Tempo, flexibility, and strong drafting have been the key factors in deciding who remains in the upper bracket of The International 10. And today, PSG.LGD demonstrated just how powerful a team can look when all three elements are combined in their dominant victory over Virtus Pro. The win secured them a spot in the upper bracket finals.
Unlike their previous opponent, Vici Gaming, VP couldn’t just rush in and take fights against LGD. The Chinese Dota 2 team that came into TI10 as a favorite to win it all was more than capable of holding their own against the aggressive, younger team, rebuffing their advances and turning the tempo of the game in their favor.
VP’s game one draft was built to dominate the lanes early, but that approach didn’t pan out for them and actually saw them falling behind from the start. LGD were active during that phase of the game, getting kills on gpk’s Ember Spirit and all of the CIS team’s support heroes, nullifying any chance for an early snowball to get rolling.
Despite trailing, VP were still active in looking for teamfights and gave LGD a good run while playing from behind. It just wasn’t enough to make up for the deficit since they had to expend so many resources just to get one meaningful kill on any of LGD’s core players and Ame could melt anyone with his Luna as long as he was the one initiating.
In trying to address their scaling problems, it was almost as if they played further into LGD’s hands since the Chinese team changed up the majority of their strategy in game two.
VP had no answer for Ame’s Monkey King and NothingToSay outplayed gpk in mid with his Kunkka for a second straight game. That, paired with a Winter Wyvern and Oracle, made it impossible for VP to get kills without spending everything they had and leaving themselves vulnerable to counterattacks.
With a lineup that was built to commit to teamfights and getting picks, VP went down swinging in just 26 minutes.
LGD now press forward into the upper bracket finals after another dominant performance. They’ll face Team Secret, the only team that’s taken a game off of them.
VP isn’t done yet, either. They drop down into the lower bracket and will play the winner of Team Spirit and OG.
