Reshuffle Madness: starting from the lower bracket
NAVI start from the lower bracket
NAVI.GG.BET faced off against 
ferzee in a Bo3 series at Reshuffle Madness tournament. The encounter was an interesting one, and it ended 1:2 the way of ferzee, as NAVI.GG.BET will start the tournament from the lower bracket,
Game 1 - Natus Vincere [0:1] ferzee
ferzee
KingR
VANSKOR
Daxak
-
AfterLife
-
Afoninje
NAVI.GG.BET
SoNNeikO
Crystallize
Chuvash
Blizzy
MagicaL
The first game of the series started off well for us. The laning stage was good, as we secured a decent advantage early on, getting some kills around the map. ferzee weren't standing around as well, though, taking some of our heroes in response. Overall, though, the teams were quite even, as towards the 15 minute mark we had a slight advantage.
NAVI were fairly mobile, moving around the map and taking some kills. However, the cores of ferzee were farming up their items in between the engagements, and slowly but surely, reclaimed the advantage. The fights started to go quite badly for us, as we were losing the heroes, while enemies' BKBs prevented most of our damage from going through. However, both teams were decent at pushing the lanes, so both teams were relieved of their outer towers fairly soon.
A little after 30 minutes, NAVI got team wiped, allowing the opponent to take the first T3 in mid, and even a barrack. 37 minutes in, after 2 kills, ferzee managed to take down the last barrack - we lose the first lane. From there onwards, the game started to go the way of the Radiant very strongly. As we were trying to hold the game together, we went for a play in our jungle, but the teamfight that unraveled went very bad for us - MagicaL being the last man standing from NAVI, we had no means to defend our base and GG-ed out - game 1 goes to ferzee .
Game 2 - Natus Vincere [1:1] ferzee
ferzee
KingR-
Daxak
VANSKOR
-
Afoninje
-
AfterLife
NAVI.GG.BET
SoNNeikO-
Chuvash
Blizzy
Crystallize
MagicaL
The second game saw ferzee claim the First Blood on the map. NAVI were trying to respond and rotate around the map, but it didn't seem to work too well. Slowly but surely, the opponents were climbing upwards. The early loss of safelane T1 tower didn't help us much either By 10 minutes, ferzee were around 4k ahead in terms of net worth, and 3-4 kills ahead. An engagement around 14 minutes saw NAVI bounce back slightly - we got a few kills, but in the post-fight, a couple of our heroes were caught off-guard and killed.
We decided to focus on the pickoffs, and the game stabilized a bit - we caught up in terms of kill difference and map control. Very soon, the game equalized, with just 2k gold advantage for the opponent. NAVI were trying to utilize the Drow strategy to the max, pushing the towers, and capturing the map. The game shifted slightly our way thanks to a couple of good fights. By 30 minutes, we were moving confidently on both sides of the map.
Teams didn't want to fight at all, only getting casual pickoffs. 44 minutes in, the first big fight erupted, but it didn't result in many casualties - 2 heroes dead overall, 1 for each team. However, an important kill on Clinkz allowed ferzee to go for the high ground of the Dire - even if they didn't take the tower down, they still did some damage. By 50 minutes, ferzee had 12k gold lead. For a while, kill score settled on 26:26, until NAVI caught 2 heroes in the top lane. We approached the enemy base, but only took 1 barrack, losing 2 heroes in the process. ferzee followed it up, killing 2 more - 4 heroes dead, yet all had buybacks, unlike the enemy Necrophos.
Unfortunately, that didn't pose a serious challenge to ferzee , as they took the midlane barracks and even T3 top tower. Game was slowly approaching the ultra-late phase. Both teams capitalized heavily on pushing - the Radiant shifted towards the bottom lane, with a huge fight unraveling. It cost both teams a few buybacks, but we manage to keep ourselves in the game. With 2 buybacks lacking on the side of ferzee, NAVI went on the offensive and pushed the last lane - Mega Creeps. The final push by us had all heroes dead - no means to defend, as we move to the third map.
Game 3 - Natus Vincere [1:1] ferzee
ferzee
Miposhka (sub)-
KingR
AfterLife-
-
Afoninje
-
Daxak- Daxak
NAVI.GG.BET
-
SoNNeikO
Crystallize
Chuvash
MagicaL
Blizzy
The third and final game of the series kicked not too actively. The First Blood was spilled by the opponent's core, as Blizzy fell. ferzee took the lead right away, as the net worth on their cores was fairly respectable. Crystallize and Magical were farming reasonably well, yet falling behind slightly. The initiative on the map was fully taken by the Radiant by 10 minutes, as they were sitting on a solid gold and kill lead.
The further the game went, the harder it was for NAVI to push - despite the best efforts, Treant wasn't really able to heal up all the towers, as Luna was outpushing the team. By 12 minutes we had no T1 towers on the map. As the opponents gathered on the bottom lane to try and get T2 towers, NAVI retaliated - 2 ferzee heroes dead.
However, this did not really reduce the momentum of the Radiant, as they went for the first Roshan of the game, securing the Aegis for Luna. That hero was becoming a real problem, outfarming our cores by roughly 7k gold. Slowly but surely, our gold disadvantage approached 12k gold. A few more fights sealed the deal - NAVI loses the map and the series.
