Ninjas in Pyjamas overcome slow start, beat Team Liquid at OGA Dota PIT Online

Ninjas in Pyjamas are off to another good start. They took down Team Liquid today after a slow first game at the OGA Dota PIT Online event.

Liquid continued their strong play from the WePlay! Pushka League to open the series, but NiP brought it back to take a 2-1 victory in the final Dota 2 match of the day. 

NiP relied on the play of Era and Charlie “CharlieDota” Arat, which normally isn’t the case. Usually Ondřej “Supream^” Štarha or Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek are the secondary focus of NiP’s gameplan, but Era played efficiently and was a big part of the team’s comeback. 

Game one was a 53-minute affair where both teams were dealing massive amounts of damage, but Liquid were the only team that capitalized on the outcome of elongated fights. NiP kept up with the damage output, but Era was the only player with a positive K/D/A, even while Supream and Charlie were the team’s catalysts. 

While Era wasn’t the star of NiP’s landslide victory in game two or the game three turnaround, his steady play was a big part of why Charlie’s Lycan and Supream’s Ember Spirit/Pugna dominated. 

In terms of individual performances, Era, Charlie, and Supream all played better in the second half of game two, while SoNNeikO and Charlie carried in the final minutes of game three. Charlie spent less than a minute dead as Lycan and provided NiP with a constant level of pressure over Liquid. 

Here are Charlie’s three statlines from the series, along with where he ranked in each of the main categories against his teammates and Liquid. 

The most notable reason for Liquid’s loss in game three was the decline of their Tidehunter pick, which slowly degraded throughout the match despite Boxi playing well and absorbing a lot of damage. After the 15-minute mark, NiP took the lead and had enough resources to lessen the impact of Boxi’s Ravage, which took him out of a lot of the fights after a few encounters. 

Both teams will be back in action on May 14, with NiP taking on Virtus Pro and Liquid rounding out the second day against Team Spirit.