent being slightly more effective in using his gold than Black.

The first all out engagement of the game happened at 18 minutes in under the Dire Tier 2 Tower in middle lane, where even though paS on Bane did his best to prevent Funzii from getting his Reverse Polarity off, the Call Down and rest of the spam gave them the teamfight win 3-0. However with their big teamfight abilities on cooldown, mouz knew dd would not be able to contest the Roshan, getting Black an Aegis of Immortality and then punishing dd for trying to challenge them on the way out of the pit.

While dd was still far stronger in teamfights, mouz kept on finding easy pick-off's as the dd players kept on making questionable excursions into shark infested waters. With Black closing in on having his full inventory as well as picking up another Aegis as the games passed the half hour mark, dd started to feel the pressure as they killing Black was getting harder and harder, causing Silent to purchase a Divine Rapier, which soon got put to the test at top lane, showing that now he was far ahead on damage, forcing mouz to back off and rethink how to deal with the Gyrocopter.

Both teams backed off, not wanting to lose the game in a single decisive fight, it wasn't until 42 minutes in at the Roshan pit that the teams would once more clash. With mouz scoring the early kill on Funzii, it opened them up to use Black's Abyssal Blade to lock down Silent long enough to kill him, and as Black picked up the Divine Rapier and added an Aegis of Immortality to his inventory, the game was over for dd.Dota, who could not hold their base against the onslaught.


Game 4 End Screen.


mousesports defeat dd.Dota 3-1 and will be the direct invite to The International 2013, while dd.Dota will have to face off against the second place finisher in the Eastern Qualifiers in order to claim their place in the tournament.


Artist depiction of syndereN at TI3 along with FATA (playing Templar Assassin), Black (playing Shadow Blade Alchemist), paS (playing Nyx Assassin) and qojqva (playing Weaver).


Playoffs Bracket





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