Newbee Strikes Team Liquid Back, Wins ESL One Genting Minor

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M-King

The curse has been broken

Banner and thumbnail images © ESL One

Newbee was finally able to exact their redemption from the sweeping they suffered last The International as they beat Team Liquid, 3-2, in the grand finals of the ESL One Genting 2018, the eighth Minor tournament of the Dota Pro Circuit.

© ESL One

Despite Newbee’s consistent dominance throughout the competition, which included their victory against current Dota Pro Circuit leader Team Secret, Chinese powerhouse still entered the grand finals without the odds of winning in their favor. This was primarily due to their match history with their co-grand finalist—a rather dejected 0% win rate in seven games which started during the 2016 Epicenter Grand Finals.

What Newbee showed in the grand finals against the defending grand champions, however, were surprisingly inaccurate from any existing data. They opened the best-of-five series with a commanding win thanks to Sccc’s 18/3/9 Outworld Devourer who rallied back from the game after getting picked off twice by Miracle’s Shadow Fiend in the laning phase.

With momentum on their side, Newbee was able to dictate the phase of the second game by winning all their lanes. It almost looked like Newbee got their enemies on the rope until Miracle’s Terrorblade went online with a timely Blink Dagger pick up. The Chinese squad failed to contain the snowballing Team Liquid, forcing them to tap out at 38 minutes.

Both teams then proceeded to trade wins, pushing the series to its full extent. In the final showdown, Newbee opted to draft their signature Naga and Disruptor for their support duo, Kaka and Faith, respectively. Miracle’s Tinker pick, however, got the panel siding with Team Liquid as it directly countered the right-click heavy line-up of Newbee in the form of Sccc’s Outworld Devourer and Moogy’s Ursa.

This was when Newbee showed how they are no longer the same squad who got swept five months ago in The International 2017 grand finals as they executed their team fights flawlessly despite the drafting disadvantage. The Tinker was proven to be a non-factor despite nailing the game-high 28.2k damage as Moogy’s Ursa proceeded to notch an 18/2/7 KDA. After 36 minutes into the last game, Newbee destroyed Team Liquid’s Ancient and walked away with $160,000 and 200 Dota Pro Circuit points.

Aside from having themselves redeemed at Genting, Newbee also celebrated the 500th day of their Dota 2 line-up. Moogy, Sccc, Kpii, Kaka, and Faith, who have been together since September 15, 2016, were able to achieve 281 wins in 443 matches together under Newbee’s banner.

Newbee remains at the top four of the Dota Pro Circuit leaderboards but was able to close Virtus.pro’s lead by 600 points.

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