posted by SohNata,
Solo back with a bang in dominant display
Game 1
Goblak's drafting was in full effect this game, picking up his oft-favoured Abbadon but also with a the usual unexpected pick - handing Bzzisperfect the Centaur Warunner. The game kicked off with a bloodbath in just the first minute of the game, initiated by a well-timed three man war stomp by Bzz that put Next in a lot of trouble, requiring amaz1ng on the Jakiro to make a great save with the ice path to allow his team to escape. Bzz, having taking a ton of damage trying to get the kill was forced to retreat down the river as the Next tri-lane turned around to give chase with amaz1ng eventually finding another ice path to kill him off. The action wasn't over however, with Goblak's clever use of Shields and Mist Coils allowing him to get a double kill on Visage and Luna - before denying himself, with yol also dying in the midst of the carnage. At this point however, the fight had ensued long enough for Bzz to have TP'ed back to storm in and kill Reeves, to leave the game at 6 kills before the two minute mark - only Jakiro surviving the initial carnage. The top lane was increasingly becoming a lost cause for Next from that point onward, as the combination of Bane nightmare into a Warstomp and Double Edge were proving hard to handle. With Abaddon to provide healing and shielding, it mitigated the self inflicted damage on the Warunner while also allowing them to be quite aggressive. Mantis eventually had to use his teleport for a rotation to stabilize the situation, with all three RoX heroes dying.
The toplane situation, less than a minute in.
Meanwhile in the middle lane, Solo had been dominating the CS scores and with Mantis having left the offlane to go up top, Sedoy's Mirana snuck around to the midlane to land an arrow on watafaka's Invoker to allow Solo to get the kill and tower. Having giving him a significant boost, that kill gave Solo the impetus to take hold of the game. Finding his spot under Next's bottom T1 tower where the Kazakhs had been lurking in the woods, trying to set up a potential gank on Mirana. However, Solo and Goblak were waiting in the wings and as soon as Next went for it, Solo activated a bottled double damage rune and slaughtered everybody in sight, racking up an ultra kill with RoX not losing a single hero. They would get a tower and Roshan in the aftermath and suddenly ther gold and experience leads had both jumped by 5k. Six minutes later, Next would suffer another crushing loss - this time a team wipe - and yet again right under their own tower, With Solo being able to output insane amount of damage combined with the sustain from Goblak's Abaddon and control provided by yol and Bzz, who now had his blink dagger. Next really had no answer and the game was essentially done at this point, even with Solo dying to tower damage on an ambitious dive (which would end his Godlike streak) and after 22 minutes and a few more deaths, Next would call it, Solo ending 10-1-1 and Goblak also racking up an impressive 8-2-7 record.
Solo gets ready to strike for his ultra kill.
Game 2
This time, Abaddon would be first ban material, but Goblak wouldn't be deterred from getting his heals in, choosing his signature Treant Protector instead. On Next's side of things, they went for some lesser seen heroes- a wisp-less Tiny (who would go solo mid), Batrider and Lion all picked up. Like the first game, a collision of tri-lanes had action from the outset as Goblak pursued a kill a little too far and ended up giving first blood to Lifestaler with yol's Venomancer also unable to escape. Another death for Goblak a minute later and Next had a 3-0 kill lead before three minutes had even elapsed. The mid battle however, was greatly in Solo's favour, easily out cs'ing watafaka's Tiny. Solo furthered his advantage in a tale of two rotations at the 5 minute point- while watafaka's attempted gank on Sedoy almost got him killed without him doing any significant damage, Solo dropped a dream coil, leading to two deaths up top to repair the damage from the earlier deaths. Solo again wasted no time in getting a stranglehold on the game, finding two solo kills in the mid lane, creating space for his team-mates to farm up and gank other lanes. Just under 10 minutes in and the Net Worth was telling the story - four of Next's heroes were behind *all* of RoX.
Mantis finds himself praying for an escape route.
Transitioning into the mid game, RoX had full control and pressed their advantage, Solo using Dream Coil whenever it was off cooldown to pick off key heroes, reaching a mega kill streak at 12 minutes. This was giving space for Luna to free-farm, setting Bzz up to join in the action at just the right moment - as Puck got blink lassoed by Mantis, he was able to run in and drop a big eclipse. While not being enough to save Solo, it enabled the Russians to mop up the remaining heroes, making it a 3 for 1 trade in Rox's favour. Not too long after the door would be slammed in Next's face by Solo grabbing yet another Ultra Kill. Both teams committed heroes to the top lane after yol almost killed Topor's Lifestealer, but before TP's had even completed, Solo finished Topor off before skillfully blinking around with orbs and dagger to jump around the fight and get three more kills for the Ultra - a full team wipe in all for Next, with the horrible realization that Luna hadn't even been in the fight. Next quickly respawned to get a revenge kill on Solo which could've provided an opening, but they pursued other heroes for far too long - by the time they'd managed to chase down a Venomancer, RoX were fully regrouped and tore through Next again on 19 minutes, leading to 20K leads in both XP and Gold. Unsurprisingly, the game ended soon after as Next conceded, unable to stand up to RoX, especially with Solo in such fine form - ending this game 14/4/12 as RoX moved to a 4-4 record, with Next slumping to 2-4 and into the relegation playoff spots.
Topor and watafaka find themselves in peril after Solo drops the coil.
Final Score: RoX.Kis 2-0 Next.Kz
MeetYourMakers and hehe take a fighting draw
Game 1
The first game started off a little cagily after the initial first blood on chipshajen's Bane, with not a huge amount of rotation, but a few solo kills and a nice courier kill by Exist on the Puck, who began to roam around a little to seek out kills. IMD's Gyrocopter mostly on the worst end of it with a few deaths, stunting his development in the game while letting Puck slowly build up his advantage. On the other hand, hehe's ganks were not turning out as well - around ten minutes in, IMD's mistimed Call Down ending up missing all targets, opening the door for MYM to turn the situation to their advantage, with Exist's coil helping secure kills on both Bane and Invoker. This also gave space for Mini to place Serpent Wards down to secure the first tower of the game in the midlane, away from the chaos. The pace would ease up again with MYM holding a small advantage from the initial skirmishes, but also from good use of the Puck, Clockwerk and Shadow Shaman ultimates on a regular basis. As the game moved past the 15th minute there was a major engagement on the bottom lane. Luna and Puck had initially made quick work of Gyrocopter and Bane, but hehe rotated the entire team in to get revenge kills on both Unicorn's Luna and Mini's Shadow Shaman. Unfortunately for the Bhutanese, Puck found Leshrac slightly away from his team-mates, while Ace trapped Elder Titan to seal his doom and Bane got found out again in the woods to ensure the trade remained a good one for the Danish squad, who also grabbed a T1 tower for their efforts.
Trapped in the coil, hehe's heroes find this no laughing matter.
Exist had now pulled ahead in both net worth and levels, and really made it count with an excellent four man dream coil to again secure a team fight victory for MYM, leaving hehe at a major disadvantage heading toward the 20 minute mark. The momentum MYM had built up began to tell - hehe could get good engagements but it was having minimal impact - even a 3 for 1 trade in their favour wasn't enough to enable them to secure any towers and they were simply unable to get a kill on Exist. It would be 32 minutes in when things accelerated towards endgame. An engagement in mid went horribly for hehe, losing Gyrocopter early on, with the rest of the team taking heavy damage, while getting split apart and picked off individually, eventually taking four losses. MYM didn't take full advantage however - splitting their team up, Mini and Exist made a Tier 2 push that would cost the former his life, while the rest secured Roshan. Despite the loss of Mini, it had no impact on the final outcome though - MYM were too far ahead and despite a brave struggle, hehe would suffer heavy casualties in ensuing teamfights, prompting the gg call.
Exist drops the four man coil, laying foundations for the victory.
Game 2
The second game started off in a slow methodical fashion, with most of the action on the bottom lane where Unicorn's Slark had gotten first blood, and with hehe being quite active in trying to shut him down, although they weren't having an incredible amount of success in doing so. Solo kills for Ace's Bristleback and the Exist Batrider had MYM off to a healthy start in the opening ten minutes, which hadn't seen any major engagements but mostly some small trades - however, this seemed to be favouring MYM as they had opened a robust gold and experience lead. It seemed that part of the issue for hehe was despite having hit Level 6 for some time, they were struggling to get much use out of Nihis' Death Prophet. Unicorn and Ace had both gotten some kills and plenty of farm and were heading the net worth by a fair distance, although hehe closed that gap a little with a Roshan kill on 18 minutes, using it as impetus to get a couple kills and a T1 tower bottom. Moving past the twenty minute mark both teams were still opting to play somewhat passively before hehe took a little more command with a nice win in the mid lane - although they had to trade off Aegis and the Death Prophet, some nice usage of Fiend's Grip and Slardar bashes spelt demise for all of MYM bar Unicorn, allowing them to secure a Tier 1 tower. This brought the game to an even state, although the momentum was with the Bhutanese squad. One thing MYM still had however was Slark being able to pick off any stray heroes with ease.
MYM face the unenviable task of fighting mid-exorcism.
Hehe had been slowly grinding down outer towers and finally pushed highground at 34 minutes, getting a serious amount of damage on the T3 bottom before being turned back - hwa, who had quietly picked up a Godlike streak across the smaller skirmishes was dropped in the fight however, forking over a decent bounty to MYM. The issue for the Danes however was that a fully skilled exorcism was now proving very difficult to stand up to, with hehe able to push, retreat and repeat, even if they lost heroes in the process. MYM's line-up was increasingly unable able to match up in pushing power and even though they were getting teamfights in their favour, the lanes were constantly pushed towards them and by the time they could reach the towers, hehe were ready to fight and turn them back. This would get compounded by the fact that hehe were able to find not only a third, but a fourth kill on Roshan, letting them use the Aegis to continue to throw bodies at towers. While MYM defended valiantly for aslong as they could, they were ultimately exorcised to death by Nihis, meaning both teams would avoid the loss. Neither team is likely to be happy though, as hehe remain stranded at the bottom on a 2-6 record, with MYM just one place above on 2-4. Both teams will have tough challenges next week, with hehe taking on Sigma.int and MYM taking on RoX.Kis.
Chaos on the bottom lane as hehe go for another push.
Final Score: MeetYourMakers 1-1 hehe united
Meanwhile...
In the jdL Asia things are beginning to get moving, with Orange currently top of the pile with a 4-0 record, with 2-0 victories over both Mineski and First Departure. Also hovering around the top are Arrow Gaming (4-2), Scythe (3-1) and Titan (3-1) who are all yet to lose, but have drawn games. Meanwhile in Asia 2.1, it's Invasion (7-1) leading the way ahead of Singaporeans Zero Latitude (5-1) and the Koreans 5inQ (5-3). Also noteworthy is rough starts to the season for insidiousidol (2-4) and Duskbin (1-3). There's plenty of action to come from Asia, with Titan, Arrow and Mineski all scheduled for action this week.
With some results still to come in, the Second Tier of European leagues are turning out some interesting stories. In 2.1, tRICKED (6-2) are yet to be defeated across a series and top the table, with your_family (5-1), Sensei (Formerly ONE Gaming, 4-2) and the re-banded 4FC (4-2) all in hot pursuit. 2.2 is currently jointly topped by GOOMBA and Cede Nullis (5-1) with some established names struggling to gain traction - Vhoul Assassins and Phoenix Rising, the former QPAD and sQreen's Squad respectively are both 3-3 while Flipside.ru are 0-4. The Retry are a perfect 6-0 in 2.3, in a very tight division featuring Zero Respect, FUREUR and Courage (All 3-3), although it's somewhat saddening to see the reformed uebelest gaming propping up the division on a 2-6 record.
Coming up...
The next seven days promises plenty more action in jdL Europe - subject to dates being arranged, we could see a clash of the current top two as Fnatic take on Cloud9, and potentially play a second game against the always dangerous Virtus Pro. Empire will look to continue their hot streak with games planned against Power Rangers and Next.Kz. Solo will look to stand out once again as RoX take on MeetYourMakers, in addition to several other games that you can always catch on the ticket, or on the various joinDOTA streams.
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