D2CL: Alliance back to winning ways

posted by Malystryx.GDS,

The heavily-postponed grand final match of the D2CL between Alliance and Speed Gaming was finally played out yesterday, with the Swedes finishing off the competition completely undefeated throughout the group and playoff stages.

The remainder of the competition had been finished up at the beginning of December with just this single match left to be played. The match was heavily-postponed due to

Speed Gaming going to China,

Alliance wishing to concentrate on the D2L and of course, Christmas.

Alliance received auto-berth to the semi-finals as did Speed Gaming as reward for both finishing first in their groups. The playoff bracket played out in favour of Speed Gaming as they avoided playing

Na'vi who were eliminated by

Sigma in the quarter-finals.

Alliance 3:0 Speed Gaming

Game 1 started well for Speed Gaming with a huge experience and gold advantage going their way. However, there came a point where SPG were unable to get a high ground advantage on their opponnets. As the game progressed

Loda's Naga Siren became too powerful on the split pushes and too strong during the fights for their opponents to contain. The pivotal moment was a Roshan attempt by Speed Gaming short after a Radiance purchase by Loda. With Loda setting Speed Gaming alight and AdmiralBullDog getting a triple kill on his Timerbsaw, it was all over.

The second game was more standard with Alliance keeping good control over the match and Speed Gaming playing out of sorts. Speed Gaming's bone7 struggled on clockwerk (3-8-4) and SingSing's trademark Invoker (5-4-4) had a rough time in the middle lane and both were unable to heavily influence the game. A comfortable win for Alliance in 28 minutes.

MiSeRy cameo in Game3

Game3 saw a cameo from

MiseRy who replaced

Loda for the final game of the series as the Alliance captain was experiencing internet issues. Alliance started off the match with an aggressive trilane with Wisp and Venommancer supporting MiseRy's Chaos Knight on the top lane. Their strategy proved ineffective as well as fatal with Alliance getting wiped out twice in the top lane as bone7 on Nature's Prophet teleported up from the bottom lane to make sure his allies secured the kills on Alliance. Early game rotations and movement were excellent for Speed Gaming but as the game went on, S4's Dragon Knight coupled with a supporting Wisp were too destructive in the mid-game team fights.

Despite a poor start for MiSery in the top lane, S4's dominance gave him room to farm, and farm he did. With a mighty Chaos Knight, carrying a Heart of Tarrasque, Heaven's Halberd and Sange and Yasha, now in play the tides continued to turn for Alliance who lay down the law with two high-hp tanks as well as map control. By this point Eternal Envy's Spectre was unable to have any impact despite a promising start.

Final Standings

Following a 3rd place decider match between

Sigma and