DC gave their best against the Chinese titans in a rematch of the International 2016 grand finals, but were outclassed, and fell 2-0 to the champions.
Game one
Wings Gaming did not betray their style and picked a hero out of the current meta – Earthshaker, as well as Luna without Shadow Demon. They topped it off with the first Nightstalker pick of the tournament. On the other hand, Digital Chaos went for a rather greedy split push lineup, featuring Slark, Beastmaster and Morphling.
Wings got a head start with first blood after cornering Rasmus 'MiSeRy’ Filipsen's Undying at the top rune area before the creeps spawned. DC responded with two kills thanks to Martin 'Saksa' Sasdov's Rubick, and the double damage and haste runes he picked up.
The tempo slowed down for several minutes, and a contested laning stage followed apart from the mid lane where Zhou "bLink" Yang's Mirana dominated Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok's Slark. Wings then started rotating around and with the advantage of their stronger team fight potential, applied more pressure to the enemy towers. By the the 10th minute two tier one towers were down and Wings lead 6-2. Wings kept building on their advantage, and seven minutes later the score was 10-2, despite the fact that the first Aegis went into the hands of DC a minute after that. It did not help them much after the first team fight erupted, as Wings wiped DC at the bottom lane, making their lead 16-3. The following push met no real resistance from DC and after several more deaths, DC resigned.
Game two
Wings Gaming took the game to a whole different level and demonstrated why they are the International 2016 champions.
The Chinese went for Timbersaw as first pick, which prompted DC to pick several counters and eventually go for a wombo combo line up, including Dark Seer, Storm Spirit, Sven, Disruptor and Ursa with better scaling in physical damage. Wings did not seem too bothered by it and chose a predominantly magic damage line-up with Outworld Destroyer, Sand King, Jakiro and Oracle.
From the very beginning Wings demonstrated that they were the ones to dictate the tempo with aggression. First blood was spilled by DC however, as Chu 'Shadow-' Zeyu's Outworld Destroyer was killed in the mid lane via a rotation from the Earth Spirit.
The game continued with both teams going at each other’s throats, but Wings’ more aggressive approach paid off, and by the 12th minute, had claimed all of DC's tier one towers. The Sand King's early Blink Dagger helped a great deal.
The first Roshan died to the hands of Wings at the 20th minute and the Chinese pressed on. At this point, DC’s line up started to come online and two minutes later DC had the first chance in the game to unleash their devastating wombo combo by their top tier two tower, but Sven was missing from the fight and Wings got away.
Wings Gaming itemization focused on getting kiting items such as Eul’s Scepters and Force Staffs, in order to kite the enemy melee carries and negate the advantage of the overwhelming physical damage coming from DC’s melee cores.
The game was still in Wings’ hands, but after 24 minutes of play, DC pulled off a good team fight and killed three from Wings. Nevertheless, it was the Chinese who went high ground several minutes later, only to find themselves with four down.
DC started gaining ground from this point and six minutes later, they added five more kills to their tally. Their advantage did not last long, as the team fight that erupted around the 38th minute changed the game’s course back into Wings’ favor.
As the two teams could not decide who was better, more bloodshed followed and after fifty minutes of play all buybacks from both teams were used. Then, DC risked and entered the dark Dire jungle preparing for a decisive fight with the advantage of the Aegis. It all started well with DC killing the Oracle, but Wings’ supernatural synchronization of spells and item abilities turned the tide of the battle once more and the Chinese emerged victorious.
From this moment onward, it was clear who the winner was going to be and although DC stood their ground for another sixteen minutes, Wings Gaming deservedly triumphed and closed the series.
