Cover-Credits:
In the Western Europe (WEU) Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2021-22 Tour 3: Division 1, Team Secret's Michał "Nisha" Jankowski provided a masterful performance to help the team defeat Gaimin Gladiators 2-1. The series began with a big defeat for Secret when it lost the first game handily. It was looking like the second game would go the same route as the first one until Secret used clutch teamfighting and map movements to turn things around. With an 11-0-21 KDA on Zeus, Nisha played a significant role in this win. Nisha’s performance in the third game was even better, with a 21-0-7 KDA on Timbersaw, in which he moved around the map with aplomb and found one enemy pickoff after another.
Team Secret vs Gaimin Gladiators: Match recap and highlights
Recap
In game 1, Secret chose for Crystallis his signature Huskar. At the same time, Nisha was on a mid Dragon Knight, while iceiceice was on an offlane Beastmaster, signalling that the squad intended to play a faster-paced style. Gladiators, on the other hand, played the lanes flawlessly, particularly punishing iceiceice's lane. Secret's draft struggled to play from behind, whilst Gladiators' mobile draft of Storm Spirit, Nightstalker, Io, and Dawnbreaker continued to pile up kills and claim the first game victory in just 29 minutes.
In game 2, Gladiators demonstrated its top-tier laning abilities once more, storming to an 8k advantage at 20 minutes. When it appeared that Secret would be the victim of a 2-0 stomp, a vital teamfight win turned things around for it. Nisha's performance on mid Zeus was a highlight of Secret's comeback in this game. Gladiators was able to get some return kills, but Crystallis' Weaver and iceiceice's Timbersaw farmed their way back into the game, allowing their side to win in 48 minutes.
In game 3, Nisha stole the spotlight. Playing the mid Timbersaw, he had a strong laning stage in terms of farm and quickly rose to the top of the networth table. While he was still farming the map as effectively as he could, he was also making the best plays anybody could make to locate opponent kills. He was making a ton of space for his teammates, and as a result of this pressure, Gladiators was forced to split push and cut waves. While it did so efficiently for a long time, even taking a networth advantage for the majority of the duration, it was unable to teamfight and lost the game in 45 minutes.
Highlights
Here are some highlights of the series.
After winning this series, Secret remains strongly in the hunt for one of the four spots in the PGL Arlington Major. As of now, it has a 3-3 victory-loss record, and a win in its final series is likely to guarantee a Major slot. Although Yazied "YapzOr" Jaradat has been absent for most of the season, his team has still put up competitive results with the new position four Baqyt "Zayac" Emiljanov.
Gladiators continues to struggle in this league. The squad is almost guaranteed a spot in The International 11, but with a 2-4 W-L record so far in Tour 3, it will not want to be dropped to Division 2.
Secret’s final series will take place against goonsquad while Gladiators plays against Tundra Esports on 12th July.
