DK hands Invictus Gaming their first set of losses in the Chinese qualifiers of Starladder. With the win, DK is now guaranteed to participate on the LAN finals to be held in Kiev next month.
iG will be going up against the winner of the match earlier today, Newbee, in the lower bracket finals tomorrow. The winner of that will be China's second representative for the ninth season of Starseries. Their best-of-three match will start at 08:00 CET tomorrow (20 March).
Game 1
With two strength core heroes in their line-up, namely Slardar and Alchemist, Invictus Gaming pulled off a surprising last pick with a Huskar mid, whom they hoped to match up well against Outworld Devourer. iG also sent three heroes bottom to try contest against DK's Mirana, letting the Alchemist solo in the short lane against Centaur. It was DK who took first blood, after Shadow Shaman narrowly escaped dying before turning it around with the help of Outworld Devourer. Mirana also scored another kill not long after to tilt the early game into DK's favor.
With the help of the first blood gold and experience boost, the already strong solo-hero in Outworld Devourer completely dominated Huskar in the lane. With good rotations from Nyx and Shadow Shaman, DK was winning all lanes and was very much ahead. Alchemist was pushed out of his lane and was forced to settle for the jungle because of the pressure of DK's supports. Outworld Devourer managed to pull off an Aegis steal and a triple kill on the 22nd minute, and they found themselves ahead then with 12,000 gold and experience.
DK had a very commanding lead, and they just cruised into the ensuing teamfights by obliterating iG. iG's lineup showed a glimpse of their plan when they melted Outworld Devourer to force out the Aegis, but it was pretty much game over when the hero respawned. iG called GG on the 33rd minute, and DK won without giving up a tower.
Game 2
DK went with a teamfight heavy line-up, with all of their heroes having good AoE abilities - Void, Batrider, Queen of Pain, Witch Doctor and Ancient Apparition. iG, on the other hand, went with one of their standard heroes in a Brewmaster together with Rubick and Weaver.
iG had a minor switch-up, putting Luo on the offlane Nature's Prophet while letting YYF's Weaver be in the farming trilane carry position. Luo had a cheesy start, deploying two sets of sentries and one observer ward to block the whole dire jungle, and he curiously bought a quelling blade and a TP scroll to hopefully leech out experience (inset).
While Nature's Prophet died not long after, that didn't happen before his team took first blood by killing Batrider from the get-go.
Void was having a lot of farm and DK's supports were rotating nicely, which were making up for the bad start of the Batrider. DK was also gearing up for a symphony of their skills, with the Void going max backtrack first and going Scepter early. A glimpse of what they wanted to do was seen on the bottom lane as they chained the Chronosphere with a Death Ward, but their skills were at this point mostly underlevelled and only got one kill for their trouble. Despite DK seemingly in control of the game, iG was just a manageable 5,000 gold and experience behind 28 minutes into the game.
The teams traded kills in the following minutes, with Void just starting to get his first DPS item more than 30 minutes into the game. Despite the early-game struggle, iG still seemed to be in position to sneak up a win. However, they commited a massive blunder on the 38th minute. Brewmaster had a premature use of his ultimate, and in his team's desperation to make something out of it, they ended up losing multiple heroes and Roshan. Suddenly, DK found their gold and experience incremented by another 5,000.
A sloppy fight ensued on the 42nd minute, but DK's gold and experience lead them to win the fight. They proceeded to take the middle barracks after that. They went for the bottom lane three minutes later, and convincingly sealed the game. Worth noting is that iceiceice, who was playing Batrider, bought an extra courier at minute 24. He had that courier on follow after his hero since then for most of the time, but he used it to bait, scout and provide vision on engagements.
