Team Secret is your first Grand finalist in The Leipzig Major

January 25, 2020 Crisanto Baracao

DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major is approaching the finish line, four teams are still standing in the tournament, and Team Secret are one series away from the coveted trophy.

Team Secret are one of the few teams that chose to take an extended break after TI9 and passed on the Chengdu Major back in November. Leipzig is their first pit stop in the current Dota Pro Circuit, and they look ready to make the most out of their first appearance with the revamped roster. The upper bracket finals of the Leipzig Major featured the top two teams of Group C, Vici Gaming and Team Secret.

Unlike the European squad, VG are already at their second Major appearance. They came to Leipzig with a runner-up spot at the previous Major and definitely regarded as one of the main favorites. While so far in the tournament VG were absolutely dominant, today Secret cut through China’s best team of the moment with a clean 2-0.

Game one snowballed out of control for VG, as they were playing into a mid Arc Warden and a safe lane Monkey King, pretty much impossible to be caught on the wrong foot in the laning stage. Secret’s perfect early game was secured by the duo supports Lich – Earthshaker, while VG were struggling to find a better way to position their heroes right from the get go. They started with an aggressive trilane, Drow-Treant Protector- Doom, but they were forced to rotate their heroes when Secret sent Zai in the safe lane on Clockwerk. Nothing went VG’s way in game one, and heading into the second game they decided to ban the Arc Warden and the Earthshaker.

VG went with the powerful Io-Gyro combo hoping to even the series, but Secret had a lot of synergy between their heroes, with a mid-lane Magnus, a safe lane Faceless Void and Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg on Pangolier. However, the laning stage went disastrous for Secret. They lost all three lanes and put all their efforts into securing Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen time to farm. “We understood that we can’t deal with the Timbersaw so early,” said Zai in the post-match interview, explaining that their plan was to stall the game waiting for the right moment to mount a comeback. At the same time, VG didn’t pressure them when they could have and their indecision came back to haunt them.

Vici Gaming still have a shot at making it back into the grand finals., They will return to the Leipziger Messe stage tomorrow, January 26 for the lower bracket finals where they will play against the winner between Evil Geniuses vs Alliance.

Souce:vpesport