Kiev Major - Main Event: Liquid vs Newbee, Game 1

Day 1 of the main event at the Kiev Major sees Team Liquid and Newbee playing against each other. Both teams went 2-2 in the group stages, with Liquid winning 6 and losing 4 (1:2 Thunderbirds, 2:0 SG e-sports, 1:2 Digital Chaos, 2:0 Faceless), and Newbee winning 4 and losing 5 (0:2 Digital Chaos, 2:1 mousesports, 0:2 EG, 2:0 Team Random).

The main event is a best of three and this is game 1.

Drafting Phase

Newbee bans Io.

Liquid bans Legion Commander.
Newbee bans Nature's Prophet.

Liquid bans Vengeful Spirit.

With the first two bans from Newbee being Io and NP, it seems like Newbee are concerned about having to deal with split pushing as well as the global ganking capabilities of those two heroes. Liquid's first two bans LC and VS don't give too much away. VS is a strong support for disrupting team fights. She can swap out a friendly hero to save them from being ganged up on, but she's also great for swapping in an enemy carry, so that the team can burst them down while their allies are out of position. Her short cooldown stun, and damage increase aura also make her great for ganking and helping push lanes. 

Newbee picks Crystal Maiden.

Liquid picks Treant Protector and Lion.

Newbee picks Nyx Assassin.

First pick Crystal Maiden seems fairly standard. She's a strong support hero that works well with a wide variety of other heroes, so it doesn't really limit further picks. Newbee's second pick, Nyx, is good for keeping the enemy on their toes as the weaker heroes have to watch out for being picked off by Vendetta. Just by being in the game, he forces the enemy support heroes to have to invest gold into sentry wards and dust just to avoid surprises.

Liquid also starts with picking supports to hide what their strategy is, picking up Tree and Lion. Tree is great for the laning phase, with his Nature's Guise stun harass, as well as living armour, which is a global heal + added armour. Lion has two good disables and a strong nuke. 

It seems both Newbee and Liquid are content picking supports / roamers first.

Liquid bans Sand King.

Newbee bans Naga.

Liquid bans Terrorblade.

Newbee bans Lycan.

Newbee's third and fourth bans seem to again show that they're worried about the split push. Naga's net also goes through magic immunity, so they may be concerned about picking a carry who may be vulnerable without being able to rely on fighting with BKB.

Liquid's bans, Sand King and TB seem to indicate that they're a bit concerned about big team fights especially with the AoE damage from both CM and SK's ultimates, but also TB is a strong pushing hero.

Liquid picks Spectre.

Newbee picks Juggernaut.

Liquid picks Doom.

Newbee picks Shadow Fiend.

The Spectre pick shows that Liquid wants the game to go late, which explains the TB ban, but Newbee follows that with a Juggernaut pick. Whether they had intended to pick Jugg anyway is uncertain. He works really well with CM as a laning partner, as her aura keeps his mana up giving him more spins and healing wards, her frost nova and frostbite are scary when combined with his spin, and his healing wards really help push lanes, which would be good for trying to end the game before Spectre gets strong enough to win.

Liquid responds with a Doom pick. Doom's ultimate goes through magic immunity, which is great for removing a hero from a team fight. Since it goes through Jugg's spin, it means he isn't able to rely on being able to spin and teleport back to safety. 

Newbee's fourth pick is Shadow Fiend, one of Sccc's most played heroes, and a strong mid laner. He is quick to build up damage with his Necromastery souls, making him a scary early-game pushing hero, and for a damage dealer, he's fairly tanky. His Shadow Raze also means he makes short work of creep waves, another bonus for pushing.

After the second round of picks, Newbee has their safe-lane core and their mid-laner. Liquid has their safe-lane core and probably offlaner.

Liquid bans Keeper of the Light.

Newbee bans Templar Assassin.

Liquid's KotL ban is good for both Spectre and Doom as they both have expensive spells with a small mana pool and mana leak hurts. Plus, once KotL gets Aghs, his illuminate heal also helps push lanes by clearing waves and healing creeps and heroes during the day. KotL also tends to go for Aghs, and if he gets gem, too, he is able to spot Tree hiding around, meaning Treant isn't able to provide vision by skulking around in the trees.

Newbee knows Liquid needs a mid, and bans one of Miracle-'s stronger heroes, and also someone they will struggle to burst down, as they don't have an easy way to remove refraction charges (the best being CM's frostbite), and TA can tank a few of Jugg's omnislashes and Nyx's vendetta.

Newbee picks Omniknight.

Liquid picks Tinker.

Omniknight is a strong pick for Newbee, and maybe they were inspired by how well he worked as an offlaner in the IG v mousesports game. He'll be up against Spectre with potentially Tree and Lion zoning him out, but with Repel and Purification, he should survive any gank attempts. His repel will save someone from Lion's disables / nuke, and of course, Guardian Angel makes it difficult for Liquid to right-click the team down.

Liquid's Tinker pick is great for delaying the game, as it is very hard to push into multiple waves of March of the Machines. And he can also be a nuisance around the map once he gets Boots of Travel, pushing out lanes and forcing the other team to deal with him. Unfortunately, it is a bit dangerous for him, as he can get stunned by Nyx's Carapace when he's using March of the Machines.

Radiant - Team Liquid

Kuro "KuroKy" Salehi Takhasomi - Treant Protector

Ivan "MinD_ContRoL" Borislavov - Doom

Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi - Tinker

Maroun "GH" Merhej - Lion

Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen - Spectre

Dire - Newbee

Zeng "Faith" Hongda - Crystal Maiden
Song "Sccc" Chun - Shadow Fiend
Xu "uuu9" Han - Juggernaut
Damien "kphoenii" (kpii) Chok - Omniknight
Hu "kaka" Liangzhi - Nyx Assassin

Pre-Game

Newbee smoke up and Jugg teleports to the top tier 1 tower holding an obs ward and places it on the ward spot overlooking the Radiant tier 1 tower. Doom teleports to the Radiant secret shop shrine and drops an obs ward overlooking the Dire jungle bounty rune as well as top river. SF drops a ward in mid-lane on the Radiant side, giving top rune vision.

Omni casually walks into the Radiant jungle, scouting out who is at the bounty rune (Spectre and Lion - Tree remains hidden from view) and gets chased off by Lion.

Tree and Lion head up towards the Dire secret shop rune and take a few hits from Omni and SF, but a well-timed Earth Spike from Lion allows Tree to grab the bounty rune. However, Jugg, CM and Nyx have gone on a journey of their own and picked up the Radiant secret shop bounty rune. Fortunately, Doom's obs ward let him see this, so he walked around to grab the Dire jungle bounty rune. Spectre manages to pick up the Radiant jungle bounty rune with ease. Meanwhile, Tinker is blocking the mid lane creeps.

SF also ends up taking quite a bit of damage and has to eat one of his shared tangos and get a heal from Omniknight who uses a tango.

Bounty runes - Radiant 3: Spectre, Treant, Doom, Dire 1: Juggernaut

Laning Phase

Doom is alone in top lane, against CM and Jugg.

Omni is up against Spectre in bot lane.

SF is against Tinker, but Nyx is hanging around harassing Tinker so that SF can get some early souls. Nyx skilled Mana Burn first to start eating away at Tinker's mana so that he isn't able to keep spamming his Laser (which gives 100% miss chance) to stop SF from getting last hits.

Lion and Tree aren't happy with this, and head straight for mid lane. Lion gets a stun off on SF and Tree casts leech seed to slow him. SF manages to make it to the shrine and survive the gank, but Lion continues to chase him away so he doesn't even get to hang around for the full duration of the heal. SF ends up walking all the way back to base so Nyx hangs around in mid to soak up XP and continue burning Tinker's mana.

Doom is happily devouring away at the jungle creeps, having picked up a Wildkin which gives him 3 extra armour. Spectre loses a few creeps to denies from Omni so Lion and Tree begin the trek down to spook him off. Spectre has picked up an Orb of Venom and the three of them chip away at Omni's HP, but it isn't enough to finish him off before he retreats to the safety of the tower, and he doesn't even need to pop a Purification. But the Radiant creep wave pushes and with a Spectral Dagger, the three of them chase Omni behind the Dire tier 1 tower, with Lion and Tree keeping him out of XP range. Omni ends up having to Shrine. Nyx does head to top to try and catch out the Doom, but to no avail.

At the 4 minute mark, Lion and Tree continue roaming, and CM and Nyx join in by heading to mid-lane. Nyx reveals himself in mid, and Tinker pops the haste rune he had bottled and goes uphill. He knows Nyx is level 2 with only mana burn and impale, so he doesn't have to worry about carapace. Unfortunately, he doesn't see CM, who frostbites him holding him in place for the Nyx impale, and he also eats a Shadow Raze, giving away first blood to Shadow Fiend.

The action moves to the bottom lane, as CM and Nyx try to make a play on Spectre, but Lion is able to save him, though he loses his life for it. In mid lane, SF gets a double raze off on Tinker, but dies to laser and missile. Fortunately, the Dire creeps finish off the Tinker, so not all is lost.

CM and Nyx smoke up and try to get around on Tinker, but no uphill ward results in Lion breaking smoke and getting a great double stun and Tinker finishes Nyx off with Heat-Seeking Missile and Laser.

Lion and Tree pop a smoke of their own and head towards Jugg in top lane. CM manages to break smoke on Lion and goes to attack a jungle creep, getting stunned by Lion and leech seeded by Tree, dying. But Spectre is struggling alone in her lane, and Omni forces her to TP out. He has picked up Arcane boots and can start spamming Purification to farm and harass. After healing up, Spectre tries to Haunt and save Doom who is getting Omnislashed, but fails and ends up Reality Rifting back to the fountain.

Omni is dominating bot lane, but Spectre, Lion and Tree begin chasing. He tries to repel and run, but Doom had TPed to the shrine and casts Doom on him. Unfortunately, Spectre misses the last hit, and the kill goes to Doom.

CM and Jugg smoke up and head bot, Leaving Nyx to soak up some much-needed XP in top lane. SF picks up invis rune, and joins Omni, CM and Jugg in bot. They pick off Lion and finish off the Radiant bot tier 1 tower. Meanwhile, Nyx has hit level 6, and with Omniknight, manage to pick off Spectre at top lane, who was just trying to find some farm and catch up.

At 11:21, the gold and XP are in Newbee's favour and they seem to have much more space on the map. But Tinker has picked up his Boots of Travel now, so he can be a bit more active in fights. That, in combination with Spectre's Haunt, means Liquid has the means to turn around team fights.

Mid-Game

Newbee smokes top lane, hoping to pick off Doom and get another tower, but their smoke is revealed by a hidden Tree, which allows Lion to get off a stun and Finger on CM who dies to missile. Omni pops GA, and they try to burst Tree down, but he manages to survive Omnislash. SF gets doomed but Omni gets off a heal and repel and Nyx's impale stops the rest of Radiant following up while the Dire team finishes Tree. Jugg nearly dies to Spectral Dagger, but manages a well timed spin. Tinker tries to finish SF off, but gets stunned to Nyx's Carapace which was used while March was up. He tries to TP out, but Nyx gets off an impale and the respawned CM freezes him in place while Jugg gets another spin off on him. Tree's living armour isn't enough to save him.

Dire goes to push top tier 1, and nearly die in another team fight, but healing ward keeps them up and they manage to pick off Tree who is still only level 5, so he doesn't have Overgrowth to hold them in place.

Bot tier 2 drops to the Dire team, but a team fight at top erupts.

Nyx gets dusted by Lion who pops everything on him. He manages to get carapace off, and turn around to stun Lion who gets finished by SF, but Tinker kills him for it. Doom blinks in and Dooms SF and Spectre haunts in to finish him off. Doom ends up dying for it, but after picking off SF, Spectre manages to make it out into the trees. Her TP scroll is still on cooldown, but the Dire team is unable to find her. Tinker manages to burst down the CM.

Liquid spreads out to farm, and Newbee smoke into the Rosh pit, easily picking up aegis for SF. They move up to top lane and secure top tier 1, but Radiant are starting to claim some space, having pushed mid and bot tier 1 towers for themselves.

At 22:30, on the Radiant side: Spectre has her Radiance. Tinker has BoTs, blink, and Aether Lens. Doom has blink. On the Dire side: SF has Dragon Lance and Manta, Jugg has Manta, Omni has pipe. Newbee pick off Doom and get mid tier 1, and head towards top tier 2. 

Tree gets off an Overgrowth on CM and SF. Lion fingers CM who is then killed by Spectre. Omni pops GA, but gets doomed and dies. But SF and Jugg finish off Spectre. The Radiant top tier 2 lives to see another team fight.

Newbee continue to pressure top lane, and go for another push, with Liquid wrapping around, looking to try the same defense. Omni is hiding in the trees, trying to avoid doom, but Spectre's ult reveals him and Doom manages to blink in and target him, popping BKB to avoid being stunned.

Omnislash picks off Lion. Tree casts Overgrowth to hold everyone in place while Doom moves to finish off the Omniknight. Tinker blinks in trying to finish CM and Nyx, but she runs and urns herself up. Meanwhile, Jugg finishs off Tree. Tinker rearms and blinks in, casting missile to kill CM, but one heads towards Nyx who casts Carapace, stunning and damaging Tinker in return. 

He mana burns Tinker and Jugg heads in, casting Diffusal to slow him. Tinker cyclones Nyx and dagons him, but dies to Jugg. Lion is back, but he and Spectre aren't able to save the tower. The great Dire "Tinker" ward reveals Lion who was hiding in the trees, so Lion dies again.

Newbee backs off to do a bit more farming, and Liquid tries to get a bit more space, but Tree gets caught out after picking up an invis rune, and the well-placed Nyx and CM manage to hold him in place with an impale combined with frostbite and freezing field, keeping him within sentry range.

Liquid tries to come to the rescue, but the rest of Newbee comes in, and Shadow Fiend manages to finish off both Tree and Lion, who tries to save him. This allows Newbee to get a free Roshan, with aegis being picked up by SF.

Spectre tries to get a bit of farm in bot lane, but Nyx has been following him, and hits him with vendetta, mana burn and impale. Even though Spectre has turned off her Radiance to avoid being stunned by spike carapace, Nyx lines himself up to get hit by the spectral dagger she tries to use to get away, giving Jugg enough time to run in and omnislash her to death, getting a bash proc which stops her from being able to haunt away. He is now 8-0, on a Godlike streak.

SF finishes off mid tier 2, and Newbee heads in to siege mid tier 3. Tinker tries to throw out march of the machines to delay the push, but between Jugg's healing ward, and Omniknight's purification, SF stays nice and healthy, and picks up the tower with no problems. They aren't confident of pushing high ground now that Spectre is back up, so they retreat.

Liquid smokes up, hoping to meet them at the bottom shrine, but it seems Newbee head towards their own shrine instead. Lion, Tree and Doom head uphill,while Tinker BoTs to top lane, as they have a ward revealing SF and CM near the shrine, but a hasted Nyx is Vendetta'd nearby and catches out Tree, stunning him with impale. Lion pops dust, but Nyx uses carapace, resulting in Lion's Finger of Doom being reflected back on himself, allowing SF to finish him with one attack.

Meanwhile, Doom blinks in to Doom Omniknight, and Tinker has made his way into the fight, followed by Spectre's haunt. CM falls to spectral dagger and Tinker's nuke combo. SF gets off his Reqiuem of Souls before Tree casts Overgrowth, hitting Doom, Tinker and Tree, SF beats on Doom, while Jugg manages to get Omnislash off on a solo Spectre, who tanks all of the hits and dies. Liquid turns around to retreat, but Tinker manages to pick off Nyx assassin before leaving,

Another costly fight for Liquid.

Lion manages to snipe a courier carrying SF's Monkey King Bar and Omniknight's Ultimate Orb, and tries to escape with an invis rune, but doesn't quite make it out. It's kinda worth it though, as the Monkey King Bar can counter Tinker's laser miss chance, making it easier for Newbee to take buildings. Plus, he has the -30s respawn talent, so he's back before long anyway.

Unfortunately, Spectre tries to escape the roaming Newbee kill squad and gets stuck in the trees, spotted out by Nyx Assassin despite turning her Radiance off, and gets picked off.

Newbee uses this advantage to finish the middle set of barracks.

Omni finishes his Linken's Sphere and with his gem, pick off a wandering Tree, taking this opportunity to push bot tier 3 while he can't use living armour. Aegis has expired, but they feel confident going in anyway. SF takes the tower, with the help of Jugg's healing ward, and after Tree respawns, Liquid moves in to defend. Doom blinks in and pops BKB to Doom Omni, but unfortunately, he didn't notice Omni's Linken's, so Doom is consumed. Spectre haunts in and Lion blinks, hexing the Jugg for Spectre to fight. Lion dies to a couple of hits from SF for his trouble.

CM begins casting her freezing field, uninterrupted, and Omni gets off his guardian angel, protecting himself, CM and Jugg. Tree manages to overgrowth SF, and he and Tinker go to work trying to take him down, ending his 7-kill streak, but SF's dying Requiem of Souls slows everyone, allowing Jugg to make short work of Spectre and Doom.

Lion buys back. Nyx stuns Tree and Tinker, but gets impaled by Lion in return and eats a Finger of Death, leaving him on ~400 HP, but not before he gets a Eul's off on Tinker. When Tinker finally returns to the ground, Jugg begins spinning on him, getting a lucky bash.

Meanwhile, SF has bought back, and is teleporting back into the fray. Lion pops shrine to try and get more mana, but lets off a stray attack on Nyx and gets stunned by carapace. Tree seems to think this is a good idea, and also get stunned. SF arrives and finishes Tinker. Tinker buys back instantly, but it's not enough to stop the bleeding and they lose bot rax.

Newbee moves to top rax, and Tinker does manage to combo Nyx before Nyx can get carapace off, but it's a small consolation prize, and they lose top rax as well and Newbee gets mega creeps. Newbee backs off and Liquid calls GG.

Newbee's draft seemed much stronger than Liquid's. They knew they were on a deadline, having to end the game before Spectre came online, and did a great job dealing with Liquid's stalling strategy.

SF got Manta Style, and the extra hits from his illusions meant they could remove charges of living armour from towers much faster. SF can also start pumping out damage faster than a lot of other carries, with necromastery, and he is fairly tanky, so in combination with healing ward, purification and repel, can stand there beating on towers, while the rest of Newbee stays back and Liquid had nothing to answer that except March, which was countered by the healing ward.

Doom couldn't really Doom SF, as it was critical for him to get Omniknight, and with Omni's repel, SF could skip BKB, allowing him to pick up other items earlier.

Nyx was also strong against Tinker, as Tinker has to be concerned about casting March of the Machines and hitting Nyx's spiked carapace.

Liquid committed a lot trying to stop SF from snowballing, and as a result of that, poor Spectre was left alone to combat Omniknight, who really put the pressure on. Spectre was quite poor for a lot of the game, and with Newbee being so aggressive, really struggled to find room to farm.

Tinker was actually quite scary, and you can see Newbee picking up a lot of magic defense items, like glimmer cape, pipe, hood of defiance, but it also reflects Liquid's magic heavy line-up, with lion and tinker (laser and doom is pure damage though).

Liquid had a great team for global fights. I think if they were able to get ahead in the early game, Lion and Tree roaming around, with Tinker teleporting in and Spectre's haunt would mean Newbee had to be wary of ganks, especially early, when SF is vulnerable. But Newbee forced them to have to play passively, and gained control of the map by taking towers and roaming around themselves. Nyx did a great job of planting some aggressive wards, and he and CM created a lot of space for Omniknight and Jugg to farm up.

Unfortunately, once Newbee's roaming tower destruction force got together, they began to dominate the map and they were very good at taking towers, then retreating to farm, while Nyx ran around looking for easy kills.

Overall, great play by Newbee. Very strong, consistent push which carried them to a game 1 victory.

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The reason I wrote about this game is because the mid lane was Tinker vs SF, who are the two heroes I'm deciding to play in the match against the guy from work. Personally, I prefer playing Tinker, because I like avoiding team fights, but I can't afford for the game to go late, as the bots will be too stupid. I figured as Tinker, I would be able to have more involvement in the fights, as when the bots are in trouble, I could teleport in and laser, missile, dagon the attacker, but I don't know if I could do it reliably enough, and without getting killed myself in the process.

Whereas SF can take on a few heroes on his own, and as we saw in this game, can end the game early if he gets far enough ahead.

Logically, I should play SF, and I did say that I'd play the hero that won this game - there's no denying that it was SF. I was really torn while watching the game, because I wanted Kpii, the Australian, to win, but I also wanted Tinker to win.

Still, SF was stronger, so it's back to the practice room, I guess.