They saw GG take their crown during EWC and the whole 2023 season, but not this time: Team Liquid is the first TI13 Grand Finalist!
When Team Liquid reached the Top 3 at TI13, the memes about their match with Gaimin Gladiators began. And it's no surprise—GG had denied them every Major title in 2023, including last year's The International. However, this time, Liquid secured a clean 2-0 victory, becoming the first Grand Finalist of the tournament.
Just days ago, William "Blitz" Lee, the team's head coach, called Nisha the "best player in the world." Today, playing his signature Puck, which hasn't lost a single game during this TI, the midlaner lived up to that title, helping break a losing streak against GG that even carried over to the Esports World Cup.
Game 1: The first Clinkz at TI13 did GG wrong against Team Liquid's strategy
Team Liquid took a bold decision during draft one: Allowing GG's successful Chen + Underlord combo. However, they had a nice idea on how to counter them, by forcing pick-offs around the map before the aura items. The Gladiators thought they could counter this tempo with a beefy pick like Dragon Knight.
Still, Liquid's draft had one caveat, they needed some late game items against a team that ends most of their games before the thirty-five-minute mark. To compensate this, it was all in Nisha and 33's hands to roam and get kills.
To call it one-sided after that would be a mistake. But we can't deny the net worth was always favoring Liquid; a problem for GG's strategy on this TI13 game.
After that, the Gladiators started to despair. They found ways to trade miCKe's life during fights. But Nisha's Queen of Pain was unstoppable, and they couldn't get to her without compromising their positioning. After Dyrachyo's decision not to buy back for a high-ground defense, GG was forced to take an uncomfortable Roshan fight. There, they lost their last chance to have an even fight and surrendered shortly after.
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Game 2: GG plays for the late-game for the first time—and got stomped
For the first ten minutes, the game two was exactly what the Gladiators needed, forcing Liquid to play slow in an attempt to play a late-game strategy, and take them to a TI13 UB Finals third game. Unfortunately for them, Dyrachyo and Ace were having a hard time.
Team Liquid forced some good rotations before the twenty-minute mark to punish them with success. Suddenly, the team fight they needed started thanks (again) to Dyrachyo's mispositioning.
Team Liquid decided to leave the match in Nisha's hands. They picked their Puck, his undefeated hero after four matches during TI, to push fights into GG's slow draft. The Gladiators tried to hide and buy some items to steal some of Liquid's momentum, but their Upper Brackets TI13 run was already over.
Erik "tOfu" Engel's Mirana managed to build a naked BKB, and his team found a fight to use it. However, Liquid was already unkillable. They lost a team fight without buybacks, and the push strategy punished it.
You may have noticed that SUNSfan only got to cast the first game of this match. As he said during the game, his throat wasn't feeling well, but he tried his best to cast one more TI game. As The International ends tomorrow, we hope him a speedy recovery for him to enjoy some of the best Dota in the world.
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