TNC loses to LFY only to face OG next
Down one game after a hard-fought match, TNC Pro Team surprised the Dota 2 community with a Broodmother pick for Kuku earlier today in their series against LGD Gaming.ForeverYoung.
Broodmother is a hero we rarely see get a chance to see in a competitive play even when her last nerf was during the 6.86 update. Since then, every patch note for the spider saw her buffed, especially leading up to The International.
Aside from TNC, Team Liquid was the only team who ran a Broodmother strategy this TI. They are currently sporting a respectable 66.67% win rate with the hero in three games. Coincidentally, their only loss with the hero was handed to them by LGD Gaming, another Chinese team.
Something as simple as “Chinese Doto” could have easily answered why TNC lost with Broodmother. However, if we are going to dig slightly deeper into the history of these Chinese teams with Broodmother, we’ll find the first game of the Mars Dota 2 League 2017 grand finals where LGD Gaming won against LFY with Broodmother.
In that game, LFY also played Puck and Bristleback, just like in their match against TNC, yet they lost that time. So what happened to TNC?
Ahfu’s Kunkka happened.
If we’re going to compare the draft of LFY against LGD’s Broodmother and against TNC’s Broodmother, the main factor would be Ahfu’s Kunkka directly countering SamH’s Batrider. It’s not how Super’s Bristleback countered Kuku’s Broodmother, as the usual slew of online pundits have suggested, because the two never stayed in the same lane anyway.
The early phase of the game got SamH playing mid against Bristleback and Kuku playing safelane against Nature’s Prophet. Despite both of them being able to gather enough experience early, Batrider’s failure to punctuate Flaming Lasso ganks due to Kunkka’s X Marks The Spot significantly helped LFY avoid deaths and farm more. Catching Ahfu himself was also difficult with Monet’s Chronospheres in the way.
With LFY in no way behind, the infamous tower-breaking Arachnia didn’t have the necessary snowball momentum needed for her to swarm lanes.
While a 2-0 loss always delivers with sadness, there is still hope (or hype?) kindling in every Dota fan’s heart as thanks to this (predictable) loss of TNC against LFY, we will see a sequel of one of TNC’s most exciting matchups. It’s a TI6 rematch between Team OG and TNC!
