On the final day of the Dota 2 TI6 Main Event, it came down to two final teams — Digital Chaos and Wings Gaming — to face off for the championship title. The winner of this Grand Finals match at KeyArena in Seattle would take home the first prize of $9.1 million, while the second prize is $3.4 million.
Toby and Merlini ready to cast the Grand Finals – Wings vs DC #TI6 pic.twitter.com/GLEvLc8gTx
— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) August 13, 2016
Digital Chaos (DC) had come off with an incredible three-game series against Evil Geniuses, which brought them to the Grand Finals stage to take their revenge on Wings Gaming — who had previously knocked them down to the Lower Bracket. Both teams looked strong into the Grand Finals in a best-of-five series (BO5). But Wings ultimately came out on top.
Game One
A quick first blood was drawn just after the horn was triggered, as DC picked up a kill on Wings’ Storm Spirit, but lost both early Bounty Runes at the river. DC looked confident at the start of the game. By the 5th minute of the game, Wings went for a three man gank at mid lane to take down w33, but he managed to counter-kill the Storm Spirit before his death. Wings began to rotate around the map to find some pickoffs once Faith_bian‘s Slardar had his Blink Dagger online to bounce them back into the game. Although they had the kill lead, DC had the map control advantage after securing most tier 1 towers on Dire side.
Wings continued to gain more advantage as the game progressed, managing to deny their top tier 2 tower and winning a team fight against DC’s push. However, DC found an opening at the 23rd minute near the Roshan pit, as Wings were trying to take it down. Sloppy moves by Wings allowed DC to crush their line-up and claim Roshan.
DC was in control throughout the rest of the game, getting kills across the map. And with such an advantage, they rushed into Wings’ high ground in the top lane and took a set of barracks. Wings was hopeless in the end and called GG in the first game of the Grand Finals.
Game Two
This time around, Wings secured the first blood to their name. We saw smart plays by Y‘s Oracle, as he juked into the treelines (to buy some time) when three of DC heroes tried to kill him. On the other side of the map, however, his teammates managed to kill Moo‘s Doon at the bottom lane. DC soon secured themselves two kills on Wings’ Slardar and Sand King at the top lane. Even after the tenth minute, both teams looked fairly even. Although Wings had a slight advantage on kills, they were down with two towers going to DC’s favor.
Going towards the 20th minute, Wings was ready to claim another advantage in the game as they started to find kills around the map. They went for a smoke gank and found two kills in their Radiant jungle. After securing those kills, they went to take Roshan without being contested by DC. A team fight broke out near Roshan’s pit at the 37th-minute mark, and Wings managed to kill two cores alongside one DC support. MiSeRy‘s Naga ultimate was used to control the fight, but that was not enough to save his teammates.
Moments after, Wings took down another Roshan and DC was were caught off guard by Wings’ initiation, losing three heroes to the death timer. While Wings marched to DC’s high ground, Resolution‘s Razor was caught by Shadow‘s Chronosphere and cost them more heroes. DC was forced to call GG at 40th-minute mark.
The series sat tied at 1-1.
Game Three
First blood went to Wings once again at bot lane, as Moo’s Timbersaw was unable to escape from Faceless Void and Oracle. Both teams traded kills for the next couple of minutes in the early phase of the game. Wings began to take the game lead once again, perfectly rotating around the map to find kills as soon as their ultimates were online. They were playing meticulously, as they were ahead in the game and had full map control that they intended to keep. Wings’ team fights were on point with their skills, securing more and more kills in their favor. DC had no answer to Wings’ playstyle, and thus the score stood at 20-7 by the 20th-minute.
In a desperate move, DC managed to sneak and take down the Roshan without Wings knowing. With Aegis going to DC’s way, they started feeling a little confident with the current state of the game, although Wings looked unstoppable. After failing to secure any team fights, DC found an opening to kill three of Wings’ heroes, giving a triple kill to Resolution’s kill streak. From then on, DC found their momentum in the game. But it just wasn’t enough.
After Wings secured the Roshan at 35th-minute, DC was countered-ambushed by Wings, who crushed DC’s line-up and killed four heroes. Wings took the advantage by pushing DC’s high ground, and DC was unable to contest orndefend their base.
After DC lost two sets of barracks, they were finding it harder to come back from the loss as Wings’ heroes were strong. And by the 45th-minute, DC called GG. Wings totally outplayed DC in this game, which gave them a 2-1 lead in the series.
Game Four
Wings was one game away from claiming their championship title. Could DC make a come back for a 2-2 draw and go for a decisive game five?
Once more, Wings started off with a good counter kill on DC heroes, who tried to initiate on Wing’s Elder Titan. But it was instantly traded by DC. Both teams were able to find some kills through the next few minutes, but DC managed to find an opening at top lane to initiate on Wings and kill three heroes — including Shadow’s Anti Mage. They soon gained map control.
After Wings started to get items on their heroes, they started to move around the map to counter DC’s aggression. Although they managed to start a good team fight, they did not have enough burst damage to kill any DC heroes. By the 22nd minute, DC lead the scoreboard with 19 kills to 8 for Wings.
The game changer happened at the 25-minute mark, where w33’s Slark tried to pick off the Batrider. But he failed his attempt, and Faith_bian’s Axe managed to end w33’s Wicked Sick streak with an 800 gold bounty to his name. DC struggled to find the opening to recover from the fight and lost Moo’s Beyond Godlike streak with a 1200 gold bounty to Blink’s name. DC lost three heroes, and the gold swung to Wings’ favor after the fight.
Wings then headed to Roshan’s pit to reclaim the Aegis, while DC made their way to Roshan’s pit to stop the Roshan kill. But Misery was caught by Axe’s Berserker’s Call with Elder Titan’s Earth Splitter/Echo Stomp combo at the choke point near the Radiant jungle ramp towards the Roshan. Wings took a good team fight in addition to taking down Roshan.
By 30 minutes in, Wings had the game under control and slowly took down some towers. However, DC did not give up hope, they managed to clean up three heroes from Wings and took down Aegis too. Minutes later, Wings managed to secure another team fight — taking down the aggressive Slark and sending two more heroes to the fountain. They went offensive toward the bottom high ground to force a buyback/team fight from DC. In a desperate moment to save their barracks, DC burned through a lot of buybacks but could not stop Wings’ push and lost their bottom barracks. Wings were minutes away from winning game four and taking the championship title.
With his buyback on cooldown, w33 made another desperate moved and tried to sneak-kill Axe near the Dire ancient. But his attempt failed — and due to his aggressiveness, his death timer was extended, which opened up the door for Wings to take down the mid barracks. 39 minutes into the game, in the final fight at the top lane, Wings obliterated DC and DC was unable to contest the game anymore and called GG. Wings Gaming won game four with a score of 3-1.
Wings are the International 6 Champions after a fantastic run throughout the tournament. Congratulations!
Here are the TI6 final standings.
- 1st – $9,120,223: Wings Gaming
- 2nd – $3,420,084: Digital Chaos
- 3rd -$2,176,417: Evil Geniuses
- 4th – $1,450,945: Fnatic
- 5th-6th – $932,750: EHOME, MVP Phoenix
- 7th-8th – $518,194: TnC Pro Team, Team Liquid
- 9th-12th – $310,917: OG, LGD Gaming, Alliance, Newbee
- 13th-16th – $103,639: Vici Gaming Reborn, Team Secret, Escape Gaming, Natus Vincere
Published: Aug 14, 2016 06:17 am