Tundra Esports quickly 2-0s goonsquad to secure their slot at the Arlington Major. In the series, Tundra showcased some textbook Dota 2 and goonsquad had no answers.
Tundra coming hot off a win versus Entity last week continues showing dominance in the Western European (WEU) DPC Division I. After a powerful win against Division I newcomers, goonsquad, Tundra Esports has officially secured a slot at the Arlington Major. Tundra is now the second EU team confirmed to attend the Arlington major after OG. The team now shares the first spot with OG and their next few series will see them race for the top seed.
If you missed the matchup, here's the series recap!
33's Alchemist leads Tundra to a victory
When the first blood fells in the hands of Neta "33" Shapira's Alchemist, we can already foresee how the lanes would turn out for Tundra. The team accumulated an early 3k gold lead at 8 minutes as Tundra showed dominance in every lane. After this, Tundra kept its efficiency around the map. At minute 15 goonsquad got some nice pickoffs versus Tundra, but was never able to contain the increasing gold lead being spearheaded by 33's Alchemist. A teamfight breaks out at minute 19 and ended up in a two-for-two trade, showing how even the teams are in full-on five versus five fights.
Tundra showing textbook Dota
Even though the teams looked even in teamfights, Tundra realized they can farm and get more out of the map than goonsquad. Tundra proceeds to increase its gold lead and by minute 22 the team secured Roshan. With a newly acquired 9k gold lead and Aegis of Immortal for Oliver "Skiter" Lepko, Tundra takes charge. Tundra kept making the map smaller and smaller for goonsquad.
With a 21k gold lead and another Aegis acquired for Luna, Tundra prepared to close out the game. Goonsquad, realizing the situation is bleak, went for a hail Mary smoke. They ended up losing the fight, losing all their heroes and killing none of Tundras. GG is called at minte 35 by Linus "Limmp" Blomdin.
Tundra shows why they are one of the best teams in WEU
Game two started with another round of lane dominance from Tundra, ending with a 6k gold lead by minute 15, spearheaded by "33"s Alchemist with an incredible 10K networth. Goonsquad showed resilience and went for a sneaky Roshan led by Charlie "aQua" Arat's Ursa. Even with the Aegis advantage, goonsquad was content with farming and evading Tundra. Tundra tries to counter this by bringing the fight to goonsquad. Goonsquad did a good job evading and trying to farm their way back into the game. The team caught a lonesome Wu "Sneyking" Jingjun Dazzle, but the team fight ended up in Tundra's favor with goonsquad losing two heroes.
Back to hiding for goonsquad
After this goonsquad went back to evading Tundra as much as possible. Sadly, this led to Tundra getting more out of the map, and their gold lead increased. At 30 minutes into the game, with an Aegis in the hands of Lifestealer, Tundra finally got the fight they've been looking for. The fight ended 3-0 in favor of Tundra and they walked up goonsquads high ground.
Tundra was smelling blood in the water and pushed towards the throne, forcing goonsquad to call GG.
Post-match interview with the coach of Tundra Esports, Aui_2000
In the post-match interview, the panel brought Tundra's coach, Kurtis Daniel "Aui_2000" Ling on board. First, the panel asked regarding the difference between Tour 2 and 3 for Tundra. What does Aui consider the biggest difference for Tundra? "For tour 2 we just had the roster change (Getting Saksa instead of Fata), so we've been practicing a lot. The DPC is very long so we need to find the balance between working and relaxing."
The next question was regarding their cooperation with an esport psychologist, and how has that helped the team? "We've been working on our psychology the most, all the players in this team are very high skill and hard working. So we've been focusing on preparing under pressure".
Then the analysts asked about hero picks and comfortability during the season. Ioannis "Fogged" Loucas asked if teams stagnate during the DPC and get stuck on heroes. "For sure, you play 7 games in the DPC. And what happens when you have very few matches is you get specialized. There's a lot of strong heroes, but you don't want to risk an unorthodox pick."
The final question was regarding specific heroes on Dire versus Radiant. Robson "TeaGuvnor" Merritt asked if they would've picked Alchemist on radiant. "Dire Alchemist farms faster than radiant Alchemist. Feel like you farm faster in general on dire."