Day 6 is upon us and the Ungeek team is live at the Manila Majors to bring you continued coverage for the rest of the tournament. Team Liquid has just eliminated Newbee from the lower bracket finals and will move on to face OG in the grand finals. A very impressive showing from Liquid, who played through most of the lower bracket after being dropped by MVP, only losing 1 game throughout their journey across the lower bracket.
Let’s see how Liquid ousted Newbee 2-1 in this series to claim the final spot in the grand finals.
Game 1
Liquid – Nightstalker, Invoker, Phoenix, Lycan, Tidehunter
Newbee – Winter Wyvern, Juggernaut, Enchantress, Slardar, Death Prophet
I felt the Newbee draft was very strong and it seemed they had thought of a counter to the Lycan. With the Enchantress being able to get the incoming Necronomicon units from Lycan, they will immediately be able to dampen the Liquid push.
Kpii, stole the show early in the game and did not let Liquid breathe, getting a very early blink for his Slardar and just wreaked havoc across the Liquid lanes. A clash over at the 11th minute went south for Liquid as they couldn’t handle the damage coming out from DP and Juggernaut, resulting in a 5-1 exchange in favor of Newbee as Liquid could not burst down the DP. Liquid show signs of life 21 minutes in, coming from a great initiation from an Invisible Tidehunter, pulling off a good Ravage + Supernova combo, picking off 2 heroes from Newbee. The Liquid high ground defense turned disastrous as they take multiple buy backs to bring down Mu’s Death Prophet but they could not burst him down easily as their sustain proved to be too strong behind Exorcism and Healing Ward.
Liquid call the GG 32 minutes in as they lose both the bottom and mid barracks to the superior Newbee push. Newbee take game 1 of the best of 3 and are looking dominant to take the series and book a rematch with OG!
Game 2
Liquid – Enchantress, Death Prophet, Earth Spirit, Weaver, Lycan
Newbee – Wisp, Batrider, Bristleback, Juggernaut, Shadow Shaman
Jerax Earth Spirit! You know we’ve got a game when Jerax gets his Earth Spirit as he looks to be the X factor in this game. Can he extend the Liquid run all the way to game 3?
Liquid would want to take this game early and be aggressive with their draft, how will Newbee respond? Mind_Control was not a huge factor in game 1 but he looked to change all that as being aggressive give him the first blood 2 minutes into the game by killing the safe lane Juggernaut. I guess he took he some Snickers bars before the game! Newbee are handling the Liquid aggression very well, taking a lead 23 minutes in 14-11 with superb teamfight and control. Noticeably absent from this game are the Wisp ganks as this will eventually spell the Newbee demise, as the Weaver just disrupted the backlines of Newbee so much that every team fight just led to an immediate disadvantage. Multiple die backs from a lower barracks defense led Liquid to eventually conquer the high ground and force a GG from Newbee as they cannot find a way to deal with the damage coming out from the Weaver.
As we go into game 3, emotions are sky high and the intensity is fever pitch, who will advance to the grand finals?
Game 3
Liquid – Drow Ranger, Disruptor, Medusa, Phoenix, Slardar
Newbee – Winter Wyvern, Death Prophet, Sven, Rubick, Dark Seer
Deciding match to determine the winner and the right to face off against OG in the grand finals! We see a Medusa and a Sven face off in what will be an instant classic!
An early Supernova from Jerax catches Newbee off guard and gives them the early advantage for the team fights, Liquid lead 6-4 12 minutes into the match. Sven gets an early Echo Saber, immediately putting it to work as Newbee take the lead at 16 minutes, 9-8. We can see the turning point of the match as a 5 man smoke goes bad for Newbee as they try to pick off Medusa but being the tanky hero that she is, she survives long enough to turn the teamfight around as the damage from Drow leads to 4 kills and eventually a tier 3 mid tower and Roshan, 17-19 in favor of Liquid. After the Roshan, Liquid look for the GG push as Medusa puts the cheese to good use. While Newbee manages to defend the push, this cost Sven a buyback and as DP gets picked off due to bad positioning, Sven is forced to defend but to no avail as the Liquid control is too strong. With both cores dead, Liquid force out a GG from Newbee and punch their ticket to the grand finals to face OG! Kuroky gets the last laugh as their surprise Medusa pick paid dividends for them, getting them the victory and a shot at the Manila Majors championship!
As we prepare for the upcoming grand finals, we have OG looking to claim a second Majors championship while Liquid will be wanting to break the curse of second place. Who will claim the Manila Majors title? Stay tuned to us and find out!
You can watch the games at: https://www.twitch.tv/dotamajor
TV5 will also do a special live telecast of the Manila Majors Grand Finals today starting at 3pm onwards on AksyonTV and 5pm onwards TV5 itself.
