Nisha owns as Team Secret get 2-1 win over Gaimin Gladiators

In this high stakes series, Secret stay live for major contention against Gaimin Gladiators. In a close series, Team Secret, who have had a rougher season, have pretty much decided that Gaimin Gladiators will not qualify to the upcoming major. Though GG can likely rest on their laurels because they have virtually already qualified to the International.

In game one, Gaimin Gladiators put Secret into a full on beatdown. Their draft was meant for quick and speed fights. Their pick of position one Dawnbreaker Anton "dyrachyo" Shkredov allowed the team to shut down the enemy Beastmaster. This combined very well with the Storm Spirit and Nightstalker picks, heroes made to chase down opponents quickly. This made Miroslav "BOOM" Bičanall's performance all the more impressive because Storm Spirit is sitting at a 42% win rate in pro-level pubs. Despite losing the first blood, GG ran over the rest of the early game. Despite losing Rosh, GG were still able to defeat Secret in every teamfight to take game one.

Game two did not start off any better for Secret. Gaimin Gladiators ran it back with position one Dawnbreaker. They switched it up with Leshrac and Viper for the other core heroes. These heroes combined with aggressive rotations from Erik "tOfu" Engel's Tusk again allowed GG to continuously put on pressure on the Secret lineup. There didn't seem to be a point where Secret could get in an opportunity to win a fight.

However, after an over-commitment from GG, Secret were able to get a teamfight win and put themselves back in striking distance with a good bait play from Michał "Nisha" Jankowski. After getting a great pick off on dyrachyo, Secret were able to continue to win teamfights and put themselves in an even better position to win. Secret continued to pick up wins after a great Rosh find. Clement "Puppey" Ivanov got great Hookshots on Clockwerk to set up the massive damage from Remco "Crystallis" Arets on Weaver. In the end, Secret pulled out the win to even up the series.

In game three, Secret switched things up this time with an aggro-tri lane, pitting the Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang solo Tidehunter against the offlane Beastmaster. Though the early game started out relatively even, Nisha popped off on the mid Timbersaw. The game largely continued to be a battle of farm trading. However as the game went on, the teamfight and damage from Team Secret began to get out of control. Nisha's Timbersaw did massive amounts of damage and was quickly able to burst even the tankiest heroes on GG's side. His item choice to buy the Scythe of Vise to give his team more lockdown was crucial in picking off elusive heroes like Weaver and Monkey King. Even further still he was able to cut down the trees of Monkey King in crucial moments to get key kills. Nisha finished the game with 21 kills and zero deaths.

The panel then got a quick interview with Puppey after the game. Neal "tsunami" Khandheria first asked Puppey what the process was like for getting Team Secret's new player Baqyt "Zayac" Emiljanov, after Yazied "YapzOr" Jaradat had to take a leave of absence from the game. Puppey responded" "To be short, we didn't have much time to consider anything, because we needed to play with a player that would play for the whole roster change because he (YapzOr) has a health issue." Puppey continued, saying "I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but Zayac I know in pubs, he played Chen, I played Chen... I was just like yeah, this guy!"

Mira "Ephey" Riad then asked him how in-game communication has progressed with the addition of Zayac. Puppey said that "it is a little bit hard to get straight into a team where you haven't spoken English in a team for awhile. Somethings do not click exactly but they will obviously click in time. It's just that little rough patch and period of the beginning, you know?" He joked after saying, "You know Kuro played on a Russian team, so it can all work out!"

Kevin "Purge" Godec last asked about how the team was feeling after having one of their more rough seasons. Puppey responded that "we got quite depressed after losing to Entity because it kinda solidified the fact that we could almost not get first or second place in the group stage, which gives a lot of points and also a really nice leeway to playing the major. So I don't really know how to answer that question without given more depressive answers. So let's just keep it at the fact that it's rough and we'll try our best and we'll try to iron out all our problems that we had against Entity to perhaps develop a better playstyle and then maybe move to win some of these game."

He continued, saying "because ok, sure, we may not qualify to this TI but something has to happen, somebody has to start playing better, or we need to get a better idea at playing Dota. So even if something is not working out, we should probably fix it, figure out what can work for us. I think overall we're on a better pace, because winning [against] Liquid, already showed that we were doing the right thing!"

Team Secret are now in contention for a slot to the Arlington major. Will they make it there? Will they qualify to TI. Stick with us to find out at esports.gg!