THE FINAL Southeast Asian hope at The International 10 came to an end as T1 fell against Chinese squad Vici Gaming, 2-1, at the lower bracket.
With the loss, T1, which is captained by Pinoy veteran Carlos “Kuku” Palad with Pinoy mid laner Karl “Karl” Baldovino, ends the tournament at 7th-8th place. However, they will still take home $1,000,500, or more than P50 million.
“I think they played good. But at the end of the day there is one winner and one loser,” said Kuku about his teammates (many of whom are participating in their first world series) in the postgame interview.
He added: “I think we need to come back next year again. Now we’re feeling good, our performance wasn’t really bad for this TI run, and we just fell short. They’re just the better team for now."
TI10 news: Recapping T1 vs Vici Gaming
T1 came out of the gates swinging, winning all three lanes and grabbing an early game lead. A 25-minute team fight around T1’s top tier one tower gave the squad their first team wipe of the series. They had three by the end of the game. A 28-minute fight around the Roshan pit gave Vici breathing room to stay in the game, but T1 struck back two minutes later, taking down three of Vici’s core for a support enchantress.
As the game eventually slowed down, Vici managed to grab crucial items by the 38-minute team fight. But a botched tussle around the Rosh pit saw T1 take down all of Vici heroes and march on to end the game at 40 minutes.
Karl once again was dominant on his mid Lina, ending Game 1 with a 20/1/11 KDA. Kuku, on the other hand, provided the necessary engages on his offlane Magnus, finishing with 24 assists. 23savage likewise closed out the first game with a 9/2/19 on his carry Razor.
Game 2 saw Vici grab the Lina for themselves, as well as Faceless Void, against T1’s mid Dragon Knight and carry Monkey King. It was a tough game for T1 who were outscaled by the Lina, calling GG at 38 minutes.
The decider saw T1 give Karl his pocket pick Bat Rider, as well as Kuku’s Magnus and 23Savages’ carry Wraith King. But it was a free farming Tiny and crucial swaps from the offlane Vengeful Spirit that completely disrupted T1’s plans. Vici would run down the Southeast Asian squad with a quick 28-minute win.
Also, earlier in day, defending champs OG ended their title defense with a loss to Team Spirit, 2-0.
It was Spirit’s fast-paced Dota and crisp shot-calling that made life difficult for the defending champs. Mid laner TorontoTokyo had quite a romp over OG, finishing Game 1 with 20/1/15 KDA and 13/2/9 KDA in Game 2. Meanwhile, offlaner Collapse had himself one of the best Magnus games in the tournament, grabbing 4 kills and 32 assists in Game 1 and 3 kills with 25 assists in Game 2.
OG finished the tournament at 7th-8th place.
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