joinDOTA Final - DD vs Quantic #2

Both teams seem to keep their ban choices from the last game overall. PAINT takes away Chen, Prophet and Invoker while miGGel puts Enigma, Lycanthrope and Dark Seer out of the game. If anything, Radiant doesn't seem like finishing the game early, taking out two heroes who have a very strong early game, also Invoker, which seems to be a major concern for them. Dire eliminates three jungle heroes, which could mean they are betting on lane control, but also the very heroes who could disbalance teamfights, miGGel then instead plays safe by taking them off.

DD bets it all on the Brewmaster first pick and allows Leshrac for Quantic, who also gets Enchantress. miGGel wants to repeat their feat and gets Broodmother yet again, but along with Sand King this time. PAINT gets Morphling now, before DD lands a ban on him, as they did last game.

With SK taken, miGGel bans Earthshaker and Tidehunter to ensure they have the control on team battles, and not Quantic. PAINT takes out Mirana, which is pretty much AngeL's signature hero, and takes out Maiden too, DD hasn't picked any ranged heroes yet and Maiden would be a great addition.

Now Quantic is pretty much picking under pressure here: they need a win to keep alive and they`re going to certainly do all they can to accomplish it. miGGel picks Windrunner, which is very likely to be played by AngeL. PAINT gets Venomancer, a strong babysit for this Morphling, replied by a Shadow Shaman pick. Along with Broodmother, Sand King and Brewmaster, he shall prove worthy at picking up heroes as well as at pushing. Quantic concludes the draft with Beastmaster.

Not surprisingly, Korok is Quantic's greatest bet, and he's playing his signature Morphling here. The whole idea is to keep the game safe, allow him to farm and watch as he dominates the game later on, of course, with the backup from a special lineup drafted for this objective. But it would be foolish to think miGGel doesn't have it all figured out by now.

DD has it ensured that this is going to be action-packed. They have everything Quantic doesn't want to face in a lineup, heavy and long disables, lots of damage, hard to kill heroes, which also will likely cause them a lot of trouble in lane. It all depends wheter PAINT is able to coordinate his team to overcome all these dificulties, or if he isn't, well, it's not going to be pretty.

Morphling, as expected, heads for the safe lane, with Venomancer there to back him up, as well as Enchantress in their jungle. They face Windrunner and Sand King there, which doesn't exactly mean an aggressive lane, seeing that both heroes have unreliable stuns, with not much damage to add up. DD bets on Windrunner's strong lane control here and hopes it's enough to overcome Morphling's farm capacity, having Sand King as a backup if anything goes wrong.

At mid lane, Leshrac goes hand to hand with Brewmaster, both heroes aiming to get fast bottles, perhaps for ganking or even just putting a little more pressure into each other. Whoever comes on top here may as well decide the fate of the team battles in this game.

And finally at top lane, Beastmaster goes with all his courage to face the hard lane by DD, the Broodmother as well as the Shadow Shaman. We're going to expect a very bulky farming spider while Beastmaster is rendered mostly useless by the opposing support. But even then, Solara may prove his worth here by standing his ground and if he gets lucky when DD decides to push on top, they will allow some xp for the Beastmaster.

3:35: Team Quantic draws first blood at bot lane on Sand King, while Beastmaster also gets a kill on Shadow Shaman. Solid start for them, while DD is not looking so sharp.

Radiant here putting a lot of pressure on bottom lane, managing to land yet another kill on Sand King, as well as forcing Windrunner to stay on her toes. Morphling is managing to farm very well. Meanwhile, Leshrac for having assisted Beastmaster on the kill, is a little bit ahead on xp.

5:45: Beastmaster manages to escape Shadow Shaman and Brewmaster, who goes after Leshrac on mid lane, ults but does not get the kill. Radiant playing very consistently.

PAINT is able to stay alive after miGGel`s clap and ultimate by taking it into the woods.

8:15: Solara unveils miGGel, who had just got a invisibility rune, using a Dust and lands a kill, scoring 5-0 now for Quantic.

Conveniently here, Solara has his Dust of Appearance ready for miGGel and with a little help from PAINT, they land the kill.

9:05: Brewmaster gets Leshrac down, with SK's help. They close the gap, especially because Broodmother already took the top tower down not so long ago.

10:11: Morphling lands a kill on Windrunner, assisted by Venomancer, then takes the bottom tower down.

Mikey, LHM and Korok give AngeL no oportunity, as they totally dominate the bottom lane.

11:32: Korok spots Dire`s courier and kills it. He gets ganked after, but manages to get away with STR morph. Seems like DD is taking some of his own medicine: first they had Mirana farming and evading ganks, now they're facing Morphling.

Even after a lot of damage and disables fly towards Korok direction, DD is not able to land the kill.

14:00: Radiant takes down Roshan and Morphling claims the Aegis.

There is a clear advantage for Quantic here, and not only because the score is 6-1 in their favor. They have better farm, higher level and have more towers still up. Quantic keeps working to increase the gold difference gap by ganking and now working on getting t2 towers down. DD safe 2-0 win is in a big check now. Even though they are struggling to keep themselves in the game, Quantic is performing very well.

15:44: Playmate puts his Orchid to use and along with his team mates, manages to take the Aegis from Morphling.

17:26: Smoke gank on Playmate, Broodmother down as well as two towers at top lane.

22:08: After a lot of effort, DD manages to get top lane tier two tower down, basically trading it for its respective bottom tower, but they choose to keep pushing forward, causing Sand King to be killed by Beastmaster and Leshrac there.

Solara as well as the whole Quantic team is rotating to defend their towers. DD is using Ryze to basically drop his ultimate every time he gets near a tower, while LHM and Mikey just move there and foil the push. Interestingly, Mikey is actually getting the most out of his time here by pulling Ancients and farming them with Plague Wards, keeping a good income to supply consumables for his team.

Venomancer and Enchantress granted Morphling the needed farm for him to carry the game, stablished a good early and mid game and defended pushes quite succesfully, which was exactly what DD was aiming for. Along with Beastmaster and Leshrac, Radiant was able to dominate most of the team battles and achieve quite a stable win.

Korok takes the best out of team battles, his farming pays off very soon and he is able to pursue any hero, as well as deal a lot of damage. Team Quantic displays a lot more organization and coordination this time, while team DD gets sort of a bit lost in the game and without a purpose, as they struggle to keep themselves in the game as much as they possibly can.

A interesting display on how much Quantic can step up their game. DD still goes unscathed to the third game, without the safety they had though, it is now 1-1.