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Secret melt VP Polar and claim another tournament win

posted by raiko_,
The second season of the DotaPit League has come to a close, with eu Team Secret winning their second tournament in the space of a week. The series win was a fairly routine affair, with them triumphing over ru Virtus Pro Polar 3-0. Despite a nail-biting end to the first game, VP.Polar looked crushed for the rest of the series and Secret sailed to victory.


Secret will claim the lion's share of the $75,000+ prize pool with this victory, as their new roster takes their second tournament win. Their road to victory in the Dota Pit League was simple enough, with a 11-3 record in the groups, and only dropping 1 game in the knockout stages on their way to victory. Look below for further details of all 3 matches in the series

Game 1 - Team Secret Victory! (1:0)




Click here for a full round-up of Game 1


Game 1 started with fairly interesting drafts for both sides. VP.Polar opted for a minus-armour orientated lineup, focusing on destroying people in fights with Exorcism. Despite what seemed like weaker lanes for Secret, they opted for an aggressive trilane, which worked in securing their cores last hits, but they did suffer a kills disadvantage in the early game due to the strong sustain provided by VP.Polar's supports.

The midgame started off terribly for Secret, as the durability of VP.Polar was too much, allowing the Russian side to dominate fights across the map. Secret got one good fight before after some more passive play VP.Polar moved in to push highroud, taking a Ranged barracks - but no more - at the 28 minute mark.

The next major bit of action came from a 5-man smoke from Secret following the full destruction of their mid barracks. VP.Polar were caught out and subsequently wiped, and that allowed Secret to take Roshan. However, the next fight proved costly for Secret, and despite holding Aegis they lost the fight heavily.

Late game was certainly a hectic affair, with a series of back and forth fights. Eventually Secret grew tired of waiting, and decided to rush down mid while some key VP.Polar heroes were on the sidelines. Buybacks came too late from the Slardar of ru Ilya 'Illidan' Pivtsaev, and that allowed Secret to just hammer the dire throne and take the first game in what was a very climactic ending.


Game 2 - Team Secret Victory! (2:0)




Click here for a full round up of Game 2


The draft of the second game seemed a bit more mismatched than that of the first, with it difficult to gauge either team's intentions. Illidan picked up his favoured Slark, and Secret getting some familiar heroes with a Puck for se Gustav 's4' Magnusson and a Disruptor AA support duo. The offlane saw dk Rasmus 'Misery' Filipsen on a Juggernaut against a VP.Polar, something we haven't seen much of despite numerous buffs to the hero.

The Juggernaut was the first source of action on the map, getting first blood against the Skywrath of by Artem 'fng' Barshack, and then allowing s4 to pick up a double kill against Polar's 2 supports after they attempted to take down Misery. The early game continued to favour Secret, with the game becoming more farming focused until they decided to take objectives.

Roshan was the location for the first teamfight of the game. de Kuro 'KuroKy' Takhasomi attempted to solo rosh with his Lycan, but Vp.Polar had other ideas. The resulting fight saw 2 heroes falling for each side, but the Disruptor of dk Johan 'BigDaddyN0tail' Sundstein managed to deny himself to rosh.

A series of terrible fights followed for VP.Polar, losing heroes left and right mostly due to their lack of teamfight presence. Secret took their first barracks at bot just before 20 mins, and it wasn't much longer before VP.Polar conceded the second game following more pick offs and broken buildings.



Game 3 - Team Secret Victory! (3:0)




Click here for a full round up of Game 3


VP.Polar had to go all out in Game 3, with them being just another loss from losing the entire final. The draft started off fairly normal, with a Puck and Venomancer picked up by the Russians, both heroes that they have played a fair amount recently, and ee Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov playing the Ancient Apparition for the third time in 3 games this series. However, Secret threw in a shock pick with a Shadow Fiend, and then let s4 go mid with his trademark Batrider.

The lanes for both sides were anything but straightforward. We saw KuroKy heading an aggressive trialne with his Shadow Fiend against ua Olexandr 'DkPhobos' Kucherya and ru Ilya 'Lil' Ilyuk on Templar Assassin and Witch Doctor respectively. Fng took to the enemy jungle with his Lycan, and the Puck of ua Andrey 'Mag' Chipenko facing up against Misery's Centaur.

The Early game saw a lot of back and forward action, mainly in the mid lane. Following, first blood onto Misery, Illidan's Venomancer got 2 kills onto the Batrider of s4, granting him an early killing spree. Secret's supports followed that up with 2 successive ganks on the midlaner, shifting the balance into their own favour again.

As the laning phase came to an end, the first fight was a convincing win for Secret, with KuroKy cleaning up and claiming a triple kill after a bold initiation from Centaur under the mid tier 1 tower. Pick offs and small victories from both sides set followed for the next few minutes, until Secret decided to take Roshan with their Naga and Shadow Fiend. They used Song to help finish Rosh then set up a fight, but took an even 2-2 trade off of the back of that.

Bad teamfights were the name of the game once again for VP.Polar this game. Despite drafting a much more teamfight capable lineup, they still struggled against KuroKy's hard-hitting Shadow Fiend and the high mobility from the other two cores on Secret. An Aegis went the way of Secret and they continued the massacre, killing the Radiant's heroes wherever they wanted to.

After a long pause broke up the flow of the game, business resumed as usual. Secret took down a set of barracks while zoning VP.Polar out with the ults of their support duo. A few more fights were all that VP.Polar had in them before Secret's farm and immense damage was too much, and they called GG at the 4x minute mark, making Team Secret your Dota Pit League Season 2 Champions!



Team Secret took the game in convincing fashion, but how will they fare going into 2015? Leave your views on the team in the comments



This article was written by uk Felix Hanif-Banks, joinDOTA's Senior Writer.Raiko got into DOTA and eSports in general just before TI3, where he gained a love for the game and especially the competitive side of it. He's currently living the student lifestyle while desperately trying to break 3K MMR.Location: London, UKFollow him on @RaikoDOTA.

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