Invictus Gaming has been knocked out of Dota 2 Super League by LGD.Int. LGD.Int will have to face the loser of LGD.cn versus NeoES.Orange to proceed to the playoffs of the tournament.

LGD.Int ended Invictus Gaming's journey in Dota 2 Super League today after defeating them 2-1 in the pre-playoffs of the tournament.

The last time both of the teams met was in the grand final of G-League in March. In that match, iG was able to overwhelm the international squad in four games to bring home the first prize and a big G-League trophy.

Going into the match today, iG was the 78% favourite (according to our Gosubet) with a total of 24,292 branches on them while only 75 people believed in LGD.Int. Invictus Gaming will be back for season two of Dota 2 Super League.

The game today was not streamed on Gamefy channel nor BeyondTheSummit. We reached out to David 'GoDz' Parker earlier today and he stated the reason they missed the DSL game today was because there were facing some technical difficulties. It is unknown if it will be fixed by tomorrow.

Upper Bracket Round 1 - Best of 3 LGD 2 Neo.Orange 0 Lower Bracket Round 1 - Best of 3 iG. 1 LGD.int 2 Round 2 - Best of 3 Neo.Orange 2 LGD.int 1 Final Best of 1 LGD Neo.Orange

LGD.Int will have to face the loser of LGD.cn versus NeoES.Orange to make the playoffs of the prestigious tournament. The match is set for Saturday 14:00 CEST. GosuGamers will update you on the stream choice on our Gosubet for the game.

Match report

Game 1

Invictus Gaming picked up the Treant Protector to and ran a defensive dual lane at top. Upon knowing that the Gyrocopter is only facing a lone Windrunner, Treant goes on the offensive and started pushing Windrunner back to the tower. Earthshaker rotated top to help out the Windrunner who is in dire need of assistance.

The First Blood of the game went to Visage after Clockwerk was caught a little off position. The Visage killed Clockwerk for the second time shortly after, proving that even Living Armor can't even withstand a fully charged Soul Assumption. Clockwerk's death, Visage left the bottom lane to join Queen of Pain and Earthshaker on the mid lane, pressuring the Dragon Knight. iG had enough of the lone pick offs and grouped up at top to push down the tier one tower. The push was successful.

LGD.Int extended their lead to 8-1, to which six of them belonging to the Visage, after a small skirmish on the top lane in which iG tried to defend their tier-one tower. iG was able to hold on to their tier one but lost four heroes including the courier for that. Noticing that they couldn't take a full on war, iG moved into the Rosh pit and took it down before LGD.Int even noticed. The Aegis was given to the Gyrocopter.



Bad defense by iG, increasing LGD.Int's lead to 8-1 after the fight.

After a few minutes of disarment, Gyrocopter showed off his newly acquired Black King Bar in a full fledged 5v5 fight on the top lane and iG was able to kill the Anti-Mage. The rest of LGD.Int was able to retreat in time. With over 7,000 gold up by 26 minutes, LGD.Int had difficulties pushing into a constantly healing tower and wasted a lot of time trying. LGD.Int finally pushed down iG's third tier one tower 28 minutes into the game.

In a quick turn of events, iG started pushing into LGD.Int and was successful in taking down the middle tier-two and tier-three towers without any resistance. Meanwhile, Anti-Mage was split pushing the top lane and destroyed the tier-two tower. LGD.Int joined him on the top lane after iG retreated but their efforts to assault the barracks came out in vain. LGD.Int's reliance on the Anti-Mage for damage output is non-existent since iG was able to lock him down early.

iG's eventual downfall was a smoke gank they initiated in the Dire jungle which resulted in the death of the Treant, Dragon Knight and Enchantress. LGD.Int immediately rushed top and took down the melee barracks before retreating. That fight secured the fighting advantage for the international team as they rushed into middle lane after picking off the Gyrocopter. Game one went to LGD.Int.

Game 2

More interesting picks in the second game of the match as iG landed themselves with their trademark Batrider and Rubick. iG also picked up the Morphling to go up against the Alchemist and the Outworld Devourer of LGD.Int. Surprisingly, LGD.Int ran the Alchemist on the middle lane and their Outworld Devourer on the safe lane and OD did not have the best time going against iG's offensive trilane. However, Outworld Devourer was able to pick up the First Blood on the out of position Keeper of the Light. Morphling nearly killed the Earthshaker in the process but Misery was able to suicide to the neutrals before the Wave came.

While the actions were all happening at the top lane, Batrider who was hiding in the Radiant jungle has farmed up a Blink Dagger and the first casualty of this is the Windrunner on the bottom lane. LGD.Int responded with a kill on the Rubick a few seconds after and the Templar Assassin on the middle lane. With the small lead they had and Alchemist to lead and tank the charge, LGD.Int grouped up as five and relentlessly tower dived iG several times. The score is 7-3 in favour of LGD.Int after the short skirmish at mid. Gold and experience differences were non-existent.



Too little too late to save the Outworld Devourer

As mid-game arrived, iG was able to capitalized on a few pick offs to build up a 3,000 gold advantage. Besides that, Morphling also took down two tier-one towers - on the top lane and the bottom lane - to further improve iG's map control. iG got more aggressive after Keeper of the Light purchased his Mekansm and the Templar Assassin picked up the Black King Bar, threatening to push tier-two in mid but backed off anyway. Instead, iG took Roshan while LGD.Int was busy taking down the tier-one on the top lane.

With the Aegis in hand, iG took down two more outer towers without any retaliation from LGD.Int. As the five headed towards top, they found Outworld Devourer who was on the verge of teleporting away and killed him. LGD.Int supports arrived just a second too late to save OD. An one-sided teamfight at the entrance of LGD.Int later, iG finally took down LGD.Int's middle barracks. A second team fight on the bottom lane which started heavily in favour of LGD.Int got turned around and LGD.Int quickly called the gg as iG pounded away at the tier-three tower.

Game 3

iG showed aggression before the creep spawned, smoking up and walked the long way to pick off the Sand King and the Dark Seer who were waiting for the top rune in the shadows. Sand King was able to stun the Morphling and the Chen but at the end, still fell to a well placed Torrent by Kunkka.

Once everybody have settled into their respective lane, LGD.Int was still rather dominant on the bottom lane and were brave enough to farm past the tower but this was short-lived as more of iG rotated to help out the Clockwerk. The stretched battle ended up with two kills on both teams. LGD.Int's Gyrocopter died in the battle and therefore, the battle went a little in favour of iG.

iG's third smoke was revealed in the Radiant jungle and most of iG's supports got hit by the Call Down and melted immediately. Morphling who was caught up killing the Gyrocopter found himself stranded with four of LGD.Int after the battle and ran for his life while LGD.Int spammed whatever skills they had left on him. Although iG's supports arrived in time to disrupt the Slark, the Morphling still went down one Pounce later. LGD.Int took their first lead of the game with a score of 6-5. LGD.Int extended their lead to 9-6 two minutes later with Slark spearheading the ganks.





The fight that turned the tide

After such a highly packed start, both teams disengaged for about ten minutes and focused on letting the carries farm. However, due to quick Black King Bar pick ups on the Gyrocopter and the Slark, iG allowed LGD.Int to farm a bigger part of the map and this resulted in LGD.Int pulling even further ahead in terms of farm. At 30 minutes, LGD.Int was about 6,000 gold up.

With all the items secured on the core heroes, LGD.Int pushed the bottom lane but faced heavy resistance from iG. However, LGD.Int heroes were able to withstand the onslaught and wiped all of iG excluding the Morphling. Shortly after, they took down the tower but did not go for Roshan as iG's supports were about to respawn. Three minutes later, LGD.Int boldly walked into the Rosh pit but Morphling was able to snipe the Aegis before LGD.Int members can get a hold of it. However, iG sacrificed four heroes for the Aegis.

LGD.Int continued taking fights after fights, one more convicing than the other, and finally built up enough advantage to push iG's high ground. LGD.Int took the series against iG 2-1.