Team Secret drop first series at WePlay! Pushka League to Team Liquid

Team Liquid has been very hit-or-miss at recent events, but they always seem to play top teams like Alliance and Team Secret close.

But playing them close is not the same as taking a win over the team with the best record at the event, which is exactly what they did as they downed Secret 2-1 in a fairly decisive series. 

Instead of dropping down into the bottom half of the European bracket, this win puts iNSaNiA and his team in the hunt for the playoffs, and if it comes down to it, they now hold a tiebreaker over Secret. Meanwhile, Secret is now second in their group, one loss behind Ninjas in Pyjamas heading into a three-day break. 

Secret had to try some odd drafts with how Liquid was playing their bans, but they were still able to put Puppey and Yapz0r on good support heroes every game. The difference between the two teams came in how well Max “qojqva” Bröcker and Michael “miCKe” Vu played against MATUMBAMAN and Nisha. 

While miCKe and Matu both faced each other in the bottom lane in game one, neither player could gain an edge as both their captains played well supporting them. Qojqva actually outplayed Nisha in the midlane despite the two also drawing, which led to Samuel “Boxi” Svahn’s Mars opening the game up by winning the top lane. 

After holding off a mid-game push and going up 1-0, the roles swapped and Secret took control of the series by banning most of Liquid’s best-performing heroes and running with a Void Spirit-Alchemist core. This showed that between the two teams, the games really came down to who could secure a draft advantage more so than just outplaying the other in-game. 

That fact was only further hammered home as Secret took game two handily but failed to keep the Phoenix away from Taiga and gave up miCKe’s signature Morphling at the second to last pick. 

Overall, miCKe was the deciding factor in every game, as Secret wasn’t able to win without shutting him down. Even as the managed to somewhat contain qojqva in the final game, thge Morphling came on late and pushed Liquid to the upset. 

Compared to his positional rival on Secret, miCKe outperformed Matu in both games that Liquid won. Here is the comparison between their K/D/A, Net Worth, and Hero Damage output just to show how close the series really was in terms of the position one players

Secret will now have four days off to prepare for NiP on May 5, while Liquid will be the closing match on May 1 as they battle a struggling OG roster.