The consensus amongst analysts was that Secret won the draft convincingly.

First, they had a last-pick Brood that forced Invoker to the offlane, pretty much ensuring a huge laning advantage for Secret.

Second, Secret also had Arc + Cent, who are the heroes with the highest win rate in the major out of all heroes with more than 5 games. Arc has 73.68% (19 games), Cent has 76.68% (38 games).

This seemed like it should be a stomp for Secret, but even though they won, the game wasn’t that easy. The reason for this is was how the tactics and timings of the two lineups interact.

Early Game:

As mentioned, Secret have a big advantage in this stage. Brood threw VP’s laning plan into disarray, while Yapzor’s Weaver capitalized on the situation and went on a killing rampage.

Mid Game:

Despite the bad start, in the mid Game VP had an advantage.

Looking at Secret’s draft, it’s easy to notice that their lineup doesn’t want to play as 5 in the mid game. Warden, Brood and even Weaver want to farm-up for a bit longer, avoid fights and take only skirmishes. This, however, makes them vulnerable to VP’s ganking potential because they will play far away from each other. Pasha on Tiny and even Ramzes on Slark were able to take advantage of this and find a decent amount of pick-offs.

Even if Secret wanted to avoid the ganks by grouping as 5, this wasn’t easy to do. Before they have enough farm on their cores, they are at a team fight disadvantage mainly because of the Black Hole + Supernova combo. This means that if they spread out, they will get ganked. If they group-up, they will lose a full-on team fight.

This showed at the minute 22 fight at Rosh, in which VP found a team-wipe, losing only Rodjer in return.

According to DotaPlus, VP even climbed above 50% WR probability after this fight: