PSG.LGD took down Alliance 2-0 in the WePlay Animajor upper bracket. The series secured enough points for the Chinese squad to qualify directly to The International 10. Alliance will face Team Spirit in the lower bracket tomorrow.
Coming out of their respective DPC seasons, Alliance and PSG LGD have been looking like some of the strongest teams. Alliance finished at the top of the WEU standings while PSG.LGD finished second to Aster in the hyper-competitive Chinese region. We’ve been able to see PSG.LGD dominate in the group stage of the major, not losing a single series and finishing 10-4 overall. PSG.LGD and Alliance are playing against each other in the upper bracket round one of the WePlay Animajor playoffs.
PSG.LGD is one of the favorites to win the WePlay Animajor after showing a strong performance in the Chinese DPC qualifiers. The team has lots of experience on LAN as Chinese teams have been practicing on LAN for a long time. Alliance has mostly played online and bombed out of the Singapore Major despite having a strong qualifiers finish.
The Chinese giant took down Alliance in a 2-0 fashion and a rather convincing game 2. Here's how it all played out at Kyiv between two of the best teams from each region.
Game 1: PSG.LGD gets away with greedy lineup
The draft was incredibly hype with a last pick signature Slark for Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov, having a good matchup against the Wang "Ame" Chunyu Morphling. The laning phase went relatively even until Linus "Limmp" Blomdin was able to steal some stacks with the Death Prophet Exorcism and take some early kills.
In the mid-game, things slowed down a bit with each side taking towers and trying to farm up. This played into the hands of PSG.LGD, who went for a greedier line-up to secure the farm for Ame. For the most part the teams danced around each other getting a kill or two and one Roshan kill for Alliance. A second Rosh fight costed buy buybacks for both teams as neither was still able to take a decisive fight.
It was then that PSG.LGD essentially stole the Roshan from Alliance with Ame waveforming into the pit to take the spoils. With a nice Skewer from Zhang "Faith_bian" Ruida onto Gustav "s4" Magnusson, the rest of the team was able to take a decisive fight against Alliance. With the results of that fight, the game broke wide open. PSG.LGD was able to take every fight afterward and force the 'GG' out of Alliance.
With this victory, PSG.LGD secured a one-game lead over Alliance. The team needed another game win to secure enough points to qualify for The International.
Game 2: Despite an early setback, PSG.LGD Run Over Alliance
This draft, Alliance continued to go back to comfort, picking up the Limmp Tiny, but pulling out some new stuff, with an offlane Kunkka for s4. LGD picked up Axe, a hero they helped popularize at this major, and a newer Drow Ranger, with an even newer Undying for Zhang "y`" Yiping. Y’ bullied the s4 Kunkka in the early game but it was evened out with two clutch Shadow Poison Kills on Ame from Simon "Handsken" Haag. Despite having a rough start for Ame, LGD were able to pretty handedly win their other lanes with Faith bian playing very well, and Cheng "NothingToSay" Jin Xiang winning the favorable matchup with his Razor against Tiny.
At around the 10-minute mark, LGD just started to run at Alliance. Getting some good kills on the squishy and immobile supports and picking off s4. Even with some key kills on Ame, Alliance found that they lacked a lot of damage, even 5v4. Although Alliance was able to get some pickoffs, LGD just continued to beat into them.
The late game was more of the same, LGD just continued to Smash Alliance. With one last questionable fight with Nikobaby jumping in and dying, LGD were able to come out on top and just dominate Alliance.
What's next for PSG.LGD?
PSG LGD are continuing to look as flawless as they did during the group stage and will be continuing on as one of the favorites in the major. With that win, LGD secure a spot at The International 10. Though Alliance showed moments of brilliance in both games, it looks as if they still have some work to do to be able to make a lower bracket run.
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