Speed Gaming are the MLG champions

After an incredibly exciting final day with an even more incredible final, Speed Gaming finally grabbed themselves a major championship after winning multiple of smaller tournaments. Team DK put up a great fight but in the end, Midas Gaming proved too strong.

Has the wheel turned? Alliance were eliminated in the group stage, Natus Vincere did not get further than the semi finals. Team DK and Speed Gaming proved that the rest of the world needs to update their Dota playbook. Be that maximizing the gold curve through multiple Hands of Midas, mixing up their laning or just using those awkward angles and laning IQ to win the game, whatever it is; Speed has it and quite understandable, the players were completely thrilled to be champions.

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1st - Speed Gaming ~ $68,000 USD

2nd - Team Dk ~ $27,000 USD

3rd/4th - Sigma.int ~ $13,500 USD

3rd/4th - Natus Vincere ~ $13,500 USD

Other teams share a fifth place and receive a share of 2% of the prize pool each, that being about $2,700 USD. Those teams are Fnatic, Alliance, Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses and Pretty Boy Swag.

Match report

Game 1

Running the Doom against the trilane of DK, EternalEnvy did not have the best time on the bottom lane as Crystail Maiden and Earthshaker constantly harassed him. After disrupting Lone Druid on the middle lane for a long while, Windrunner headed bot and was able to zone out both the Crystal Maiden and Earthshaker with superior range but Doom still ended giving away the First Blood when he failed trying to deny a tower. Pugna played by Mushi picked up the tower and the First Blood which led to an early Mekansm.

With their superior pushing ability, four from DK bar the Lone Druid moved from the middle lane to the bottom to push towers and they were fairly successful in doing so, taking down all the outer tier-one towers and the bottom tier-two tower. DK wasted no time and killed Roshan for the Aegis only to waste it just three minutes after in a team fight. A crucial shackleshot by the Windrunner led to a DK team wipe with the help of double damage Outworld Devourer. Eager to start taking down towers, Speed gave away three heroes instead going for the middle tier-one with Burning transferring his Radiance from the Spirit Bear to his hero prior to it dying.

23 minutes in, DK secured the second Roshan and together with the Aegis, they pushed top and broke Speed's final outer tower. Their insistence to keep on pushing caused them another four heroes but despite that, DK were heavily leading in gold at 27 minutes. The game slowed down significantly at this point of and although DK secured the third Aegis and Cheese, they did not utilize it to push and spent most of their time farming. The Aegis expired and both teams went back farming.

The most crucial fight happened when Speed went on the offense and engaged DK in the presence of DK's tier-two tower. Things were looking bleak for DK as they were one-by-one picked off by Speed, that was until Earthshaker blinked in and slammed three heroes, killing two of them. DK rushed down mid and took down the tier-three tower before killing the fourth Roshan. They once again barreled down mid with their fresh Aegis and although they were successful in destroying the barracks, DK lost the Spirit Bear twice as a result. Speed immediately pushed mid but they once again failed in doing so due to Pugna's Life Drain and Earthshaker's double Echo Slam.

The game once again fell into stalemate and the sixth Aegis of the game was used to exercise the Spirit Bear's muscles on the bottom tier-three tower for 200 hp. Speed finally mounted enough courage for a push and they were extremely successful in blowing up Earthshaker and Pugna very early in the battle. However, Earthshaker bought back into the game and pulled off the perfect double Echo Slame and Fissure combo to chain on three heroes, blowing up two and left Kunkka very very low. Doom died as well a little later on and he had no buy back but DK did not opt for the push but the Rosh pit instead.

The final battle can be separated into two parts. The first part, Speed's smoke gang spotted DK's scattered heroes and the Western mix proceeded to win the fight. However, the buybacks allowed DK to get back into the skirmish and DK was able to take down everyone except for the Lich. Outworld Devourer and Doom bought back to defend their barracks while Kunkka and Windrunner had no buyback. The second battle began with Outworld Devourer bursting down the Pugna in which Lone Druid and Pugna bought back and teleported immediately to rejoin the fight. Outworld Devourer went down and DK quickly cleaned up Speed's base before getting the hell out of there. Speed was able to defend their throne against mega creep especially with a Rapier and 2 Daedalus on Kunkka. DK took their time to push into Speed's base and nearly failed in doing so due to the cleaves. DK killed Kunkka twice at the end and ended game one.

>>Game One VOD <- RECOMMENDED TO WATCH

Game 2

DK left BurNIng to stand his own ground in the top lane vs EE's solo Clinkz, a match-up obviously favouring Speed. Instead DK sent their supports into the enemy jungle, where they allowed iceiceice to find first blood on pieliedie's Maiden. Speed did not let DK make it into a habit though and punished them by rotating into kills both on iceiceice and then on Mushi. DK moved up their supports from the enemy safe lane to their own safe lane, to ensure the farm of their primary carry as well as pushing the tier one tower. They did get the tower but at what cost? Arteezy snuck up from behind and managed to kill off the entire trilane by himself (see picture above). After that, BurNing had a hard time rising, he got picked off multiple times which passively delayed his inventory. A gank attempt turned out costly for Speed though, where they lost both EE and Arteezy for a Chen. DK were prepared and dropped two sentries as well as one dust in that minor skirmish.

The Midas-meta was really peeking at MLG and every game basically featured five Midases or more. This particular game had seven Midases (four for Speed + three for DK) at minute 17. Speed were off to a terrific start, massively shutting down BurNing and finding series of pick-offs here and there, further increasing their lead. In earlier games this tournament, DK have put Io to a really good use, however in this game he did not have an obvious partner to relocate with as the Alchemist was way weaker than DK meant him to be. As per usual when it comes to EternalEnvy's Clinkz, he picked up a Blind Dagger after his Midas+Treads+Orchid start. However, the game lost tempo rapidly after that and the kills stopped happening. Due to the poor start, DK started playing incredibly passive, trying to go for safe farm as well as dewarding the map with a Gem on iceiceice.

A gank attempt from Speed gone slightly awry allowed Mushi to get a couple of kills but it did not mean much for the bigger picture, except for hasting up the arrival of Mushi's Scythe slightly. The problem was the non-factor of BurNing, especially compared to the great impact of all Speed's heroes. Speed took down all outer towers at minute 30, just shortly after killing BurNing (again) and forcing him to buyback, wasting even more gold and crippling his items even further. He gave up on doing the big game hunting and went for cheaper survivability. In the picture to the right, you can see what items he had after 32 minutes.

Speed was leading in every way imaginable and the game did not really make much sense for DK anymore, whatever their original plan was seemed to have failed beyond all repair. After a final clash just outside (and then later; inside) their base, DK called it quits and Speed tied up the series at 1-1.

>>Game Two VOD

Game 3

This game was the championship game for both teams, they were just one game away from taking the first prize. Mushi put his hands upon the Venomancer and not the Alchemist as most would have expected, generating a Devourer vs Venomancer mid lane. LaNm and Dai smoked up and rotated in mid and despite Arteezy dodging the Concotion, the first blood went DK's way. However, Mushi was greedy enough to hang around mid lane on semi-low hp and was easily dispatched of as soon as Arteezy respawned, with the aid of Chen. Things kept going down mid as DK once again moved in three heroes to take down Arteezy. He did die but not before ensuring a double kill for the nearby Chen and Maiden by dropping a massive ultimate on all three DK heroes.

The greed was once again starting to show, DK went for zero Hands of Midas at first (although Mushi went back to build one after getting a Headdress) while Clinkz went a Midas as soon as possible with Arteezy's to follow shortly after. The Clinkz of EternalEnvy started to cause heavy concerns for DK, ruining their attempts to farm all over the map. He even went for a Blink Dagger before attempting an Orchid at all, most likely due to DK not having any quick disables to throw at him, allowing him to pick up kills without it. DK bounced back into the game somewhat after a successful fight outside Roshan. Clinkz did however sneak both the Rosh kill and the Aegis but lost it shortly after. Speed regained what they lost by pressuring towers and forcing a fight which they won by utilizing the quick and dirty damage of Clinkz and Devourer. DK's lack of Hands of Midas was causing them to slip after more and more in the gold curve, their idea was most likely that Midas isn't needed if you can land a reliable set of Track kills. However, Speed moved as one unit and avoided unnecessary deaths and fights where they did not initiate, denying DK that extra Track gold.

Speed went for a super quick kill on BurNing just outside his own tier two middle tower, they forced in Arteezy from the jungle high ground, he then instantly hexed BurNing with his new shiny Scythe, used his ulti and right clicked down BurNing. However, BurNing bought back right away, teleported to said tier two tower and DK managed to turn the fight with a Poison Nova and Call Down landing on multiple heroes. The entire Speed squad got annihilated save from Envy who lived only because of Test of Faith. DK proceeded to take Roshan and picked up Aegis on the Gyrocopter. Not long after though, a fight went the complete other way around. This time Arteezy's ultimate was used on multiple heroes (instead of just the one) and he managed to grab himself a Triple killl before eventually dying to Familiars. BurNing lost Aegis and quickly got killed off by Envy after spawning again amongst the remains of his late team mates.

A rather big over-extension by Speed allowed DK back into the game once again, great Familiar control as well as BurNing starting to show his presence in team fights messed up Speed's attempt at a skirmish completely and they lost all core heroes followed by a tier two tower mid. DK set sail for Roshan after that but Speed was not late to the party and a yet another massive team fight broke out. Speed came out on top but while they were dancing around with some of the DK survivors, BurNing finished off Roshan in the shadows and grabbed the Aegis, making it even trade with momentum gained for DK. Speed avoided all fights following that though so the Aegis eventually timed out with the only thing DK got out of it was a tower and a period of safe farm. However, the Arteezy bomb forced in, hexed and slaughtered BurNing together with a double damage buffed Clinkz. Speed pressured to force Gyro to buy back and then retreated immediately.

With the Refresher up on OD, Speed Gaming won the following fight at Roshan, despite OD fluking his ultimates. DK were really suffering from the BurNing's BKB being completely depleted at this point, only lasting four seconds without other items to make up for it. DK started to fall off the chart, they lacked what they had in the first game of the series - the massive burst clash found in LaNm's Earthshaker. This game they relied on a more spread out mass damage such as Poison Nove and Flak Cannon, which proved not as efficient compared to the devastating Outworld and Clinkz near-burst damage output. DK's only real shot at this point was a Rapier for BurNing. They did not have it in time though and massive Force Staff action threw off the engages from DK, turning it around and allowing Speed to claim double set of barracks. The game seemed extremely grim for DK at this point, especially as Envy backdoored down the melee barracks at bottom lane without DK reacting fast enough. That left DK with only one remaining barrack. Envy paid with his life for it, but a prize he gladly paid. A few minutes later, the great value move came out from Speed, something that would very likely win the game for them. Envy blinked into the base, killed the last barracks before the Test of Faith triggered and sent him home. BurNing used all his remaining gold to get a Rapier. It was all or nothing now. However, unfortunately for them, it proved to be nothing as the quick Hex and massive Bursts from Speed still completely disturbed the lines of DK, BurNing went down quickly in the following team fight, lost the Divine and called the "gg". Speed claimed the MLG championship with DK as runner-ups.

Photos taken by Greg Laird, GosuGamers 2013