PH-Based TNC Defeats Vici Gaming to Win Chengdu Dota 2 Major
Fresh off their 2-0 sweep of Invictus Gaming in the lower bracket finals, TNC Predator went on to defeat Vici Gaming 3-1 in the grand finals of the MDL Chengdu Major.
The midlane matchup between Armel Paul Tabios’ Outworld Devourer and Zeng “Ori” Jiaoyang’s Templar Assassin may have ended on roughly even terms but the rest of Ori’s team looked poised to take down TNC’s Tier 1 middle tower early into game 1. Vici, however, botched their tower dive on two occasions, giving TNC the opportunity to counter initiate and turn the tides of the fight to their favor. TNC continued to pile up the pressure, and once Kim “Gabbi” Villafuerte’s blink dagger-equipped Chaos Knight started bursting down Vici heroes in front of the Dire Ancient, the Chinese side was forced to call it a game after 32 minutes.
Vici desperately wanted to even up the tie, picking Phantom Assassin for Zhang “Eurus” Chengjun to go against the infamous Morph-Shaker combo. TNC retaliated by last picking Viper for Armel, whose passive-breaking Nethertoxin proved to be instrumental in disrupting Vici’s gameplan. This led to the PA going into fights at risk of losing her signature evasion, significantly dampening Vici Gaming teamfight prowess. TNC would eventually take middle barracks and game 2 shortly after the half-hour mark, one victory away from wrapping up the series and taking the championship.
Despite being 2-0 down in front of their home crowd, Vici Gaming refused to go down without a fight and drafted a fast-paced lineup to counter TNC’s slow-farming, Alchemist-centered strategy. The SEA team’s 4-protect-1 tactic would fail spectacularly this around as their heroes died one after another in a vain attempt to create space for Armel’s Alchemist to farm. Xiong “Pyw” Jiahan’s position 4 Pangolier came up big against a TNC draft that greatly relied on right clicks for damage output. Gabbi was the sole TNC player to record kills in the match that saw Vici outscore TNC 39 to 13 and take game 3.
TNC opened up their draft with a meta Naga Siren-Disruptor duo and raised numerous eyebrows by picking the Morph-Shaker combo in the second phase. Captain Park “March” Tae-won topped off the peculiar draft with a midlane Bristleback for Armel. Vici Gaming responded with a position 1 Leshrac, midlane Templar Assassin, an offlane Puck for Zhou “Yang” Haiyang, and a Lion-Omniknight support duo.
TNC did a good job at keeping their towers up until Gabbi’s Morphing farmed up its Aghanim’s Scepter. The “broken” Morph-Shaker combo initially overwhelmed Vici but they made sure Gabbi paid the price whenever he dove too far into their ranks. The Chinese side started to spiral out of control to build up a massive 20k networth lead at the latter stages of the match, but TNC held on as the Gabbi’s Morphling and Armel’s Bristleback became virtually unkillable to spearhead their comeback. They would go on to complete the comeback after 63 minutes to win the series 3-1.
This victory marks the first time TNC has won a major. They secure the $300,000 grand prize and 4,850 DPC points, effectively cementing their slot in next year’s The International.
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