28 Mar Dota 2: Singapore Major; Day 2, Stream A Recap
The action is heating up on Day 2 of the Singapore Major.
The second day of the Singapore Major delivered intense games, upsets and stomps alike as teams fight their way to the Group Stage of the event. The day’s Stream B provided more exciting matches and a surprise tiebreaker too!
If you missed out on any of the series yesterday, catch up with our recaps of Stream A and Stream B.
We’re breaking things down according to the initial Stream A schedule, as posted below.
Vici Gaming vs Team Nigma
Team Nigma, with a weak Day 1 performance, started Day 2 against one of the best performing teams of Day 1, Vici Gaming. The team had lane and team synergy issues since Day 1 as their position 3 player Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov was unable to play due to health conditions and was replaced by Roman “rmN-“ Paley. Team Nigma, on Day 1, tried swapping roles between Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi and rmN- but it didn’t work out as expected. Whereas on Day 2, in the first series, they decided to pick lane dominating heroes.
In Game 1, Team Nigma found first blood on enemy position 1 hero before the first rune spawn. They had a good start but VG made sure that the match remained equal until nine minutes. VG started playing aggressively after the 9th minute when Zeng “Ori” Jiaoyang on Storm Spirit felt comfortable with his level and items at mid. Shockingly, within the next four minutes, VG secured a 5,000 gold lead. After that, Nigma couldn’t push despite having Death Prophet in their draft. They tried to gank and make some plays but it was all unsuccessful because Storm Spirit was well-farmed and mobile enough to counter any gank. Soon, at around the 33rd minute, Nigma lost their throne and the match.
Game 2 was a surprise for fans as many of them didn’t expect Nigma to win the match. Vici Gaming decided to play with an aggressive tri-lane setup but didn’t succeed at gaining an advantage. Nigma’s safe lane hero Razor was able to secure farm and create momentum for the team. Nigma took complete control of the game after buying a BKB on position 1 and 2. Even though VG tried their best to make a comeback, they were only able to exchange a few kills and defend a bit. They were crucially never able to push.
Team Liquid vs AS Monaco Gambit
Team Liquid, with a 4-0 performance on Day 1, were favorites for this series. Yet they were greeted by an amazing performance by Gambit and lost the series by 0-2.
In Game 1, Liquid had a good laning stage but couldn’t convert into a lead in the mid game. Liquid is generally an aggressive team but this was the first series in which the opponents were more aggressive. Gambit’s constant ganks around the map were not expected by Team Liquid. Team Liquid was in dire need of BKBs on their cores but it was already too late when they got it. On the other hand, Gambit’s Juggernaut and Lina together were almost unstoppable.
In Game 2, Gambit’s decision to play IO as position 1 hero turned out to be the decision of the day. In fact, it won all four matches it was played by teams today as position 1. Tayirov “dream`” Kiyalbek’s score on IO was 14/0/8, which absolutely overwhelmed Liquid. One of Liquid’s favorite heroes, Lone Druid for Maximilian “qojqva” Bröcker, failed and couldn’t dominate the game. The bigger issue with the draft was that Liquid’s three cores, Lone Druid, Ursa and Mars, were high HP heroes which were easily countered by the percentage-based damage that Underlord’s ability Firestorm and Phoenix’s ability Sun Ray provide. On top of that, Liquid didn’t have enough disables.
PSG.LGD vs T1
T1, with a 0-6 performance from Day 1, was surely expected to lose against highly consistent PSG.LGD. But at least they were expected to fight hard. Surprisingly, they did fight hard, despite a bad draft in both the matches.
In Game 1, T1’s draft was without any type of synergy and didn’t even counter enemy heroes. It was one of the worst drafts of the wildcards. They played a greedy Alchemist hero as support while picking squishy position 1, 2 and 3 heroes. Their position 1 Gyrocopter was forced to buy durable items instead of damage items, as there were no strong disable or durable heroes for T1. On the other hand, they had no ganking synergy, so enemy heroes like Ancient Apparition were also farming in the open without worrying about getting killed. With full map control, disables, high damage and counter picks, PSG.LGD destroyed T1 convincingly.
In Game 2, T1’s greed in draft saw no limits as they last picked Enigma as position 4. Generally, it is better to pick an early game advantage draft against an extremely strong opponent, but T1 apparently had other plans. T1 again decided to pick less disable heroes which destroyed their team fight ability. There was no full disable ability on T1’s side except Enigma’s Black Hole.
Unsurprisingly, Clockwerk of PSG.LGD didn’t let Enigma farm jungle efficiently while removing any hopes of securing a fast Blink Dagger and BKB. This forced Enigma to buy Aether Lens as the first item, BKB as the second and Blink Dagger as the third item at 32 minutes in the game, which was already too late, since the enemy heroes were highly farmed. PSG.LGD’s core hero Monkey King remained safe as they grabbed Aegis for him on two occasions. Because of this, he was able to dominate the game.
PSG.LGD vs Vici Gaming
Two of the most powerful Chinese teams faced each other in one of the evenest series of the day. This match was definitely worth watching every minute. After getting inspired by the Gambit vs Liquid match, PSG.LGD decided to pick IO as their safe lane core. In all the professional matches played by LGD in the last couple of months, only once had they picked IO as their safe lane core. It was against EHOME, nine days ago.
In Game 1, Vici Gaming, on the other hand, picked Troll Warlord who is a reliable carry against an enemy IO. Unbelievably, the game remained neutral until 35 minutes. Here, a Roshan fight was the first instance where Vici Gaming was team wiped. This turning point secured a massive 15,000 gold lead for LGD. Vici Gaming was unable to make a comeback after that.
In Game 2, similarly to the first game, both the teams played equally well until another big Roshan fight. At the 24 minutes, Vici Gaming lost three heroes to the Roshan fight and Aegis was secured by LGD’s IO. As LGD’s draft had less cooldown period on their abilities, they were able to attack instantly after winning the Roshan fight. They secured 5,000 gold lead in the next couple of minutes. An amazing performance by Cheng “NothingToSay” Jin Xiang on Mars didn’t only help them secure early game kills, but also helped them turn around a 2v4 fight at 30 minutes. In this fight, they lost only one of their heroes and killed all the enemy heroes. In spite of exchanging a few kills for the next few minutes, LGD steadily grew their lead and secured the game.
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