Talon Esports crush Team Spirit in Lima Major Playoffs
Photo via Bleed Esports | Edited by Dave Bernasibo, Esports INQ
Southeast Asian Dota 2 team Talon Esports is breezing through the lower bracket of the Lima Major Playoffs. After coming off strong from a sweep against European team HellRaisers, the SEA team dug its talons deep into TI10 champions Team Spirit, and emerged victorious in a 2-1 match.
High spirits
Team Spirit took game 1, with Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov rampaging through Talon’s ranks as Spectre and Primal Beast, respectively. Miroslaw “Mira” Kolpakov’s Tiny support aided the two carries with his perfectly timed Toss and Avalanches, leaving little to no room for Talon Esports to retaliate. The game ended in a 37-12 stomp in favor of the TI10 champions, with a 30k-gold deficit.
Baring claws
Game 2, however, saw Talon Esports at its strongest. Nuengnara “23Savage” Teeramhanon led the charge as Slark, pouncing away at Team Spirit. Winning the laning phase and effectively weakening the impact of Collapse’s Beast Master, 23Savage and the rest of Talon Esports were able to roll safely into the mid-game, taking control of the map with the help of Anucha “Jabz” Jirawong’s Nature’s Prophet. The game ended in Talon’s hands, tying the series.
Do or die
Both teams had to give their all for game 3, as they both face the risk of elimination. Yatoro led Team Spirit with his trusty Terrorblade along with Collapse’s infamous Magnus, while 23Savage responded with a Faceless Void pick and Jabz went with Nature’s Prophet. Both teams did fairly well in the early game, with lanes either tied in terms of item timings and levels. Yatoro’s Terrorblade was starting to rack up his items with a Manta Style at 15 minutes, and an Eye of Skadi 6 minutes later. However, Talon would not back down without a fight. Several team fights in the midgame caught Team Spirit off-guard, causing the momentum to shift hard toward Talon Esports. This allowed the SEA to be more aggressive and eventually close out the game with a win on their side.
The series ended with Talon Esports as the victor, forcing Team Spirit to exit the Lima Major main stage. Despite clinching a third-place spot in the SEA DPC Division I Tour 1, the team is strongly leading the region in its charge to win the first Dota 2 major of the year.
Talon Esports will be facing another European team later today, Team Entity. The games will be streamed live on Twitch via Epulze Gaming’s channel starting at 11:00 PM PHT.
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