Day Three of TI4’s Main Event Gives us The 2nd Grand Finalist
The penultimate day of The International 4 is in the books and we finally know which two teams will be facing off in the grand final for $5million. Two best of threes along with the four remaining games from the series that stared on Day 2 meant that Day three was a long one so let’s get started straight away.
As usual match spoilers follow.
Our first game was game two from the ViCi vs Cloud 9 series. ViCi won the first game on Day Two so had a 1-0 lead in the series. The 2nd game in the series (but the first of the day) saw Cloud 9 pick up a Meepo in what looked like an incredibly risky strategy. ViCi managed to take an early lead and carried it throughout the game, despite the Meepo getting good farm. In the end it came down to a base race after a questionable fight from C9. ViCi rushed down Mid at the same time as the Meepo heads to the dire T4’s. Ultimately ViCi weren’t quick enough and the Meepo managed to solo the Dire Ancient to give C9 the win.
The third and final game the series saw a much more conservative draft form C9 whilst ViCi got their hands on a Morphling. C9 went for an Lvl 1 Roshan attempt but it was spotted by ViCi who managed to kill off three C9 heroes, giving them a great start. ViCi tried to use the advantage to take early towers but it didn’t really work, fortunately they had a backup plan in the Morphling who managed to get some brilliant farm whilst everyone else was off fighting each other. By 34 minutes the Morph was too much for C9 to handle and they were forced to GG and thus exit the tournament.
The next game was the 2nd game in the LGD vs DK series. LGD held a 1-0 advantage heading into Day 3. The 2nd game in the series saw a very DK like draft along with a Sniper pick up from LGD. The Sniper did get off to a decent start but DK displayed some great play between the 10 and 20 minute mark to pull ahead significantly. Sniper’s squishy-ness became a big problem as he was one-shotted by DK’s OD multiple times. Ultimately LGD had little choice but to concede defeat at the 28 minute mark.
The third game in the series saw DK open the draft with a Lion and Elder Titan pick up which obviously caught LGD (and everyone else watching) by surprise. Just to make the draft even more interesting LGD picked up a Visage and Centaur. A very slow early game saw multiple towers being brought down but very few kills. The first 30 or so minutes remained fairly even, but DK managed to secure a Rosh and put the Aegis on their Shadow Feind who is getting quite large by now. A couple of failed high ground attempts did nothing to stop DK who managed to force LGD to call at the 41 minute mark. DK take the series 2-1 and advance whilst LGD head home.
The first full Bo3 of the day saw ViCi take on DK. In the first game ViCi went push heavy whilst DK went a bit crazy, picking up an Undying, Anti mage, Tinker, Beast Master and Shadow Shaman. ViCi managed to gain a decent advantage in a very fast paced early game, and held the advantage for the entire game. To be fair DK held on longer than they perhaps should have but ViCi took the game at the 40 minute mark.
Game two saw a more traditional draft from DK but ViCi managed to secure themselves a Death Prophet and Morphling. Both the Prophet and the Morph managed to pick off Mushi early in the game which gave them a decent advantage in gold and experience, not a good sign for DK. DK did manage to compete throughout the mid game and evened up the scores quite a lot, but the power of the Morphling was again too much and DK called GG at 44 minutes. DK are now out whilst ViCi advance to the final Bo3 of the day.
EG were the opponents for ViCi, the winner heads to the final whilst the loser takes 3rd place and gets over $1million in prize money. Game one can only be described as a stomp as ViCi took the win within 17 minutes. EG looked very poor, with a lot of glaring mistakes showing they are in fact capable of playing poorly.
The 2nd game was much more entertaining. EG went for an incredibly greedy line-up, all 5 of their heroes could theoretically be played as cores. The first 20 minutes or so were very even but some good Chrono’s resulted in EG finding some big kills. Despite this ViCi held the farm and item advantage at this stage. Some massive fights around the 30 minute mark gave EG the lead, and gave them a great chance to even up the series. Some nice plays from Zai ended up being the killing blows as ViCi call GG at 46 minutes.
The third and final game of the day would decide who heads to the final to face NewBee and who takes home the still respectable third place. EG again went for a greedy line up whist ViCi played it safe. ViCi went incredibly aggressive early on, looking to punish the greedy choices from EG and it worked incredibly well. The game was another quick win for ViCi as EG tapped out within 16 minutes meaning EG take 3rd whilst ViCi will take on NewBee tomorrow in the final.
Perhaps the most interesting game is the 2nd between EG and ViCi but every game from Day 3 is entertaining so take your pick and you won’t be disappointed.
