Youth over expertise: LGD wipes out Somnus to assert all-Chinese language conflict at TI 2023

Somnus and his veteran teammates at Azure Ray have been handed a lesson in Dota 2 from the brand new youngsters on the block as LGD stomp their regional rivals 2-0 to lock in a top-three spot at The Worldwide 2023.

LGD was ruthless within the execution of their recreation plan in opposition to Azure Ray, with place one carry shiro nigh unstoppable throughout each video games recording 27-8-28 in whole on Muerta and Spectre. Whereas the matches each crossed 40 minutes, they have been really over by minute 20 and as LGD offlaner niu explains, they have been ready to take care of AR’s Weaver possibility.

“I really feel Weaver is just not a foul hero, he’s fairly robust, however it’s important to draft round it,” niu mentioned in his post-game interview. “You’ll be able to’t decide it and anticipate to simply win.”

It’s not a dig by any means at AR’s technique, however Lou struggled to make the Weaver work in his favor in each maps, recording simply 4 kills over the course of the collection. Niu understands it takes greater than a single-player efficiency to land a win on the TI major stage, nevertheless.

“I really feel my workforce is wonderful, they’re so good,” he mentioned, including he and the squad are at their finest now. They’ll have to be—their subsequent opponent, Russian squad Workforce Spirit, is riding high after a solid win over Team Liquid.

“Yeah, I watched [Team Spirit] at TI10, I’ll attempt my finest,” niu mentioned. “I really feel they have been underdogs at TI10, we’re going to present it our greatest although.”

LGD would be the ones with the underdog tag tomorrow of their higher bracket ultimate in opposition to Spirit, but when they performed like they did at the moment, they’ll be very powerful to deliver down. Each matches confirmed how resilient LGD is whatever the recreation state with the squad pressured to come back again twice after mediocre laning phases.

In each instances, Azure Ray did not capitalize on their early leads. Given LGD’s determination to lean into late-game workforce compositions, AR wanted to win earlier than 25 to half-hour. However LGD by no means gave them a gap, with every participant outplaying their opposition mirror match.

Workforce Spirit received’t be as comfy to deal with tomorrow for the younger Chinese language squad, whereas the veterans might want to overcome Spirit’s regional partners in BetBoom or they’ll be despatched packing from TI 2023 altogether.

Concerning the writer

Nicholas Taifalos

Aussie Editor for Dot Esports. Nick, higher often known as Taffy, started his esports profession as a commentator, switching to journalism with a concentrate on Oceanic esports, notably CS:GO and Dota. E mail: [email protected]

Author: Ronnie Neal