How did Liquid win TI7 for 10 million

The International Award 2017

In Dota 2, there is no season, no promotion or division. Instead, the teams all have their eyes on the biggest event of the year — and also the biggest in esports: The International. After months of preparation, 18 teams qualified for the week-and-a-half event, but only one was able to win the $10.8 million prize pool.

This year, two curses have yet to be broken: the curse of “even East and West”, and the curse “no one can win twice”. No one can do it as strongly and convincingly as Team Liquid, the new king of this year’s championship.

Team Liquid has sponsored champions in titles like Starcraft, League of Legends, and more, but Liquid’s previous Dota 2 teams have never gone this far in Valve tournaments. Before that, Liquid’s Dota team was from the US, but this European team took the crown in a fierce but more expensive environment.

The current roster has a lot of success ahead of the TI season. They performed well in the Russian Epicenter tournament, and also failed at the Dota 2 Asian Champisonships. However, this victory was predicted at DreamLeague Season 7 Atlanta, where they won the championship after beating other international teams.

To win the Aegis of Champions shield today, they had to come back and stand on the verge of being eliminated many times. Four of the top six are China, and the other two are Liquid and Virtus.Pro, regional rivals. The final between them and Newbee, and it was a really eye-catching finale.

Newbee entered the tournament as one of China’s contenders for the championship, thanks to his steady, strong performance throughout the competitive tournament. However, anything is possible at TI, and LGD and LFY quickly stagnated their group top positions in the group stage. Especially LFY was unbeaten until the last day of competition, at one point they won a spot in the winning bracket in the main event.

But Newbee, intent on revenge, returned in the main tournament, where they met LFY in the winner’s bracket final, to determine the team to the Finals. It was an explosive match back and forth between the two Chinese teams, and Newbee showed spectacular teamfights and won a spot for himself.

On the next day, LFY faced Team Liquid in the losing bracket final. If Liquid can take out LFY, the team that is unbeaten in the group stage and bracket, then they have the ability to play against Newbee. Because, before that, LFY defeated Newbee 2-0 in the group stage, and in the win bracket, Newbee’s 2-1 victory was not easy at all. With exciting plays and strange tactics created by Liquid that defeated the Chinese dark horse, Liquid then won 2-1 before the Finals took place the same day later.

Last minute of the Finals.

The finals also begin: Newbee, the butcher in the winning bracket, faces off against Liquid, the killer in the losing bracket who comes back up on the final day.

Tam Liquid’s overwhelming snowball style shined in every game of the finals. For example, about half an hour into the second game, Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi’s Alchemist began aggressively charging into Newbee’s base, ‘aggressively’ focusing on the correct towers and barracks (objective). It took two minutes and an Aegis, but in the end Newbee managed to finish off the Alchemist. But the price for that is that Newbee completely lost the bot lane (bottom), turrets and barracks, paving the way for creeps to move and start causing trouble. This gameplay is used in all three games as Liquid strives to test every element of the game to get it right in the end: defeating the Ancient (fountain).

In the final game, a series of beautiful combos created by Liquid was the main focus for the European team to win the championship. But the most impressive phase – and also the decisive victory – was thanks to Miracle-‘s slashes, buffed by the Double Damage rune that cleared the Newbee team.

Most notably, the match ended 3-0 in favor of Liquid – the first team to not lose a game in Valve’s finals. The team won the Aegis of Championship, opened the champagne, and quickly left to celebrate this historic victory.

Source: pcgamer.com