Dota 2: DreamLeague Major Day 5 Highlights
| Tags: Dota 2
| Author Eliana Bollati
The end of the DreamLeague Major is drawing closer. There have been a few surprises in this tournament, we saw Liquid go home on day four, and Virtus Pro lose 2-0 to Fnatic.
Today, we saw two more eliminations in round two of our lower bracket.
Both series today saw our teams play some truly beautiful Dota 2. If you missed out on the action, here’s how it played out.
Mineski vs. J.Storm
Game 1
Mineski seemed to be the favorite going into our first series of the day today. They looked confident in the draft phase with an Elder Titan first pick for febby. But things looked different once the game got underway.
J.Storm took a swift lead, with six kills coming out in the first six minutes. Five of them to the NA team. J.Storm executed beautiful map control throughout the laning phase, setting themselves up for a strong late game.
Bryle’s Queen of Pain pick proved to be a formidable opponent for Mineski. He provided excellent support to Moo’s Lifestealer, assisting with 17 kills and scoring eight of his own.
Mineski never quite recovered, although Ahjit’s Morphling managed to climb to the top of the net worth, his carry wasn’t strong enough to hold back J.Storm forever.
After a grueling 53 minute game, J.Storm shut down Mineski to secure themselves the victory in game one.
Game 2
As game two started, it was clear that J.Storm were here to win. They came into the laning phase with a license to kill.
While Mineski were leading the networth initially, J.Storm were racking up their kill-lead. They began to pull in to the net worth around twenty minutes and used the advantage to press a Roshan attempt.
Their rotations were flawless, their map control perfect. While Mineski seemed to flounder without clear direction as to what their late-game strategy would be.
At 28 minutes, J.Storm had put away 23 kills. Fifteen more than Mineski.
It looked like things were over for the SEA team then, but Mineski fought back. Finally rallying together for a push down mid lane that saw them attack J.Storm’s high ground, taking out the ranged rax and forcing buy backs.
But J.Storm’s recovery was swift. At 41 minutes, they pushed mid, killing off all 3 of Mineski’s cores and giving themselves a massive 100-second window to close out the game.
With no buyback for Ahjit or Kpii, J.Storm turned their push towards the top rax too, gaining mega creeps. Then they pulled back, playing it safe leaving Mineski to clear their base.
Mineski were ready to hold out to the bitter end, throwing everything they had into their defense. Pieliedie on Nature's Prophet used a quick sprout to control Bryle’s Death Prophet, with the rest of the team trying to push back, even as J.Storm chipped away at their ancient’s health.
Despite giving it their all, Mineski were unable to stop J.Storm’s onslaught. GG was called at 45 minutes.
DreamLeague 11 has given us yet another surprising victory, as J.Storm advance to the next round.
Infamous vs. Team Secret
Game 1
Both of our Bo3’s went to just two games today. After their little slip-up earlier in the tournament, Secret was taking things seriously.
Although Infamous had a good laning phase in game one, Secret was leading the kills. It didn’t take long for the EU team to start turning things to their advantage.
By 11 minutes they had pulled into the lead and were starting to push for objectives as Infamous scrambled to find their feet.
As the game approached 20 minutes, Secret had taken over the net worth completely, shutting down the farm of the Infamous cores. They pushed for the tier two towers and then kept focused on the objectives, using the momentum to carry them to the mid-high ground at 22 minutes.
Just two minutes later, it was GG for Infamous. With game one playing out like the stomps we’re used to seeing from Puppey and his team.
This was an outstanding game for MidOne's Chaos Knight, with zero deaths, seven kills, and four assists.
Game 2
Game two saw Infamous coming in hard at the start. They took out the first two kills, but Secret was leading the net worth again.
Zai’s Bounty Hunter was a force to be reckoned with right from the laning phase. By 11 minutes, Secret had once again taken the kill-lead.
They made it obvious they still meant business. Just like the previous game, we saw them focus on the objectives right from the start, playing harder and faster than Infamous every step of the way.
At 20 minutes they were taking the tier three towers. Rax melted, buybacks came out. Though Infamous put up a valiant fight, there was just no stopping Secret.
It was over at 22 minutes. Team Secret claimed another victory to end the series 2-0.
Unsurprisingly, Zai took out the MVP award. Both his Vengeful Spirit in game one and his Bounty Hunter in game two were contributed to the swift stomps that secret pulled off in this round.
Yapz0r also deserves an honourable mention however, securing 21 assists over both games and lending the additional support the team needed to take home the wins.
Mineski and Infamous are both headed home, as J.Storm and Team Secret move on to round three. Tomorrow we’ll be seeing how our other series in the lower bracket play out. As Evil Geniuses face-off against Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Virtus.Pro and Chaos Esports Club go head to head.
Tune in to the official stream on Twitch tomorrow to catch all the excitement. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for all the latest Dota 2 news and highlights.
Image via DreamHack.
Eliana is a freelance editor & journalist from Australia with a passion for esports and video games. An avid player of video games for the better part of three decades, she began following professional esports circuits during the 2010s. She brings both a player and longtime fan perspective into her commentary on the professional scenes.