The second lower bracket matchup of the day can be described as a clash of the champions, no less than five previous Aegis Title holders having to fight each other for their fate in this year’s most important tournament.
Game One:
For the first game of the series almost everyone got their signature heroes but Ferrari who played for the first time in his professional career a Gyrocopter. But other than that Puppey got his legendary Chen, Arteezy got his Shadow Fiend but most important IG surprised Team Secret with a last pick Anti - Mage for Burning.
Realizing that they have to close the game extremely fast Puppey did a brilliant decision and give all his farm to his cores by buying two Bottles, one for Arteezy and one for s4 and also stacked the entire jungle for Shadow Fiend. And as a result Arteezy was boasting a nine minute Blink Dagger followed shortly by an Eul’s Scepter while s4 was close to finish his Orchid.
Eight minutes into the game Puppey finally bought his first item, brown boots and Secret started to play the map control DotA strategy, continuously pushing the lanes and invading IG’s jungle making sure Burning has no place to farm.
The game went flawless for Secret and only 22 minutes into the game Arteezy was buying a full Eye of the Skadi and Puppey was one thousand gold away from an Aghanim’s Scepter. Waiting for Roshan to respawn Secret secured an uncontested Aegis for s4 and proceeded for the high ground push. But despite the fact all the IG heroes were extremely underfarmed, they've shown their true champions colors executing a perfect defense teamfight and repelled Secret’s siege.
That finally gave Burning the space to catch up in farm as Team Secret decided to resume the farm themselves, waiting for the next Roshan to spawn. The ten minutes gap in between Secret’s first and second high ground attempts was enough for Burning to finish his Abyssal Blade and that marked the begining of IG's effort to come back into the game with a reasonable chance to win it.
When Secret felt confident to try again a gg push they found themselves outplayed by IG who realized there is no room for errors and put up an amazing defense in which they killed Arteezy and the Aegis carrier s4.
The next time Roshan was up IG got first in the pit and secured the Aegis and Cheese despite Secret's attempt to contest it. Burning’s Anti-Mage was already too big and was able to slice through all the defensive items of Secret.
Once the Aegis expired, 56 minutes into the game, coming back from a huge gold and experience deficit, Burning went full yolo and bought a Divine Rapier to secure IG’s victory in the first game of the series.
Game Two:
Facing elimination Secret decided to go with a full aggressive and heavy ganking oriented lineup on top of a Carry Luna for Arteezy and a Zeus last pick for s4 in response of IG’s Phantom Lancer.
The amount of burst damage that Secret had started to give results from the very early game, in which Secret was able to get numerous pick offs, not even Burning’s Phantom lancer being able to escape from the Laguna Blade/ Zeus spells combination.
With a fairly big lead in gold and experience, Secret did not want to make the same mistake from game one and with a free Roshan kill, Aegis on s4 Zeus they went for the GG push only 24 minutes into the game and secured the victory with two set of racks taken.
Game Three:
Secret tried to trap IG into thinking they will go with the exactly the same lineup for the last game of the series by picking Lina and Luna once again. But the surprise came with the last pick, a Shadow Shaman for Puppey.
The early game was much more calm compared with game one but IG made the same mistake by letting Arteezy to free farm and that turned against them extremely fast as Luna was able to solo kill Burning’s Shadow Fiend and Chuan’s Witch Doctor in a bottom rune skirmish and allowed Secret to take down early tier one towers.
With the map control secured, Secret went for a Roshan kill grouped as five at the 18th minute mark but they got scouted by a Clockwerk's Flare and Ancient Apparition’s ultimate. All five secret heroes getting hit by the Ice Blast, IG felt confident to contest and they even managed to steal the Aegis with Ferrari’s Storm Spirit but Secret kept their calm and managed to turn the fight around with Puppey’s Serpents, hex and shackles, killing Ferrari twice on top of Burning’s Shadow Fiend.
That one fight put Secret in the lead and the momentum went all in their favor as from there on they took teamfight after teamfight up to the point where they were ready to go for IG’s base.
In just one push Secret managed to take two set of racks and forced the last remaining former TI champions to call out the GG. This was a close victory for Team Secret and a well-timed birthday gift for Zai.
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