Vici Gaming Shatters T1’s Dreams of Making a Cinderella Story at TI10

Vici Gaming put together a couple of characteristically clean performances to kick out T1 and advance to the next round of the lower bracket of The International 10 (TI10). The last hope of Southeast Asia, T1, exits Dota's World Championships in 7th-8th place with prize money of $1,000,500. Although the series was competitive for the most part, Vici Gaming proved to be the better team on the day across multiple departments to win by a 2-1 score. T1 came out on top by winning the opening game, but Vici Gaming's Ren "old eLeVeN" Yangwei's performance was instrumental in Vici Gaming's reversal in the second and third games.

T1 vs Vici Gaming: Match Recap and Highlights

Recap

Game 1 saw Vici Gaming pick the first Omniknight of TI10. T1 stuck with familiar heroes and dominated the laning stage to build an early advantage. The team kept the pace up and was spiraling out of control when Vici Gaming started teamfighting really well. However, the lead was too huge to surpass and with Karl's Lina shooting Vici Gaming like a machine gun, T1 finally won the first game in 41 minutes.

Game 2 saw Vici Gaming grab Lina to give Ori a better mid lane matchup. In addition to his solid midlane output, his team also stood tall in the early laning phase. Since T1's draft was primarily focused on bursting enemy heroes, sustained damage was lacking. As the game progressed, Vici Gaming itemized accordingly and proved difficult to take down, ultimately winning in 37 minutes.

Game 3 was the least closely contested of the bunch, as Vici Gaming was strong across the board. Vengeful Spirit was drafted as the last pick for old eLeVeN in the offlane, and it proved to be quite decisive in the game's outcome. A majority of T1's heroes were countered by her abilities, and any fights the team chose to engage in went terribly wrong. A clinical performance by Vici Gaming helped them win in 28 minutes.

Highlights

Here are some highlights of the series.

Vici Gaming may not always look like an exciting team due to inconsistent play, but once it gets into its groove, the team is unstoppable. Going into this match against T1, it was expected to be close, but Vici Gaming made sure it won in the end. Next up, the Chinese team will compete against Invictus Gaming, a regional rival, in the lower bracket.

As many had predicted, T1 was going to be the underdog to watch out for, and while the team did deliver some amazing performances and showed mental resilience during times of difficulty, it was not enough to progress past a 7th-8th finish.

Overall, this is Southeast Asia's best performance since TI6, and so it is certainly a commendable result.