Cover-Credits:
A team will not often win an international competition wearing a stand-in in Dota 2. However, PSG.LGD is in a class of its own at the moment as it has played superlative Dota 2 with its coach, Zhang "xiao8" Ning, as a stand-in to emerge as the champions of the Sapphire OGA Dota PIT Invitational. PSG.LGD engaged with Team Spirit in the grand final and despite losing the first game pretty ruthlessly, the team used a masterful style of Dota 2 to dominate the opponents in the next three games and win 3-1. The team's optimal strategy was to play around its carry, Wang "Ame" Chunyu, who went berserk in the games that they won, scoring a combined KDA of 39-2-19.
PSG.LGD vs Team Spirit: Match Recap and Highlights
Recap
In Game 1, the laning phase was relatively quiet, but when the clock passed 20 minutes, Team Spirit started pushing harder. Ame’s Slark was aided by an Io but Team Spirit was on point with its target prioritization and did not let the enemies play an elusive style of teamfighting. As a result of a comprehensive performance, the EEU squad won in 32 minutes.
Game 2 was a meticulous demonstration of Dota 2 gameplay from PSG.LGD as they focused on each objective in turn. They achieved each one of them with ease as they effortlessly switched from towers to fights to Roshan. Ame shone on his safelane Sven as PSG.LGD accomplished a convincing win in 37 minutes.
In Game 3, Team Spirit drafted two defensive support heroes, Omniknight and Shadow Demon, to play around its safelane Gyrocpoter. Team Spirit lacked pickoff and initiation, however. Storm Spirit failed to get going early in the midlane, giving PSG.LGD a sizable advantage. Spirit showed some signs of hope in a couple of teamfights, but they could not hold their own and lost in 40 minutes.
In Game 4, the strategy for Team Spirit was to set TORONTOKYO as the win condition by putting him on a mid Templar Assassin while playing with a safelane Ember Spirit. PSG.LGD, however, was impeccable in the laning phase and established an early lead. Team Spirit simply wasn't able to fight the enemies head on, so they had to split push. The strategy did not last long as PSG.LGD ended the game in 42 minutes.
Highlights
Here are some highlights of the series.
Even though he has stopped playing competitive Dota 2 and is 32 years old, Xiao8, the Director, proved he still has it in him to outplay the best players on the planet currently. While he didn't stomp his opponents in the midlane in many matchups, he played his roles to very high standards if the whole game is considered. In this Sapphire OGA Dota PIT Invitational, Ame also lived up to the team's expectations and played like a beast. The other three members - Zhang "Faith_bian" Ruida, Zhao "XinQ" Zixing, and y` - were as reliable as ever.
After Cheng "NothingToSay" Jin Xiang is back on the squad, it will be really interesting to see how PSG.LGD does at TI10.
Although Team Spirit lost the grand final, their heroic run in the lower bracket should not be overshadowed. Having lost to T1 in the first round, they then defeated team Fnatic, T1, and Tundra Esports in the lower bracket to advance to the finals. In the last three of these four series, Team Spirit - which had so far looked decent - developed their game to another level.
Even though Team Spirit could not tear down the PSG.LGD wall in the final, they would still be pleased with what they have accomplished in this tournament. Now that TI10 is approaching, all teams watching this tournament will be intensely wary of them.
The Sapphire OGA Dota PIT Invitational might just have been the last tournament before TI10 where we witnessed all these teams. They will now head into a monthlong break along with other TI10 competitors before we witness these best teams from all over the world fighting for supremacy on the biggest stage - TI10. TI10 will take place at the Arena Nationala Stadium in Bucharest, Romania from 7th-17th Oct 2021.
