OG have had some shaky games at ESL One Los Angeles Online. But against two strong drafts from Cyber Legacy, the Dota 2 team managed to overcome some big disadvantages and secure a 2-0 series sweep today.
Neither game was pretty and CL pushed OG to the limit multiple times, but the experience and talent of the European roster ended up being enough to help them out of a tight spot.
Game one saw the perfect opportunity for CL to take an early win. They drafted a last pick Bristleback against three melee heroes on OG’s side. Only SumaiL’s Monkey King really had a chance to stop it, but several missed engagements led to OG scaling faster than CL could keep up.
The game was close for more than 20 minutes. But because CL had no way of opening up or picking off heroes without the use of Tidehunter’s Ravage or successfully ganking, OG were safe in every lane during the mid game.
CL’s lack of approach and late-game sustain really did them in, though. OG became a teamfighting force and could melt their supports with one chain stun confirm. Getting a kill on CL’s Troll Warlord was the opening OG needed to push the high ground and end game one after dominating the final five minutes.
Game two saw CL pivot away from their tanky draft and choose heroes more situated for rushing into battle, namely a Death Prophet and Phantom Lancer backed up by Snapfire’s ability to push others forward. OG matched it with an odd draft that put N0tail on a position five Beastmaster and ended up relying heavily on SumaiL’s core Weaver.
OG overextended several times, which led to Nikita “Palantimos” Grinkevich becoming a massive threat on Phantom Lancer and rushing down multiple heroes at once with no fear of being killed. He ended up going 14/3/11 and dealing 41,000 damage.
But a team is only as strong as its weakest link. And for CL, that was Sergey “HappyDyurara” Horonzhiy’s Shadow Demon, who had little impact on the overall game and was a big reason OG stayed in the match early.
OG’s core heroes were able to sustain some big early losses and secure multiple kills right when they needed them. Ceb’s Batrider was excellent at making space for his team and SumaiL was able to lock down the Phantom Lancer three times.
And once the PL was taken care of, OG had their opening. And each time, it spelled bad news for CL as the net worth swung in the EU team’s favor. CL tried to push the high ground and got greedy, letting OG rush in for some easy revenge kills and then reverse push.
After backing out, and even without N0tail for an extended period of time, OG were able to kill the Troll Warlord once more and began hunting the Phantom Lancer. When the PL ran past the Roshan pit, the commentators dubbed the chase “Saving Private Palantimos,” which ended in failure since he was killed and OG took the throne.
OG are only one game behind Virtus Pro for the top seed in Group A and both teams play each other on April 12. That series will likely decide the top seed for the pool if both teams keep playing at a high level to close out the group stage.
