OG met up with Ninjas in Pyjamas in the first round of the upper bracket at OGA Dota PIT Online today, earning a 2-1 series win.
In both wins, Ceb was an instrumental part of the team’s success. With NiP drafting Broodmother twice and Queen of Pain for the mid lane, two incredible lane dominators, OG quickly adapted by moving MidOne’s unfavorable matchups to the side lane and substituted another player in. In OG’s two victories, Ceb was responsible for deputizing in the mid lane, handling NiP’s Ondřej “Supream^” Štarha superbly.
The first game saw NiP last pick the Broodmother. With one pick left, OG elected to give Ceb one of his signature heroes in Magnus and sent him to mid. OG’s technically retired offlaner was up to the task and prevented Supream^ from getting out of control.
The Magnus was a key part of OG’s disruptive teamfights as well. Ceb was always there to Empower his teammates, especially SumaiL’s farmed Luna. He also managed to Reverse Polarity key targets for his team.
While Supream^ kept the game close, his other cores were suffering immensely from OG’s aggression and the Broodmother dying twice meant that NiP’s throne was OG’s for the taking.
For game two, NiP unabashedly pulled out the Broodmother last pick again. This time, it was the overall last pick, which made a huge difference since OG’s draft was unable to deal with Broodmother’s legion of spiderlings.
While Beastmaster used to be one of the best counters to Broodmother in lane, a recent change of Wild Axes to magical rather than physical damage meant that the 40-percent magic resistant spiders were much less susceptible to Beastmaster’s spell. So OG chose SumaiL to go mid with Slark instead, who promptly fell to the Broodmother after Supream^ amassed an army of arachnids.
OG had no solution for their pest problem and Supream^’s Brood game was a straightforward mission of chomping everything in sight fearlessly.
OG grew tired of Supream^’s cheese hero pool in the third game, promptly banning Meepo and Broodmother to prevent NiP from blindsiding them again. In response, NiP picked up the Queen of Pain, a lane counter to Razor.
Once again, MidOne didn’t get to play mid on his hero. Ceb’s Legion Commander headed to the mid lane again. The hero’s built-in purge and lifesteal meant that Supream^ was unable to dominate his lane. Legion’s ultimate Duel kept the Queen of Pain tied down long enough for OG to rotate and ruin Supream^’s early game.
Ceb continued his streak of Duel victories, ending the game with 276 bonus damage, locking on to his opponents and sending them to their graves. Backed up by immense teamfight with Faceless Void and Phoenix, OG ran roughshod over NiP.
OG move on to the upper bracket finals, guaranteeing themselves a top-three finish at the event along with $17,000 in prize money. The two-time The International champions will await the winner of Team Secret and Alliance.
It’s not over for NiP just yet, though. They’ll drop down to the lower bracket and their next match will be between the winner of Virtus Pro and Vikin.gg.
