SL i-League Invitational Season 3 SEA Qualifiers Recap
Mineski-Dota just secured their third straight LAN appearance this season after sweeping TNC Pro Team in the grand finals of SL i-League Invitational Season 3 SEA Qualifiers.
Mineski-Dota has never been this close to fulfilling their promise of coming back stronger. Crushing–not just defeating–the reigning Kings of SEA in a best-of-three grand final is clearly a different achievement despite their recent successes in both qualifiers of World Cyber Arena 2017 and PGL Open Bucharest.
Wow mineski so strong. But you all know what happens to a Phoenix right? It'll come back stronger.
— Theeban Siva (@1437_MT8) September 17, 2017
TNC Pro Team has been schooling Mineski-Dota in all of their meetings since 7.00. Before their match up at SL i-League Invitational Season 3 SEA Qualifiers, the guys clad in orange and black were holding an undefeated 6-0 series record against Mineski-Dota.
The last time these two teams met was at The International 2017 SEA Qualifiers where Mineski-Dota competed with CIS players Andrey “Mag~” Chipenko and Egor “.Ark” Zhabotinskii. If TNC never got their roster changed and the meta was barely tweaked, Mineski-Dota’s success can be pointed to their current roster
Although they are parading the same banner, a Mineski-Dota with iceiceice, Jabz, and NaNa is evidently different. It’s one of the most overlooked advantage of having roster changes; teams are now recquired to generate new strategies against Mineski-Dota because the old ones won’t obviously work.
The drafting phase against Mineski-Dota will never be the same because their current roster offers a different kind of versatility than they did last season. Having new players would likely equate to new heroes and new heroes means new strategies.
TNC, on the other hand, are kind of stuck with their old strategies centered around Tims’ rotations and Raven’s late game dominance. They tried to run a different strategy during the grand final’s second game when Raven, on his Anti-Mage, took mid with 1437’s Lich against Jabz’ Naga Siren and NaNa’s Mirana.
While Lich’s Frost Armor helped Anti-Mage to sustain Mirana’s aggression, it never helped him outfarm his counterpart. NaNa led Raven in last hits by 10 at the game’s first 10 minutes, delaying Anti-Mage’s Battle Fury to the 16th-minute mark of the game.
Raven’s loss at the middle lane can almost be shrugged off until Jabz built Radiance six minutes after Anti-Mage finished its Battle Fury. TNC failed to capitalize on their early game advantage as Naga Siren, with its Mirror Image and Radiance, was able to deter the lane pressure applied by SamH’s Nature’s Prophet.
With all lanes covered, Mineski-Dota was able to choke TNC to their base to limit Anti-Mage’s farming capabilities. Mineski-Dota proceeded to end their long-time drought against TNC after a successful Roshan attempt helped them to march down to their enemies’ base and force the gg out of them.
The next chapter for Mineski-Dota would be their performance at the international stages, but for TNC, things are not looking very good. Without the next big update, the reigning kings of SEA are less likely to exhibit the same dominance they did en route to The International 2017.
