Team Secret’s win streak is dead and it ended in an unexpected way. Team Unique completed the biggest Dota 2 upset of the last month by taking down Secret in a 2-0 sweep today.
This was the first time Puppey and his team have lost a series since April 30 when they fell to Team Liquid in the WePlay! Pushka League group stage.
Prior to this loss, Secret were on an 18-series win streak, dropping just one game to Alliance in the span of a month. That put them on pace to match the all-time 100 game record set by the 2013 Alliance and 2016 Newbee squads.
Heading into ESL One Birmingham Online, Secret were an incredible 82-18, sitting just one game back of those legendary rosters in terms of overall record at 83-17. To match that statistic, Secret needed to win seven straight games. To surpass it, they would’ve needed to take nine in a row without a single loss.
Things looked promising from the opening round, though. Secret secured two quick sweeps over Liquid and Gambit Esports on the back of strong performances by MATUBAMAN and Nisha. But Unique beat some of the other top teams to the punch and took down the juggernauts in their own 2-0 sweep.
And it wasn’t just a fluke of a performance, either. Unique completely outplayed them in game one and then fought tooth and nail to take a close game two victory that was nearly in Secret’s grasp.
VANSKOR and his team deserve all of the credit in the world for staring down the top team in the world and not missing a beat in playing some high-level Dota. Game two was especially impressive since they had to fight back into the game after falling behind early. But Secret were firing on all cylinders behind Nisha’s Dragon Knight, meaning they couldn’t let up for even a moment.
One mistake could have led to a late collapse and Secret storming back to take the series with the flipped momentum. Instead, Unique walked away with their first win of the tournament and all of the confidence that should come with soundly beating the best team in the world.
