A lot was at stake Tuesday evening as Team Nigma was tasked to take on Tundra Esports in the EU DPC Upper Division. Both teams came into the series with a 2-3 record. As it seems like teams will need four wins to secure a tiebreaker for the Major spots, this would be a big win for either team.
| vs. |  | |
| Team Nigma | Tundra Esports | |
| 2 | 0 |
Turns out that this was Nigma’s big day, as they broke their three game losing streak. While they did play well, a lot of the win came down to Tundra losing because they couldn’t enable Skiter. The Slovakian carry has shown us that he can farm incredibly fast but he needs the proper support to do so. In both games he was far down in the networth charts for way too long. Another way to look at this is, of course, that MC and GH did comparably better than the offlane of 33 and Biver. Which is very true. Biver, in particular, did not have a great evening. He died 22 times in the two games and a lot of those deaths were given away during laning.
Game 1
In the first game, neither team took any huge risks during the draft, the one surprising hero pick being the safelane Razor for Team Nigma. However, that doesn’t mean the game wasn’t exciting from the start, as we saw Miracle, not w33ha, pick the Void Spirit and headed off to the middle lane. For a lot of fans this was cause for celebration as that’s where Miracle once made his name. But after winning The International, he was moved to the safelane position, a huge drop from a pure entertainment purpose. And we saw remnants of the old Amer right away as he grabbed the first blood solo. Sure, he got the kill mostly because Nine could not proc Locky Shot to, quite literally, save his life. And while he managed to proc it just a few minutes later, grabbing that kill, Miracle definitely came out ahead.
Now if you’re wondering why we’re spending so much time on two kills, it’s because not much more happened in the early game. Both teams were happy with just sitting back and farming, a game where Nigma came out slightly ahead. And that was pretty much the story of the first part of this game. Nigma always seemed to come out a little bit ahead. Nine rotated bot and managed to grab a nice kill on MC, only for Miracle to come in right after to kill off Skiter. After some posturing from Nigma bot, Skiter was forced in to the jungle way earlier than he would’ve wanted. And just 10 minutes into the game, he was already in the hole while w33ha was farming just fine top.
With this networth lead, Nigma could smell blood in the water as they managed to claim the bottom lane tier 1 tower quickly. With this “unlocking” of the Radiant jungle, Dire didn’t hesitate and immediately made a choking move, claiming plenty of space. Much thanks to GH’s brilliant map movement and scouting on the Nyx Assassin. And at this point it seemed like Nigma would just run away with the game. It would be an exaggeration to say that their networth lead soared away but it slowly rose and it seemed like Tundra was ripe for the picking. But they had one thing. They had great teamfighting. And they showed that. For the next 10 minutes the game looked like this: Nigma built up a lead. Tundra forced a team fight, which they won and put a dent into the NW lead for Nigma. Repeat. This was worrying for Nigma, though. Because even if Tundra’s fighting was strong, the difference in the fights really shouldn’t have been as dramatic as it was. And all of a sudden it was Tundra who was in the networth lead and had a clear path to a win.
But it seems like in this game, a lead meant that you lost fights. And that’s how this game ended. Skiter took a chance on the bottom rune, hoping to blow up Miracle before he could react, but instead he was the one who lost his life. And it was the fight that broke Tundra. Nigma claimed 5 kills, 2 rax, and a huge gold lead. And just like that, the game was over.
Game 2
So I’ve been playing a lot of chess lately. Yes, I’m a basic white bitch and picked it up after watching the Queen’s Gambit. Now I think most people are aware of what a gambit is but for those of you who aren’t, it’s basically sacking a piece early to gain an advantage later on in the game. It’s not a bad move but it’s also not considered to be very solid play to open with a gambit. It’s risky. And in game two of this series, Tundra pulled out a Gambit. If this was planned well in advance, or if it was a reaction to them losing game 1, we’ll never know. So what was the Gambit? Offlane Alchemist. And the idea is that you give Alch the offlane, let him take whatever gold he can get, tell him to rush Aghanim’s Scepter and give it to one of his teammates. In this case the Void Spirit. This gambit pretty much lives and dies off what happens next. Alch is a hero that only thrives if played from the top of the networth chart.
In game two, it initially looked like the strategy would pay off for Tundra. Yes, they fed some kills in the offlane but just 14 minutes in 33 was able to complete the aghs and give it to Void Spirit. Seconds after that, the corpse of Miracle’s Morphling hit the floor. A nice move that should have meant the start of the comeback for Tundra. Instead of constantly trying to pressure their opponent, we saw all Radiant cores simply back off to farm more. We can’t, with 100% certainty, say if that was what ended up costing Tundra the game but the move does seem a bit odd to not play aggressively after such a show of strength. And when a teamfight finally did kick off, we saw roughly the same thing happens again: Miracle’s Morphling was blown up right away but this time around Nigma had an Ursa with a, freshly completed, BKB just behind him. The result? All cores on Tundra fell while Nigma only lost two.
Even with this won fight, the networth difference refused to swing in favor of either team. And it’s unclear why. It could be because of the 3 position Alchemist inflating his team’s total networth or it could be that Tundra just farmed better. It’s basically impossible to tell without doing some heavy calculations. However, just because Nigma wasn’t squarely ahead in net worth doesn’t mean they weren’t ahead in the game. The biggest thing they had going for them was map control. At the 25 minute mark, Tundra had only claimed a single tower, the Dire safelane one, while Nigma had taken both the T1 towers mid and bot, as well as the T2 tower bot. And they used this advantage to perfection. They took over Radiantt’s jungle with ease and knew exactly how to utilize the attacking angles that provided them with. So when Skiter thought he was safely farming under his T2 tower mid, Nigma came flooding out of the South-East part of the map, pinning the Troll Warlord, and his team. The resulting slaughter had some nice moves in it from Nigma but even without those it’s very likely the outcome would’ve been the same. Honestly, go check out the minimap as Nigma starts this fight. Print it out, put it on your wall with some arrows. The only thing complicated about what Nigma did was recognizing the strength of their positioning. And that’s what pro Dota is all about. Those small things make all the difference.
After this point there was really nothing Tundra could do. They tried their best to itemize against Nigma’s lineup but the game was too far gone. Nigma takes the series 2-0 and puts themself in a prime position to advance to the first Major.
Series MVP: Miracle
Miracle used to be one of the best midlaners in the world and his move to the safelane was a loss for the Dota community as a whole. Now he’s back in the midlane and it’s like he never left. In Tuesday’s series he ended both games at the top of the scoreboard for kills and he looked so convincing. We don’t know if this is going to be a permanent move for Nigma but man do we hope it is.
Recommended game
If you’re a fan of Tundra you might want to skip this one. Fata and co. had this game but it slipped out of their hands. Overall, it was entertaining, though with neither team able to own in all aspects of the game until the very end.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/916776676
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