You don't change a winning team: That's the philosophy behind mTw right now, which allowed them to show strong performances and reach the top of the GosuLeague standings with their win against EYES.
"You don't change a winning team" is also their philosophy on the picks: No surprises, only good and solid picks, with Invoker, Windrunner and Enchantress being there to control the lane and create space for Juggernaut to farm, with Crystal Maiden as his backup if necessary. On EYES squad, we have a good mix of disables and damage. Chaos Knight and Queen of Pain are there, hoping that their team mates are able to control the fights and give them room to unleash the damage. If mTw show no surprises, EYES does: they're fielding the perceptive player slahser, legendary for his Mirana in WC3 DotA, playing Beastmaster.
As lane goes on, mTw shows why they're one of the most aggressive teams around. Instead of trading lanes with the opponent, they contest it, exploring the strength of Bladefury and Crystal Nova at level one, not to mention Enchantress' creeps. The action is all in the bottom lane, while Queen of Pain fights against Invoker for mid and Beastmaster against Windrunner on top. First Blood goes for mTw, but EYES get a score lead of 3-1 around the five minute mark, and Chaos Knight is getting every single creep kill on his lane.
Both teams continue to trade kills, with no one managing to get a decisive lead. A farming period goes until close to the 12 minute mark, where EYES lose Beastmaster and Queen of Pain in a fight, losing map control and the first tier mid tower. From this point, mTw starts getting the best of all the trades, winning a massive team-fight around the 14 minute mark. The score is 10-11, but mTw have a small lead. A sneaky Roshan snipe and a tower deny around the 17 minute mark furthered their lead, giving plenty of space for Juggernaut to farm. Despite his excellent farm in the beginning, Chaos Knight isn't landing the impact needed for EYES to regain the advantage. They're not that behind however: They just need one successful team-fight to recover map control.
A gank on Chaos Knight in the 21 minute mark solidifies even more mTw lead. Minutes later, EYES tries to trade towers, but mTw contest it and gets a kill and even bigger lead. With more map control and items, mTw is just waiting for more items to kick in while controlling EYES jungle and Roshan, trading some heroes inbetween around the 25 minute mark.
The lead mTw built came in hand when their mortal team work team-wiped EYES next to the second tier bottom tower around the 27 minute mark. From this point on, mTw snowballed towards EYES, destroying the barracks and eventually winning the game. The win leaves mTw on the top of the GosuLeague with eight points, while EYES is in the sixth position with three, threatening closer to relegation.
EYES | mTw | |||||||||
BANS | ||||||||||
PICKS | |
According to EYES captain, Aaron "crusH" Marik, his team definitely had the chance to win, but they couldn't focus and act as a team to kill Juggernaut twice when he wasn't supported by his team. There were also situations where there were no follow-ups to Beastmaster's Roar and Juggernaut ward being there all the time without being attacked. These small details made them lose the massive team-fight on the bottom lane, which costed them the game.
Due to roster issues, the second game was a default win in favor of mTw.
GosuLeague Division 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Team | Matches | Wins | Draws | Losses | Score Diff. | Points | ||||||||||||||||||
mTw | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||
mouz | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 7 | ||||||||||||||||||
Keita | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||
Darer | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | ||||||||||||||||||
NEXT.kz | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||
EYES | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
infs | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | -2 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
M5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | -3 | 1 |
A report from mTw's match versus Darer will be coming out shortly.