ESL One Birmingham CIS Qualifiers: to the finals!
A well-earned victory!
NAVI.GG.BET faced off against 
Team Spirit in a Bo3 semifinal series. As a result of this match, NAVI emerged victorious 2:1!
Game 1 - Natus Vincere [1:0] Team Spirit
NAVI.GG.BET
GeneRaL
Crystallize
Lil
Dendi
LeBron
Team Spirit
fng
Biver
Illidan
DKPhobos
G
The first game started off with a couple of kills going the way of Team Spirit, as they got a bit of an advantage for themselves. For a few minutes everything settled down, until a skirmish broke out, where both teams suffered some casualties. The teams kept trading heroes and towers, and NAVI were trying to play very aggressively, taking control of the map. We had a very strong push potential, and were able to realize it rather well, taking down towers, while Spirit had a rough time pushing back.
Minute 20 we had a very unfortunate fight, which resulted in a significant net worth lead drop. For a while, there were no kills, just some skirmishes - Io was a great bailout hero for our squad, making sure nobody dies that easily. As we’ve taken down almost all the outer towers and took control of the enemy half of the map, NAVI decided to go for the Roshan in an attempt to boost the high ground potential. Roshan was slain rather easily, and with the Aegis in hand, NAVI went forth.
A fight near the Shrine of Team Spirit turned out to be rather disastrous for them, as we’ve controlled that choke point very well, taking most of the heroes before going on to T3 bot. Several heroes bought back on the side of Team Spirit, but our cores were a lot stronger that the opposing ones, and NAVI.GG.BET take the game 1!
Game 2 - Natus Vincere [1:1] Team Spirit
NAVI.GG.BET
-
Crystallize
-
LeBron
Lil-
GeneRaL
Dendi
Team Spirit
DKPhobos
fng
Biver
Illidan
G
Game 2 did not start too well for us, as Crystallize had trouble farming against Bane in the botlane. Overall, NAVI employed a less aggressive strategy for this game, trying to farm up the needed items, while Team Spirit had heroes fit for picking off squishy supports. They were consistently more successful in taking both towers and heroes, and by 20 minutes, the opponent were 10 kills and 8k net worth up, with the fight near our top Shrine proving to be a disastrous one.
By 25 minutes, we’ve lost the top lane after a fight there, and were in a rather tough position. It did not take Team Spirit long to take the second lane, and after another bad fight, which resulted in the bot lane down, we wrote GG, moving to the decider map.
Game 3 - Natus Vincere [2:1] Team Spirit
NAVI.GG.BET
Lil-
LeBron
GeneRaL
Crystallize-
Dendi
Team Spirit
-
fng
-
Biver
Illidan
G
DKPhobos
It has all come down to the decider map. Midlane was going reasonably well for Dendi, while Crystallize did not have a good time in the bottom lane. By 6 minutes, a small fight happened in the bottom lane - both teams traded heroes, and the advantage was constantly shifting between the teams. Both really went on an offensive, trying to score as many kills as possible. The aggression carried over all the way to midgame, and the advantage did not settle at all, constantly changing sides. 3 of our heroes were in top 4, only surpassed by the enemy Broodmother.
By 20 minutes, the teams were dead even, both trying to get kills, and shifting attention towards establishing map control and getting Roshan. A nice fight in the middle lane eventually allowed us to take the first Roshan of the game, and we broke ahead - 7k net worth and almost 10k experience put us in a comfortable position. After a pickoff on Broodmother and the Aegis on Luna, we were ready to start sieging the high ground.
Team Spirit had to use the buybacks to defend their high ground, and we tried to overpower them with our own buybacks. Unfortunately, it didn't work out, as we only had 2 heroes standing in the end. After that engagement, NAVI decided to put off their active actions around the map, waiting for the buybacks and Roshan to come back online.
Meanwhile Luna was farming to the heart’s content, taking all she could. With the Roshan taken down, we had only 1 objective - enemy high ground. As we engaged, Team Spirit had to throw everything they had, but even that was not enough, as we take the series 2:1, moving to the finals!
