Mineski and TNC end Team Secret’s Rampage at TI9

Cover Courtesy: PGL

Team Secret looked unbeatable on the first two days of The International 2019. They won 8 games in a row and were looking like the strongest team at this tournament. Not many predicted that Mineski or TNC Predator will be able to take a game off Team Secret, but the Filipino teams proved the doubters wrong, winning 1 game each.

Team Secret vs TNC Predator

It was clear that Team Secret began using some experimental lineups for this series. They picked up a Jakiro for Midone and a Support Invoker for Yapzor and decimated TNC Predator with it. With a scoreline of 32-12, Team Secret eased past TNC in Game 1 to extend their winstreak to 9 games.

TNC Predator were not rattled. Kuku had his best game of this tournament on Batrider, constantly finding pick offs all across the map making space for Armel and Gabbi to farm up a storm. Midone was completely shut down. But Nisha’s Sniper was single-handedly holding the Team Secret base in the late-game and managed to wipe TNC.

It was at this point, Heen’s influence over TNC Predator was clearly felt at this point. The older TNC would have crumbled under this pressure. But this time around, they made some fantastic calls, breaking the Secret base and handing them their first defeat in this tournament.

Team Secret vs Mineski

Once again, Team Secret opened up the series by destroying their opponents, this time, under 20 minutes. Mineski simply had no answer for Team Secret’s aggression and conceded the opening game 1-23.

Game 2 however, was a different story. Mineski decided to take a page out of Team Secret’s playbook and drafted a support Invoker for themselves. Bimbo played the hero to perfection, setting up kills all over the map for Moon and Gabbi and restricted Team Secret’s play-making potential. Mineski took control of the majority of the map.

As a result, Team Secret were simply not able to take advantage of their farmed Alchemist and missed out on their win-condition. Nikobaby became too strong for them to handle and hence they conceded their 2nd loss of the day.

As a result of these victories, Both teams have still managed to hold on to their upper bracket slots in Group A by a whisker, with Alliance and Newbee hot on their heels.

With the Group Stages finally winding down to a close, we’ll have a clearer picture of the playoff brackets by the end of the day. Stay tuned to AFK Gaming for further updates.