Western Europe’s DPC Regional is done and dusted, here’s how the final series went down.
The last two days allowed us to watch several interesting sections. The Western Europe Regional Finals kicked off with Team Liquid and OG. Although some people thought that OG would be able to defeat its opponents, TL managed to prevail. This pished the two times TI winners to the Lower Bracket.
After Lasse Aukusti “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen and the rest defeated OG, the second series was between Gladiators and Team Tundra. The latter is one of the most dangerous teams in the region, but it was not powerful enough to bring down the new powerhouse in Western Europe. Gladiators played two excellent games and ripped through the competition.
After winning against Team Tundra, Gladiators had to face their biggest challenge yet in the face of Team Liquid. As expected, TL had little to no problems and secured itself a sport for the Grand Final.
Meanwhile, OG defeated TT in R1 of the Lower Bracket after a really interesting three-game thriller. This allowed them to compete for the second sport in the final, but they had the uneasy task of defeating Gladiators. Sadly, this didn’t happen.
OG vs Gladiators
Despite the fact that almost every Dota 2 fan expected this game to be close, this was definitely not the case. Gladiators proved to the world that they’re the better team right now after defeating their opponents with relative ease.
Game One
Game one looked good for OG because they got several interesting heroes, such as Queen of Pain. In fact, the team even had the lead in terms of kills and net worth until the 10th minute. Sadly, they were unable to utilize their lead and allowed Gladiators to bounce back. The deadly IO and Storm Spirit combination proved once again that it is among the best in the current patch. After securing a couple of kills for its team, Storm Spirit became too dangerous to deal with. Even though OG had Shadow Shaman in its draft, the hero’s disables were not strong enough to shut down SS. A fast Roshan kill gave SS the Aegis, which was enough to secure Gladiators the lead.
Game Two
Following their dominant performance in game one, Gladiators also showed their prowess in the second game of the series. Despite OG’s solid start, the team’s draft was very risky because if they failed to utilize their hero’s potential, they had no chances against the deadly Tide-WK-QoP combo. Sadly for Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov and the rest of his team, OG’s Huskar and Clinkz were no match to Gladiators’ cores. Erik “tOfu” Engel and the rest of his team played well throughout the secured their team the second win. This allowed them to go up against Team Liquid in the Grand Finals.
As for OG, the team was eliminated in the LB Final. Even though this was not the result people expected, OG’s young squad proved that they have what it takes to become the best.
Grand Final- Liquid vs Gladiators
Game One
After Gladiator’s impressive victory against OG, it was time for the new team to take revenge on Team Liquid. Matumbaman and the rest managed to defeat their opponents in Rund 2, which gave them a spot for the final. Needless to say, Gladiators were eager to prove to their opponents that they could beat them.
Surprisingly, tofu and the rest managed to win the first game in the finals after picking an amazing draft. Gladiators decided to put Ember Spirit mid against QoP and used TA’s right-clicking power in the carry position. As expected, the laning stage was exciting because both teams had good heroes for early skirmishes. With that being said, Gladiators played better, which allowed them to gain a slight lead.
The bad news for Team Liquid was that the team had to do something in the mid game if it wanted to win. Sadly, they were unable to do that because Gladiators got a significant advantage once Ember and TA got a few items. Liquid tried to use tier Razor’s potential, but the hero did not have enough firepower to bring down Gladiators’ cores. After 31 minutes of action, the underdogs secured a lead in this series.
Game Two
Templar Assassin proved herself once again as one of the best heroes in the current match. Needless to say, Team Liquid didn’t want to face her again, so they decided to pick her. To make their draft even more powerful, the team picked QoP and Beastmaster, two heroes that are also among the best.
Gladiators tried to counter their opponents by getting Invoker, Timbersaw, and Luna. This late-game draft did pretty well early on, but Team Liquid definitely had an advantage. With that being said, both squads played defensively because they did not want to make any unnecessary mistakes.
Despite securing themselves a substantial advantage, a lousy mistake caused Liquid to lose its TA. This gave Gladiators the opportunity to push their opponents’ T3 towers and do a lot of damage. Fortunately, Liquid did not lose their rax, but they did not have any room for mistakes. It seems like the EU powerhouse has learned its lesson because it won several big team fights after that. This allowed them to equalize the series.
Game Three
Gladiators (a.k.a. Team Tickles) decided to pick IO and Storm Spirit, the combo that allowed them to win against OG. On the other hand, Team Liquid picked Luna and a Leshrac, a combo popular for doing incredible magical damage.
Both teams were unable to get a lead in the series until the mid-game arrived. Liquid was more active, but Gladiators’ roster was challenging to bring down. With that being said, Samuel “Boxi” Svahn managed to get an Ultra Kill around the 15th-minute mark, which gave Team Liquid a slight edge over its opponents. Sadly, things quickly changed because Gladiators managed to kill Roshan and gave their Storm Spirit the Aegis.
The Aegis allowed SS and the rest of the Gladiators to be a lot more aggressive and secure tons of kills. Team Liquid tried to bounce back, but Storm was just too hard to deal with. Sadly, Team Liquid had no other option but to use the GG call.
Game Four
The fourth game of the series between the two powerhouses was as fun to watch as the previous ones. After dominating in game two with Storm and IO, Gladiators decided to follow the saying “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”. Consequently, they’ve picked a similar draft to the one they’ve used in the second game.
Despite the game’s slow start, Gladiators slowly but steadily started gaining a significant advantage. Similar to game three, Storm Spirit was able to secure a couple of kills, which allowed the hero to snowball. OG was able to keep up with its opponents, but a bad team fight 17 minutes into the game gave Gladiators a solid lead.
Despite having TA and Ember, Team Liquid was unable to win a team fight against the Gladiators’ deadly draft. Storm Spirit had almost double the net worth of Liquid’s cores, which allowed his team to secure two lanes of rax. Sadly for MATUMBAMAN and Co., Team Liquid failed to win the first Regional Finals.
