*Cover image source: @Fnatic Dota
Fnatic qualified for their second GESC event, GESC: Thailand for DPC 2017-18 taking down rivals, TNC Pro Team 3-1 in the grand finals. Despite TNC’s recent success at the Dota 2 Asian Championships, where they took down big names like Liquid, they were unable to beat Fnatic.
This will be Fnatic’s 10 DPC event for the season and after experimenting with Adam at Starladder, they seem to have gone back to using pieliedie once again. Not the ideal scenario for TNC though, who have only made it to 4 DPC events this season and sit with roughly half the DPC points of Fnatic.
Both teams started out directly in the semi-finals of the qualifiers and qualified with straight 2-0’s over their opponents to make it to the finals. In game 1, TNC had no answer to Fnatic’s tanky tri core of CK, DK and Beastmaster and Raven’s decision to not go Battlefury on his PA meant that his team had little damage to bring down EE’s illusions. Despite a relatively, even early and mid game, Fnatic played it patiently winning the game off of a single big teamfight win.
In game 2, Raven’s signature Lycan helped his team secure objectives and kept the farm up. While Fnatic had the potential to take teamfights with a Puck, Warlock and Clockwerk, they never managed to get a dream initiation as TNC weren’t ready to group up focusing instead on getting key items for their cores. A key Roshan kill for TNC allowed them to take the fight to TNC and Armel did way too much damage before sacrificing his Aegis for all 5 enemy heroes as TNC forced out the gg at around the 40-minute mark.
In game 3, TNC drafted a Tiny and a Batrider, two heroes who depended on their initiation to win fights. However, this was very smartly countered by Fnatic’s picks, a PL for Envy and a Dark Seer to counter initiate for Universe. As expected, TNC’s lineup could only perform when they were ahead and Fnatic never allowed them the luxury, pulling out ahead in the series once again with a 30-minute gg.
In the final game, TNC looked to borrow a page out of Fnatic’s book with a DS pick for Sam H, but the hero, missed his item timings after being put in a difficult lane, against Envy’s LD. Fnatic started pulling ahead in the mid game with their heroes being more effective at farming than TNC. Envy went for a very safe build, focusing on his bear for the most part, eventually picking up an Aghs. TNC kept falling further and further behind and had to make uneven trades to get any kills in the teamfights. This only lasted for a bit as Fnatic were quick to convert their wins into objectives and forced the gg at the 50 minute mark.
With this, Fnatic take the series 3-1 and qualify for the main event in Thailand. The current GESC lineup is as follows:
Team Secret (Direct invite)
Evil Geniuses (Direct invite)
VG.J Storm (NA Quals)
Fnatic (SEA Quals)
Vega Squadron (CIS Quals)
SG e-Sports (SA Quals)
TBD (China Quals)
TBD (EU Quals)
