picture by Valve
Team Liquid continue their magnificent run through the lower bracket, eliminating LGD Gaming and securing their spot in the lower bracket finals.
As The International 2017 quickly moved towards its culmination, only 4 teams remained – but after this series, there would be only 3. Team Liquid and LGD Gaming would be fighting it out for a spot in the top 3, their place in the lower bracket finals and most importantly, a chance to make their way into the grand finals at TI7. A loss here would be heart breaking for either team after they had both fought tooth and nail through the lower bracket – but a win would give them a shot at that gigantic prize pool for the winners of TI7.
Game One
A great start for LGD saw them claim a very quick first blood as they smoked up at the start and found Lasse 'Matumbaman' Urpalainen on his Necrophos in the top lane. Within the opening 5 minutes, LGD continued to rack up kills on vital members of Liquid’s line up, giving themselves a rather nice platform to work from in the early game. But even with their disadvantage, Liquid were able to find some clutch kills to keep themselves in the game.
By seventeen minutes, Liquid begun to show their strength as they tied up the score line at 10-a-piece, with some magnificent plays around the map – ensuring that they had control of the game. With their advantage now, the Dire squad were looking extremely dangerous as they marched into the Roshan pit. However, some quick thinking from LGD saw them manage to steal the aegis, even though they were falling further and further behind.
As thirty minutes approached Liquid took to the high ground and destroyed the ranged barracks, and claimed a fair few kills too – leaving LGD barely able to reclaim a foothold in the game. As Liquid completely wiped the Radiant team from the map a few minutes later, they claimed an aegis followed by removing the full barracks from both bot and mid lane.
Not 2 minutes later, LGD had absolutely no way to withstand the pressure of Amer 'Miracle' Barqawi's Morphing or the onslaught of the team behind him and they called GG – giving Team Liquid game 1 of this series.
Game Two
LGD’s tournament life hung in the balance as they went into game 2 of the best-of-three series against Team Liquid. A win was essential for the Chinese team, if they wanted to take the series to game 3 and try to make their way into the lower bracket finals. Liquid merely needed to win this game to secure their spot in TI7’s top 3. The game begun in a slow manner, with first blood only falling after 6 minutes as LGD made some good support rotations to mid lane to take down Maroun 'GH' Merhej on the Earthshaker. But as 10 minutes passed, Liquid begun to slowly pull ahead.
With an aegis in hand soon after this, Liquid begun to absolutely rip through their opponents as Miracle’s Huskar was getting out of hand. Before twenty minutes had passed, once more LGD were completely destroyed by Liquid and their tournament hopes and dreams looked to be in tatters. Even when LGD seemed to take a decent fight, they would surrender their mid lane barracks to Broodmother’s split push and just a few moments later GG was called by LGD.
Unfortunately for the Chinese team, they were completely out-drafted and outplayed at the end of the day and they would be eliminated from TI7. For Team Liquid, they would move on to face LGD Forever Young tomorrow in the lower bracket finals, as they attempt to claim a spot in the grand finals.
Click here for results, VODs and all the other information
