EPICENTER XL: victory vs Team Secret
A hard-earned victory!
The next series of 
NAVI.GG.BET at EPICENTER XL was against 
Team Secret. The Bo3 ended in a confident 2:1 victory for NAVI.
Game 1 - Natus Vincere [1:0] Team Secret
Team Secret
Ace
MidOne
FATA-
YapzOr
Puppey
NAVI.GG.BET
Crystallize
Dendi
GeneRaL
LeBron
Lil
The first game of the series started off relatively well for us - even though the First Blood was drawn by Team Secret, we were still sitting in decent positions in our lanes. A couple of Radiant towers fell even before 10 minutes after a few good pickoffs. By 10 minutes, we were sitting in a fairly good position, having 4 more kills and 4k net worth advantage.
A few more fights followed, with NAVI being able to consistently win the fights. For a while, Team Secret was still sitting on their 3 kills, eventually taking 1 more. 18 minutes in, NAVI decided to go for the first Roshan of the game and claimed it successfully, Aegis going the way of Crystallize. After that, most of our team went to look for more kills, and we were rather successful - a particularly disastrous fight left Team Secret with no options but to concede the game 1, as they were losing their base very fast - GGWP!
Game 2 - Natus Vincere [1:1] Team Secret
Team Secret
Ace
MidOne
FATA-
YapzOr
Puppey
NAVI.GG.BET
-
Crystallize
Dendi-
GeneRaL
LeBron
Lil
The second game kicked off with a few rotations coming in from the side of Team Secret, with the kill score being 1:1. Notably, Crystallize was laning in mid as Outworld Devourer, while Dendi farmed the top lane as Dragon Knight. Team Secret was mostly on the offensive during the laning stage, netting quite a bit of kills. By 10 minutes, we were a few kills and 2k net worth down.
By 20 minutes, NAVI were still trying to recover from a tough laning stage. With regard to net worth, Beastmaster was the top 1 hero on the map, but unfortunately, the next closest hero was around 3 lines below, on the 5th place. Thanks to Track kills, Team Secret were getting their net worth lead propelled even further. By 23 minutes, NAVI decided to go for the first Roshan of the game, but did not manage to secure it, losing 4 heroes and the game.
Game 3 - Natus Vincere [2:1] Team Secret
NAVI.GG.BET
Crystallize
Dendi-
GeneRaL
-
LeBron
-
Lil
Team Secret
-
Ace
MidOne
FATA-
YapzOr
Puppey
The final game of the series saw a couple of roaming heroes on the map, as Doom and Earthshaker were looking to secure some early kills. The support rotations for the Dire were more successful, as by 10 minutes, like in the previous game, NAVI was slightly behind the opponent.
The game went on in the same fashion, yet the presence of Tinker and Beastmaster allowed us to push the towers rather well. Despite a couple of lost fight, ultimately the top lane outer towers got taken down; but we lost Crystallize in the process. 21 minutes in, after a decent pickoff in the midlane and T1 taken, NAVI decided to go for the first Roshan, taking it with no contest.
The said Aegis gave us the opportunity for a lot of the early aggression and push, as NAVI shifted towards the bottom lane - March of the Machines made it that much harder for Team Secret to fight there, as we've gotten a few crucial kills. Ultimately, as the game approached 30 minutes, we've broken slightly ahead of the opponent, and their only outer tower was the one in the bot.
34 minutes in NAVI decided to take another Roshan of the game, but Team Secret came in to intercept. Lina was able, among all havoc, to take the prized Aegis, but did not hold it for long - 4 heroes killed on the side of Team Secret, and we decided to go for the high ground push. Just a couple of minutes later, only melee barrack in the bottom lane was standing.
However, the next fight did not go too well. A good initiation from Team Secret allowed them to prevent the counter-initiation, and we disengaged, waiting for the next Roshan, which, fortunately, spawned very fast. Lil got the Refresher Shard. A few minutes later NAVI went up the high ground to force out the Mega Creeps, and managed to do so! Even though Team Secret tried to fight back, no buyback on Chaos Knight spelt their doom - we take the series 2:1!
