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Dota 2 Frankfurt Major 2015: Team Secret dominates, Vega Squadron bounced from Frankfurt

Nov 18, 2015, 2:46 AM UTC

James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.

Tuesday at the Frankfurt Major saw two upper bracket series paired with two more teams eliminated from the tournament. The re-tooled Team Secret continues to be a team to watch with their changes since TI:5 proving to be instrumental in their utter domination of the competition.

Secret had a relatively easy group, which led to many suspecting this team was a paper tiger — even after its MLG New York win over Evil Geniuses. Was Secret for real, or simply surprising teams not prepared for their style? Today helped answer some of those questions.

Team Secret defeats Mineski (2-0)

This series proved why Team Secret are so dangerous: They have astounding versatility. Their hero pool was completely different between game 1 and game 2, changing every position. It was a strategy that clearly caught Mineski off guard.

In Game 1 Mineski were able to hang. Secret jumped out to a quick lead, but this was eroded. A 5K gold lead disappeared as Phantom Lancer started to come online and at the 35-minute mark Mineski has brought the gold lead back to parity, led kills 16-8 and while Secret was still scary, they looked contained. The core problem late game was trying to keep a hard-carry PL alive against an over-farmed Ember Spirit. EternaL EnVy played his Ember to perfection and took the first game.

Game 2 was, well, a stomp. Mineski showed they have the talent to play against Team Secret, but Secret realized quickly that they needed to end the game quickly against an Anti Mage carry. Queen of Pain and Shadow Fiend out-farmed AM throughout the contest, meaning their 2 vs. 1 carry construction was simply better-suited to take down Mineski’s more team-fight oriented setup. GG was called before the base was cracked, with Mineski realizing they were utterly outmatched.

Vici Gaming defeats Virtus.pro (2-1)

This was a really fun series. Despite it going three games we were treated to each contest being brief, bloody and excellent to watch. The longest game of the series went 44 minutes, and we saw just how good Super is.

We saw in Game 1 that Alchemist might be coming back into the meta in a big way. Vici had an astounding farm lead that totaled 15K at one point, all from Alch. It was a truly astonishing affair that saw Illidan unable to keep up on Gyrocopter, continually falling down the table and ultimately handing the first contest to Vici.

Virtus.pro bounced back in Game 2 on the back of stellar team fighting. We saw a Drow Ranger! That was the big highlight. Switching the lineup to ultra-aggressive team fighting was too much for Vici, and after making a questionable decision to buy back and contest Roshan it was a full team fight for Vici that led to the VP victory.

The third game was about squandered opportunities. Virtus.pro was in control for so much of the game, then kept making bad decisions. They engaged poorly, got baited into bad decisions — all while Super was quietly becoming a monster on Ember Spirit. When he was six-slotted there was no stopping him, leading to the longest game of the series while simultaneously being so one-sided that it was hard to remember when VP controlled the tempo.

EHOME defeats Vega Squadron (2-0)

Vega Squadron picked a strong solo-lockdown lineup that included Bane, Slardar and Winter Wyvern. It was an interesting concept vs. a late-carry lineup, but felt out of place against EHOME’s carry combo of Shadow Fiend and Luna. Essentially the game played like a pseudo four-protect-one, trying to buy as much time for Templar Assassin to find a foothold. That never happened, and a sneaky Abaddon pick helped limit the ability of TA to get jumps.

Game 2 was much the same, which was strange. One would think Vega would have realized they needed to adjust, but that never came to pass. The game played out almost identically, with the TA unable to get enough farm and resulting in a fairly easy win for EHOME.

LGD Gaming defeats Unknown (2-0)

YOU STILL HAVE MY HEART, UNKNOWN! Sorry, that was too much, I know. Anyway, this was one of those series where it was clear the only enemy Unknown had was its lack of experience. They were happy to be still playing at this point, and it showed.

Unknown ran a very similar strat to what we saw them utilize against Newbee in the lower bracket on Monday, but LGD Gaming proved why it’s still one of the forces in Dota 2. That quick, aggressive Unknown style might have been enough to catch Newbee off guard, but it simply wasn’t going to work against LGD. Both games felt like Unknown was running against a brick wall, and in the end it was a relatively easy series — both games ending before the 40-minute mark.