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AFTER five gruelling days battling the best Tier 1 Dota 2 teams in the world, Team Liquid has claimed the MDL Macau 2019 title after beating the Evil Geniuses in Sunday’s Grand Final.
Team Liquid, featuring star players Miracle, Matumbaman, Mind Control, GH and Kuroky, only lost three games in the entire tournament on route to their ultimate victory. They played a total of seven games in the group stage and eight games in the playoffs.
Miracle, the position two player, played 10 different heroes in this tournament including Invoker, Phantom Assassin, Ember Spirit, Morphing, Ursa, Troll Warlock, Sven, Anti-Mage, Juggernaut, Drow Ranger out of 15 games Team Liquid played in this tournament. His incredible heroes knowledge and wide variety of skill was a huge factor in his team’s victory.
In the Grand Final series against the Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid played a total of four games in the best-of-five series and every single game ended before the 30-minute mark.
In game one, Team Liquid drafted Phantom Assassin for Miracle, Viper for Matumbaman and Nature Prophet for Mind Control. Team Liquid out-drafted Evil Geniuses when they put Viper in the mid-lane to fight against Monkey King in the laning phase.
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Viper is a hero that could out-play any single in the mid lane as long as the player is capable of utilising the hero. Matumbaman, one of the best carry players in Dota 2, did a great job of harassing Monkey King in the laning phase and used the advantage to build support items.
This was a unique team tactic from Team Liquid, which has shown that they are capable of adapting their draft and building item accordingly. They understood that Miracle’s Phantom Assassin was the main carry of the game and supported him to make him tankier in team fight so Phantom Assassin could deal with all five enemies by himself.
Viper bought Mekansm and Arcane Boots, combining them into with Guardian Greaves at the 19-minute mark.
Guardian Greaves passively provides 4.5 health regeneration and 2 bonus armour to a teammate nearby the item carrier. When inactive, it restores 300 health and 200 mana to nearby allies and removes most negative effects from them.
Miracle was unstoppable in that game. He wiped out four enemies in their fountain. Fountain is a “safe zone” for the heroes to regenerate 4% of your health and mana per second and it also deals a high damage towards enemies within its attack range. However, Phantom Assassin has a 50% chance to evade any incoming damage from the fountain and he also purchased Satanic to lifesteal from enemies.
Evil Geniuses surrendered after their “safe zone” turned into a kill zone.
In game two, Team Liquid drafted Magnus to support Juggernaut and Matumbaman once again picked Viper.
Similar to game one, Matumbaman has an easy laning phase in the mid lane and he purchased Rod of Atos, as well as Guardian Greaves. Miracle played Juggernaut and had a great farm thanks to Magnus’s Empower allowing him to farm a lot of faster with the extra cleave damage.
Team Liquid started to the push high ground of Evil Geniuses at the 17-minute mark after securing Aegis of Immortal for Juggernaut. The only thing Evil Geniuses could do was stand by and watch as Team Liquid tore down their bottom barracks.
The moment they tried to go for a team fight, GH, the position four player from Team Liquid, used Reverse Polarity on Nature Prophet and Lina from Evil Geniuses. Miracle just killed both of them when they were stunned for 2.75 seconds.
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Evil Geniuses called GG when Team Liquid was destroying their throne.
Team Liquid lost miserably in game three because Evil Geniuses drafted nicely and picked dual support heroes – Enigma and Chen. These two heroes are very good in pushing and Evil Geniuses went on Team Liquid’s high ground and secured themselves top two barracks by the 15-minute mark.
After struggling for another 13 minutes, Team Liquid surrender because there was no way of coming back in that game.
In game four, Team Liquid banned Enigma after Evil Geniuses picked Chen. They understood that these two supports can do a lot of damage, thanks their pushing ability.
Team Liquid drafted Troll Warlock and Lone Druid as their core heroes in this game. They also picked Magnus as their support. Thanks to the Magnus pick, Troll Warlock ended the game with 856 golds per minute.
At the 20-minute mark of the game, Team Liquid went on the high ground of Evil Geniuses and expected a fight from Evil Geniuses because Miracle had both Satanic, Sange and Yasha, he had a status resistance of 41% with those items.
However, Evil Geniuses did not take a fight with Team Liquid and let Team Liquid destroy their bottom Melee barracks without any casualties.
Team Liquid understood that they won the game because Evil Geniuses were not trying to defend at all. Team Liquid went to secured Aegis of Immortal and did the same trick again by putting Troll Warlock and the Spirit Bear in front line to destroy the barracks.
Team Liquid claimed the trophy of MDL Macau 2019 after Troll Warlocks secured another lane of barracks.
