Intro
TL;DR

Group Stage
First Outings

Main Stage
Road to the finals

Lower Bracket Finals
The Best From the West

Grand Finals
East vs. West

Recommended Games
Get Caught Up

Final Bracket

More on Liquipedia

A temporary victor of the post-TI6 roster shuffle has been crowned in Xiamen: EG has come out on top with a strong showing from their new roster in order to win MDL and claim some bragging rights as we head towards the end of 2016. While Wings, DC, Liquid and Fnatic were not present, we still had some of the strongest teams in the world attending to show us what their new rosters could achieve. We saw new players prove themselves and old veterans struggle to keep hold of what was once their spot on the main stage. For all of these teams, the experience gained from MDL has been priceless as they can move forward addressing issues that have become apparent and further building on their strengths. With MDL now behind us, we have marked the first step in each team’s journey to the next Major, and eventually to TI.

Group Stage

During the group stage at MDL we finally got to see the first clashes of the new rosters from Newbee, MVP, OG, Secret, EG, VG, LGD Forever Young and an unchanged IG Vitality. Many of the series featured close games with either team capable of winning or needing a game 3 to decide which team would come out on top. We witnessed some great execution and individual plays coming from some unexpected places during the group stage and while there were some moments that showcased the teams weren’t used to playing together completely, there was still some great Dota to be seen.

In Group A, MVP’s new offlaner Velo had an incredible performance on Axe against Newbee while Kaka and Faith both performed extremely well together on support, often times setting up easily won team fights in exchange for their own lives. Earlier on in the day, Team Secret pulled out some strategies that made use of their new player’s talents from their previous teams and showed us that there is a good reason to be excited to see more of their games in the future. The first two games of Secret vs Newbee were back and forth with some great moments especially from MP.

In Group B we saw Arteezy and Sumail work in tandem against VG to triumph despite dropping the first game to Ghost’s Timbersaw, END’s Terrorblade, and some nice Chronospheres by Yang, which set them up to win the game. OG’s Ana quickly made it known that he was more than capable of filling the shoes Miracle had left as he dismantled IG.V with his Storm and Drow. EG and OG clashed to decide on who would come out on top of group B: While OG seemed to have the upper hand after a stellar game 1 from Ana, EG rallied back to take games 2 and 3.

The second and final day of the group stage saw the teams battle for the last spots in the upper bracket to join Newbee and EG. Group A started with Secret simply outplaying LGD Forever Young as they went from the 15 to 30 minute mark in the game 1 without losing a single hero before ending the game. The second game saw both a similar opening in the draft by LFY and a similar ending as Secret took the win in only 21 minutes. Team Secret were further able to carry their momentum into their next match against MVP: While they dropped the first game to QO’s mid PA and an aggressive trilane, they struck back and took the next two to win the series and secure the upper bracket position. In Group B Vici Gaming continued to struggle as they lost to IG Vitality 2-1 to very similar drafts in the two games they lost. OG met IG.V once again and repeated their earlier 2-0 performance, this time securing their seat in the upper bracket.

Main Stage

The main stage of MDL started off in the upper bracket with Newbee vs OG. With OG only having beat IG Vitality to get to the upper bracket, they had to prove they rightfully belonged there. Alas, they started off strong in game 1 with a safelane Morphling played by Ana, racking up kills and ending the game 14-0. Newbee answered back as Kaka took advantage of S4’s offlane puck in game 2 while Sccc and uuu9 took firm control in both games 2 and 3. Thus, Newbee advanced 2-1 over OG, while in total uuu9 only died twice across all three games. The other upper bracket match featured EG taking on Secret with a fantastic introduction for EG. The series started off with EG taking a steady advantage over Secret as Arteezy and SumaiL both found their item timings on Juggernaut and Anti-Mage respectively and - in combination with some great saves from Cr1t’s Oracle - secured them an early lead in the series. Game 2 had something incredibly rare: Puppey was the most farmed hero on the map by the end of the game, having secured his Radiance by 20 minutes as a Naga Siren. After a short period of time, EG was no longer capable of dealing with Secrets line-up and tapped out; tying the series at one a piece. After game two, Puppey pulled out his rarely seen - but undefeated (2-0) - Earth Spirit. Nonetheless, EG had a plan themselves as they put a lot of effort into securing SumaiL’s early game. Both teams traded blows throughout the game but EG slowly was able to gain the advantage as SumaiL became too strong for Secret to contend with, especially after getting the aegis three times, and EG eventually took the series 2-1.

The upper bracket finals between Newbee and EG showcased an important difference between the two teams. While the players were very evenly matched in skill, the experience as a captain that Kaka has over Cr1t proved itself in spades. Kaka brought Newbee back to his favored tactic as they played very reactionary DotA and did so using full force. Uuu9 continued his amazing performance during the tournament, adding only two more deaths to his tally across both games and thus bringing his total death count to 4 during the main stage. While the games between EG and Newbee were very close during the early and middle stages, it was clear that EG was the team being pressured and eventually crumbling.

The lower bracket began with MVP vs VG. While QO still maintained his usual playstyle, it is clear that the rest of MVP still needs time to come to terms with how they will play around him. Game three in particular saw MVP take an early lead and a barracks advantage before ramming themselves into the top T3 tower over and over again until VG recovered, pushing the Koreans back and eventually winning the series. Vici’s run was then stopped - before it got a chance to really get started - as they went up against OG: In both games they ran out of steam against the power of OG’s new lineup.

On the other side of the lower bracket, we saw Xiao8-lead LGD Forever Young starting off against IG Vitality in what one might assume to be a simple series for the seasoned veterans but instead turned into a back and forth bloodbath. While LFY managed to secure a 2-0 victory over IG.V, the instability they had shown immediately came to haunt them in their next series against Secret. Puppey and company took advantage of the gaps in the new LGD roster’s defense by picking Bounty Hunter in both games, which set up a fantastic performance from MP on a offlane Na’ix in game 2.

With Secret’s win over LGD Forever Young, they faced OG to decide who would go on to the lower bracket finals to fight against Evil Geniuses. While both teams had their ups and downs to get to this point, the consistency shown by Ana rung true once again in game 1. Despite Team Secret being able to keep the game incredibly even for the first 30 minutes, a poor team fight around the 33 minute mark (due to MidOne getting picked off at OG’s ancients) heavily swayed the game in OG’s favor. Game two was one of the longest games of the tournament and featured OG hemorrhaging kills for the first 25 minutes before they stopped the bleeding. After that point, Secret found it extremely difficult to initiate as either Jerax on Wisp or Notail’s Naga were always there to bail out their teammates from danger. Even the 3 rapiers acquired by MidOne on his Ember Spirit were not enough as OG got mega creeps and slowly chipped Team Secret to death with illusions.

Lower Bracket Finals

Looking at the teams, it would seem that not very much has changed even with completely new rosters as EG faced off against OG, with the winner moving on to play Newbee in the grand finals. The first game between EG and OG featured the North America-based team picking an Anti-Mage and a support Naga played by Zai, who managed to grab a relatively quick Radiance at 26 minutes into the game. As time ticked onwards, OG were out-farmed and couldn’t stand up against both EG’s Anti-Mage and Naga.

In game 2, we initially saw OG struggling to deal with Zai’s Riki in the early game. Later however, some great Rubick play by Jerax and a very strong dual core with N0tail’s Drow and Ana’s Storm (who added yet another game to his tally of individual performances at MDL), brought the series to a deciding third game.
With both teams tournament lives on the line, we witnessed EG wiping OG as they caught them completely off-guard with a smoke through mid. EG kept up the aggression with a Shadow Demon, Kunkka and Luna trilane to put even more pressure on OG, which eventually lead to Arteezy being on a dominating streak a minute and a half into the game. On top of his team’s great start, SumaiL was able to get absolute free farm on Alchemist and ended the game just shy of 1000 GPM. Overall, EG displayed a great understanding of what OG wanted to try to do and countered it extremely well in order to advance to the grand finals to face Newbee

Grand Finals

Over the transfer window, Cr1t took up the leadership role on EG in place of PPD and here for the very first time showcased his talent as a captain, while Sumail and Arteezy once again paired up and showed utter dominance against many other teams. On Newbee’s side, we saw the experience in Kaka pay off as his team looked composed and comfortable at all stages, along with Sccc and uuu9 putting on a hell of a show in nearly every game they played in. These two teams faced off in the grand finals to finally see which one had truly put together the stronger lineup after TI6.

The first game started off with an agressive trilane from Newbee to contest EG’s farm and to try to keep pressure off of Sccc’s Invoker mid. Despite both teams clashing bottom, neither managed to secure first blood until shortly after 8 minutes. EG showed they had studied their loss in the upper bracket and prepared to face Newbee much stronger than before as they went into the first game with a drow strat. During the game, both teams showed some signs of nerves, which was even multiplied by how even both sides’ fighting strength was: One single mistake could cost an important fight. The first game was extremely tense as both teams tested the waters and tried to siege each other’s bases multiple times, which eventually lead to EG taking a great taking fight and getting a lead in the series.

The second game began with EG making great early game rotations, punishing Newbee for their intrusions onto EG’s side of the map. While Newbee traded well in a couple of fights largely due to Timbersaw’s damage output, they struggled to gain any real ground on EG. SumaiL’s storm made life hell for Newbee’s supports. In the meanwhile, EG's two supports provided sickening amounts of durability for the team. These two advantages combined allowed EG to take a two game advantage over Newbee in the best of five, putting them at tournament point.

Newbee started game 3 with Kaka sniping EG’s courier, which carried SumaiL’s bottle, and then getting first blood on Universe. EG’s farm however was relatively uncontested on both Arteezy and SumaiL while Zai and Cr1t both made the most out of their jungle and soaked experience whereever they could. Newbee however stayed focused and played very controlled DotA as they used Kpii’s ravages to great effect in team fights, often killing Arteezy’s Drow already before the stun duration ended. Soon after Kpii had picked up a refresher, Newbee pushed into EG’s base and with a “Double Reverse Sheever” (in the words of Draskyl), Newbee forced a GG.

With EG still on match point, both teams picked heroes that hadn’t been seen too often at MDL: EG picked up a Winter Wyvern while Newbee chose Silencer to round out their respective line-ups. EG’s safelane got off to a good start as the Wyvern - combined with Arteezy’s Sven and Zai’s Wisp - killed Kpii and continued to pressure him off the lane while Universe was able to farm the jungle on Axe. Evil Geniuses continued to apply pressure all over the map with their early advantage and secured farm on all three of their cores as Newbee tried to find an opening to take a favorable fight. Despite being able to land some great initiations and counter-initiations from Kpii’s Slardar, EG managed to come out ahead of Newbee in the fights as it was nearly impossible to fight into both heavily-farmed SumaiL and Arteezy. EG began to win each fight by a larger and larger margin until it eventually was just too much for Newbee to take, crowning EG as the MDL champions.