At the end of the last day of DreamHack Summer in Jönköping, Sweden Virtus.Pro were crowned the winners of Dream League Season 3 after an incendiary five out of five possible played games.
As anticipated, the best of five grand finals featured close games and intense drama. In the first two games of the series Virtus.Pro looked unstoppable mainly because of Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk’s Rubik plays in conjunction with a fearless Sergey “G” Bragin while Na’Vi were not the same with what they’ve shown throughout the tournament getting seriously outdrafted and outplayed.
Even so, something changed within Na’Vi’s spirit as they pull themselves together for the third game interfering with VP’s march to victory. Maybe because Na’Vi is a team that should truly know how to play around Rubik as their former team mate Kuroky is one of the masters of this hero, they completely ignored Lil and for the drafting phase of the third game they chose to shoot down G, banning no less than four of his heroes. Going for a Broodmother last pick for Funn1k and an interesting position 1 Centaur Warrunner, Na’Vi was hoping to repeat the awesome performance they had vs Alliance. But things didn’t work as planed and Funn1k was feeding hard for the entire laning phase while XBOCT struggled to survive despite having ArtSyle on Dazzle to support him. The very grim situation that they were facing completely changed when Sonneiko grabbed the much needed Blink Dagger for his Earthshaker and hit an explosive Echo Slam that turned the game around. From that point on, the constant split push coming from Broodmother combined with key items coming online on their heroes, mainly the BKBs, Na’Vi made the comeback real and won the game.
Entering the fourth game pretty pumped up, Na’Vi disregarded the signal that Virtus.Pro were giving in the drafting phase, allowing them to grab two strong combos (Drow-Visage and Earthshake-Shadow Fiend).The Na’Vi response came with a line-up build to fight relentlessly. With Sonneiko’s specialty Winter Wyvern and Funn1k on Sand King who was the mvp of the game, Na’Vi simply crushed Virtus.Pro. Falling behind really early, VP couldn’t recover at any point and only 35 minutes into the game they had to call out the GG.
Pushing a decisive game five, Na’Vi looked like they hit their stride and they managed to get out from drafting stage with all the heroes that they shined on with throughout the tournament, with Sand King for Funn1k and Earthshaker for Sonneiko alongside with the signature heroes for Dendi (Puck) and XBOCT (Gyrocopter), Na’Vi’s lineup was looking strong and prepared to grab their first trophy in a very long time, DreamHack Masters November 2014 being actually their last 1st place in a LAN final.
Disregarding Na’Vi’s good draft and their hunger for a win in Sweden, Virtus.Pro remembered everyone that they are the real contender at the title and copiously dominated the early - mid game. One isolated error on their part, when they overextended their push 22 minutes into the game was all that Na’Vi needed to punish Virtus Pro. A perfect wombo-combo provided by the two ultimates of Earthshaker and Sand King made all the five heroes of VP to hit the deck and Na’Vi was making the comeback once again.
For the next 20 minutes Na’Vi was on fire winning every team fight, wiping out VP when they thought they can get a Roshan kill for themselves and getting the control of the game. Unfortunately Na’Vi got caught by surprise when Virtus.Pro decided to finish the job started and continued the siege. In their attempt to defend high ground Na’Vi fell short and they lost an entire set of barracks on middle lane.
Even so, Na’Vi kept the fighting spirit up as they contested yet another Roshan attempt from VP and wiped them out in the pit. Focused on objective gaming, Na’Vi went for the high ground push and ignored the Cheese - Aegis Roshan kill which proved to be the most crucial mistake as Illidan bought back and instead of defending he went for a sneaky Roshan kill letting his team to repel NaVi’ s push on their own.
Not being able to breach VP’s high ground Na’Vi started to play more defensive as they had super creeps to deal with, which allowed VP to regain the control of the game. When the clock hit minute 64 VP got an uncontested Roshan kill and with Chees and Aegis in their pockets they went for the final push. After four minutes of continuous team fight in Na’Vi’s base they finally emerged victorious.
Final Standings
1. Virtus.Pro $54,771
2. Natus Vincere $32,386
3. Ninjas in Pyjamas $19,886
4. The Alliance $12,424
Photos by GosuGamers
More content on GosuGamers
