Day two at ESL One Hamburg delivered plenty of top tier action for us. We saw bloodbaths and comebacks aplenty across both our groups as our twelve teams duked it out for a chance to take home a chunk of that $300K USD prize pool.

The second stage of Bo2’s gave us so much quality Dota to choose from, let’s look at some of the day’s highlight matches.

Alliance vs Vici Gaming

The showdown between Alliance and Vici Gaming in Group A today delivered us both grueling back-and-forth action and blistering kill counts.

Game one started off strong for Vici, who established themselves a solid net worth lead in the early stage. Things really started to take off for them around the twenty-minute mark, with Eurus (Papparazi) really coming online with his Gyrocopter pick.

Despite an impressive holdout from Alliance, Vici owned this game. They shut Alliance down at 52-minutes with a 12-kill lead.

Alliance came into game two with confidence, despite their previous defeat. They took the lead in the laning phase, but things started to look shaky again as the game approached 20-minutes. Vici were starting to come online, wresting control of the gold advantage.

But Alliance were not willing to play the long game again. At 27-minutes they managed to take a beautiful team fight against Vici around the river. Alliance seized the lead once more and pressed their new advantage hard. The next seven minutes were a stomp for Alliance as they took out kill after kill on Vici. The final score at 34-minutes was 42-kills to 14. A devastating defeat for Vici.

Beastcoast vs Virtus.Pro

Another highlight of the day was our series between Beastcoast and Virtus.Pro.

Game one of this series was a blistering stomp for Beastcoast. Virtus.Pro took first blood and held the lead in the kills during the early game. Then Beastcoast took control at around the 15-minute mark, taking the initiative. By 19-minutes, they had cut VP’s kill lead by more than half.

Beastcoast pushed for Rosh at 22-minutes and Chris Luck took the aegis. Four minutes later, the win was theirs. They closed out game one in 26-minutes, with 22-kills to VP’s 19.

Although they gave a more solid performance in game two, things did not end any better for the new Virtus.Pro line up. Things went back and forth during the early game. But by 15-minutes in, Beastcoast had again found their feet. Hector’s Bloodseeker pick played a huge role in allowing his team to keep up the pace and the hard push in spite of VP’s strong defense. He took out the most kills across both games as well, a total of 24.

After 38-minutes, Beastcoast broke through VP’s high ground and GG was called. They took the series 2–0. A disappointing result for Virtus.Pro fans.

Liquid vs NiP

Group B was also seeing some brutal stomps, and our series between Team Liquid and Ninjas in Pyjamas was certainly brutal.

Game one started off with a lot of energy from Liquid’s new line up. Although things stayed fairly even during the lanes, Liquid managed to cement themselves a firm lead in the gold and experience.

The kills were 25–12 at the 30-minute mark. Micke’s Morphling and qojqva’s Razor were both too fat for NiP to handle. Micke had a massive 17 and qojqva had 16 to their name as they ended the game at 66-minutes, and the teams total was 45 to NiP’s 34.

Game two saw NiP take a Vengeful Spirit last pick as their carry for oliver looked like it had potential in the early laning phase. The net worth swung back and forth through the first 20-minutes. But by the time Micke’s Sven was fully online at 21-minutes, NiP’s draft had no way of dealing with him. The next 10-minutes were another bloodbath. They ended the game at 31-minutes with a massive 41-kills on their side of the board. A fantastic performance for Liquid’s new roster.

TNC.Predator vs Quincy Crew

Another of our highlight series today was TNC.Predator vs Quincy.

Game one saw TNC deliver a devastating defeat to Quincy, who has been having some troubles cementing their roster ahead of the start of the new season.

TNC took out first blood and smashed the laning phase, establishing a dominating lead for themselves. They had a 23k networth lead by 23-minutes and Quincy had hardly even got a look in when it came to the kills. The final score was 23–7 when GG was called at 25-minutes. TNC.Predator took the first game.

TNC picked an interesting draft for game two. With Gabbi in the safe lane on Nightstalker which didn’t seem to be working out too well during the lanes.

Quincy Crew was up 8k in the net worth at 18-minutes and TNC had only managed to secure themselves two kills to Quincy’s nineteen.

But as soon as Gabbi finally got his Aghanim’s Scepter his game started to look different. He mopped up 15-kills on his Nightstalker and ended up second in the net worth overall in spite of his tough start.

After a promising start for Quincy, TNC turned it. Taking out game two at 37-minutes and tucking another 2–0 victory under their belt.

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