This year’s Mars Dota 2 League has come to an epic conclusion, with sister teams LGD and LGD:FY facing off in the Grand Finals.
The tournament was full of surprises and offered some insight into the Chinese meta in the run-up to the International. As one of the last major professional competitions before TI 7 begins, it gave us a look at the strategies the top teams may favour, along with the heroes and builds. MDL 2017 also highlighted the importance of the draft – and the understanding of the meta which underpins it.
The two teams had already faced each other on no fewer than three occasions in the qualifiers and the tournament itself. LGD:FY had won all but one of these match-ups, but in the one that really mattered – their fourth meeting in the Grand Finals – it was LGD who narrowly prevailed.
The Grand Finals
The first game of the Grand Finals began with LGD running a high-pressure line-up with Shadow Shaman, Broodmother and Queen of Pain, played by Yao, eLeVeN and Maybe respectively. These cunning counter-picks hamstrung LGD:FY’s group push strategy, denying Super’s Bristleback and Monet’s Drow Ranger the chance to flex their muscles.
LGD secured a solid advantage early on, although their overly-cautious play allowed LGD:FY to grab a Roshan kill on the 30 minute mark. LGD:FY then took the offensive, using the Aegis on Bristleback to launch a counter-push, but LGD’s disciplined play ensured they were prepared, wiping out the enemy team and pushing on to a decisive victory.
The second match gave LGD:FY the first pick, with a few of the top Chinese meta heroes seeing an early ban from both sides – namely Chaos Knight, Kunkka and Shadow Shaman. LGD:FY seemed to place their hopes in Ahfu’s Night Stalker for this match, hoping his strong early game presence could grant them a quick advantage from which they could cruise to the win.
However, LGD took a risk, opting for a more unpredictable combo-heavy team, making significant use of the ultimates of Enigma, Ancient Apparition, Death Prophet and Faceless Void to seize kills and objectives. With LGD:FY’s line-up unable to face LGD in team fights, or to split-push effectively, they were defeated tidily by LGD’s disciplined play. This gave LGD a 2-0 lead, meaning they only needed to win one more game to take the title.
With their backs against the wall, LGD:FY had to mix things up. They did this through an unexpected Pugna pick by Super after two of his preferred heroes had been banned. This was combined with the pushing of the midlane in conjunction with an aggressive line-up which included the Chinese favourite Chaos Knight. This strategy managed to throw a spanner into Yao’s plans as Shadow Shaman, but it wasn’t flawless as Ame was still able to grab an Aegis for his Troll Warlord as well as the Mask of Madness.
However, with an uncharacteristic lack of caution by LGD, Troll was caught farming the ancients only minutes later, losing the advantages he’d worked his way up to so far. LGD simply couldn’t stop LGD:FY’s pushes after they had seized the initiative here, yielding the game soon afterwards.
Going into the fourth encounter, both teams slowed down their strategies and focused more on the late-game victory rather than aggressive pushes. However, the early game would help to decide which team met their endgame goals first and Super’s Dragon Knight made sure it was LGD:FY. The Dragon Knight was simply too much for LGD to work around, even though their heroes were resilient enough to weather LGD:FY’s ultimates. After a long drawn-out battle of close to an hour, LGD:FY launched a decisive push to victory, forcing a fifth and deciding game.
The final match saw a daring ruse by LGD, who managed to fool LGD:FY into drafting against another late game strategy. In fact, LGD were extremely efficient and aggressive, putting their sister side under high pressure from the very start. Their greedy hero picks allowed them to get powerful items early, with Ame’s Anti-Mage completing his build in just over ten minutes.
So badly out-drafted, LGD:FY had no hope of victory once LGD had seized the early game advantage and they conceded the game inside 30 minutes, making LGD this year’s MDL champions.
Conclusion
Despite their defeats to LGD:FY in previous matches, LGD were able to win the Grand Finals due to some highly ingenious draft strategies, although the younger team did manage a few of their own. The match gave a glimpse of the more typically aggressive, push-heavy Chinese meta, thanks to heroes like Chaos Knight, Kunkka and Shadow Shaman. After LGD’s strong performance many think they’ll go on to do great things at TI 7 and after coming out ahead of other International favourites here, it’s not hard to see why.
