The Chongqing Major qualifiers: victory over Winstrike Team
NAVI.GG.BET take a well-deserved 2:0 series!
NAVI.GG.BET fought 
Winstrike Team in a Bo3 series at the first round of The Chongqing Major qualifier. The intense series was a real nail-biter, with NAVI scoring 2:0 and moving into the winners' finals.
Game 1 - Natus Vincere [1:0] Winstrike Team
NAVI.GG.BET
Blizzy
SoNNeikO
Chuvash
Crystallize
MagicaL
Winstrike Team
yamich
Silent
Iceberg
Nongrata
ALWAYSWANNAFLY
The first game kicked off with a relatively early First Blood, as Axe overextended in the top lane. MagicaL didn't have a very good start in the midlane against Rubick, so SoNNeikO dropped by, helping Invoker score a kill. Rubick did manage to get level 6 pretty soon, though, and engaged our mid. We lost Invoker quite early on, but still managed to get return kills. The game became much more active, with a lot of rotations coming from both teams. By 10 minutes, teams were almost dead equal in net worth.
Active Dota continued — as Io-copter tried to find some pickoffs and farm, NAVI were trying to punish that. Still, Winstrike heroes were finding their farm, and only Luna was able to keep up. The opponents were able to deny her the stacks in the jungle, which only made the situation tougher. Nonetheless, we were far from being out of the game. As Crystallize got his BKB, NAVI smoked up, and immediately ran into the opponent - they lost 2, yet a little later, we lost 2 in return in the top lane.
25 minutes in, NAVI found some Dire heroes near their bot T1 - despite Supernova getting killed early on, Luna's damage was more than enough. Winstrike did manage to find an answer to that — Primal Split delayed Luna enough during the fight near Roshan to win Winstrike the fight. Subsequently, they took the first Roshan of the game, and tried to siege high ground right after, but disengaged almost immediately. A little after, Winstrike found 2 pickoffs, and they enabled them to try high ground again, and since Invoker had no buyback, we had to forfeit the T2 and a barrack.
The series of bad fights continued — Winstrike started a fight in the midlane, and NAVI were unable to fight back, as Luna was getting next to no lifesteal due to Radiance; we lost 3 and another lane. Still, the respawn timers allowed NAVI to strike back — a few heroes dead on Winstrike let us take the Roshan, but that wasn't an easy one. The final push came rather unexpectedly - Axe caught Io in the top lane, and that dealt a heavy blow to Gyrocopter, as Io was gone for 2 minutes. Realizing that, NAVI went for the push down the midlane, and got 4 heroes killed — GG!
Game 2 - Natus Vincere [2:0] Winstrike Team
NAVI.GG.BET-
Blizzy
-
SoNNeikO
-
Chuvash
-
Crystallize
MagicaL
Winstrike Team-
yamich
-
Silent
-
ALWAYSWANNAFLY
Nongrata
Iceberg
The second game saw Axe going for the creep cut yet again, but this time around it was a lot more successful. MagicaL had a good mid versus Dragon Knight, but Luna in the bot lane got her first creep after 3 minutes, which wasn't an ideal position. Nonetheless, the First Blood helped Crystallize quite a bit, as did the subsequent kills. [:kr] Blizzy got his hands on the Blink Dagger at 8 minutes, and immediately rotated mid, scoring a kill on Dragon Knight. 10 minutes in, a fight broke out in the midlane — most heroes had their ultimates, and kills were traded: Kunkka got killed, but NAVI claimed a few in return.
NAVI held a convincing net worth advantage by 15 minutes, so a couple minutes later, we tried to siege the high ground. 3 heroes were killed on the side of Winstrike, but we incurred some losses as well. BKB on enemy Gyrocopter, though, caught us off-guard, as we lost 3 heroes. Despite that, this wasn't a huge setback for us, as we were able to get the first Roshan of the game. That gave us an even bigger advantage, but we weren't pressing it too hard, instead getting some of the core items up before 30.
The fight unraveled at 30 minutes outside of Dire base — Winstrike lost 4 of their heroes, and Gyrocopter+Io had to buy back. A minor detail, though, dealt a heavy blow to the Dire — as Gyrocopter died mid-Toss, he respawned at the same location, and was dead almost instantly. From there onwards, it was just smooth sailing, as eventually, Winstrike called GG — NAVI take the series 2:0!
