Overview of The Kuala Lumpur Major Playoffs Day 1

Secret vs Vici Gaming

Main event of The Kuala Lumpur Major started out with the much-awaited Team Secret vs Vici Gaming match up. In the first game, Secret picked a position 5 axe for Puppey which is not completely new in this meta. We have been seeing some strength heroes on support roles recently. Although Puppey died a few times in the laning phase, Secret ended up winning the side lanes. MidOne had a tough lane against Ori’s TA in the mid lane, but he quickly got back into the game after a few skirmishes. Vici Gaming was running a Drow lineup and they lost the early game, and we know what happens when a Drow lineup loses the early game. Secret played very clean and started taking control of the map. Nisha farmed like a beast on his TB and finished with a GPM of 825. They won two major teamfights and called out the GG from Vici Gaming by 27 minutes.

The second game was very intense. Puppey again went for a position 5 Axe. This time however, VG got Terrorblade for themselves. The laning phase was almost even, with Secret getting a tiny lead. The mid game was a complete roller coaster. There were many skirmishes every few minutes with both the teams trading heroes left and right. The only constant was that both MidOne on his PL and Paparazi on his TB were farming really well throughout the game. Finally, it came down to the drafts as Secret had a few answers for TB with their Axe and Earthshaker picks but VG did not have any major counters to PL. They did have a Magnus but they didn’t have any late-game Melee carry that can tear through the illusions. Still, VG played exceptionally well, almost winning the last few teamfights. Secret managed to get two full teamwipes twice in a row by trading 3 of their heroes, and VG called in an early GG even though they hadn’t lost a single lane of barracks. Its understandable though, considering at how the teamfights were going.

PSG.LGD vs Alliance

The second Upper Bracket series was PSG.LGD vs Alliance. Alliance surprised everyone by coming 2^nd in their group and got everyone very curious as to how they would fare against the highest tier teams in the world. And we got our answer – They have a lot more to learn. Alliance got completely stomped, and PSG.LGD made us remember that they are the TI8 runners-up.

In the first game, LGD won every lane and stacked up a gold lead of 5k by 11 minutes. They did not give any room for Alliance to breath, ganking and taking objectives nonstop. They took the bottom lane of racks by 28 min and Alliance called GG after losing a teamfight trying to defend their mid lane of racks.

The second game was even more brutal. LGD were toying around with Alliance. In the late-game interview, xNova mentioned that fy dreamt about playing support Chaos Knight Aghs combo with TB the previous night. And you guessed it, they actually just went for it in game 2, adding a core Shadow Demon to the recipe. Fy played position 4 Chaos Knight and rushed the Aghs after brown boots and an Urn. He finished it by 20 minutes and at this point, Shadow Demon and Chaos Knight were just right clicking the TB illusions on the enemy heroes, which melted them in the matter of seconds. Alliance tapped out after 30 minutes.

TNC Predator vs paiN Gaming

The Lower Bracket BO1s started out with TNC Predator vs. Pain Gaming. We have seen some crazy stomps in these Playoffs but this match was the biggest stomp of the entire tournament. TNC pulled out a last pick Huskar and they just won the game by 23 minutes with 23-4 score. There’s not a lot to be said about this game as its common knowledge by now as to what happens when the opposing team has no answers to a Huskar pick in high tier Dota. This definitely tells a lot about the incredibly “balanced and fresh” meta of 7.19 though, which is a discussion for another time. This is a really harsh way of getting eliminated from a Major.

Tigers Vs paiN X

The final match of the day was Tigers vs pain X. The DreamLeague Season 10 Minor Champions, Tigers didn’t seem all that mighty at the Major. They performed poorly in the group stages and they got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Although it wasn’t a stomp, pain X didn’t seem like they were behind at any point in the game. CCnC had an excellent game with Venomancer in the Mid Lane and Ritsu farmed almost effortlessly throughout the game on his TB. Pain X took the bottom lane of racks by 25 min and forced out the GG 35 min while taking the top lane of racks and wiping Tigers even after buybacks. The Minor winners’ run ended really early at the Major.

Day 2 has a lot in store with some exciting match ups like Evil Geniuses vs NiP. It starts at 10:30 AM IST and you can watch it live on PGL’s stream on Twitch. Here’s the schedule for the matches.