Dota 2‘s DreamLeague season 19 tournament just keeps on giving us more highlights. We are currently in the last few days of the tournament, ending April 23, and Team Liquid seems to be in the running for the top team so far. That hardly comes as a surprise to viewers as Liquid seems to be in prime form. Their star midlaner in particular, Michal “Nisha” Jankowski can’t stop making impressive plays in every match.
After Mikey’s impressive aegis steal on April 17, it seems Nisha wanted to top that. In Liquid’s first series match against beastcoast, things were looking grim for the South American team. To keep their mid-game momentum going, beastcoast tried to sneak in a quick Roshan kill for the aegis. Sensing something was afoot, Nisha’s Pangolier broke into a Rolling Thunder.
Chaos ensued as Nisha’s Pangolier jumps into the Roshan pit a couple of seconds before the last hit on Roshan. As soon as Hector “K1” Asto’s Juggernaut kills Roshan, he gets knocked back by the Rolling Thunder and Nisha immediately snatches the aegis. To add insult to injury, beastcoast gained nothing out of it as Nisha teleported back to base in the face of their players.
Beastcoast could do nothing to stop this play since Nisha’s Pangolier was still in the midst of Rolling Thunder, making him spell immune and impervious to melee heroes such as Juggernaut. This play proved to be costly for beastcoast as it slowed them down considerably.
The South American team put up a great fight after this point though, with Gonzalo “DarkMago” Herrera’s Tiny even picking up two Divine Rapiers to counteract Liquid’s constant barrage of aggression. That play worked for a while, but after the Rapiers dropped, beastcoast’s defeat soon followed.
The loss in the first game led to a quick loss in the second game, leading to a series loss for beastcoast against Team Liquid, propelling the latter team up through the standings yet again. As impressive as their series win was, players and streamers seem to be talking more about the young Polish prodigy’s fantastic play yet again.
While these plays highlight Nisha as a top-tier world-class player, it also shows how powerful of a hero Pangolier has been in the right hands. With two back-to-back aegis steals in two consecutive days, maybe it’s time for Valve to address the hero. With the leaks of the new patch dropping in the next couple of days, maybe the hero will get some well-deserved nerfs.
