Ninjas in Pyjamas vs Empire — WePlay! Dota 2 Valentine Madness

The third day of WePlay! Dota 2 Valentine Madness was marked with yet another important match between Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Empire who fought over the right to advance further to the semifinal.

First map

Ninjas in Pyjamas started with a popular scheme of picking three cores – Razor, Ursa, and Chaos Knight. In response to that, Team Empire chose a well-combined duo of Magnus and Juggernaut having sent Outworld Devourer to the middle lane and picking Shadow Shaman and Grimstroke as a support group. Sadly, from the very beginning, Empire faced the difficulty of executing their own strategy. The team was losing towers one after another and falling behind with collecting gold. The local battles were not a success either. Magnus couldn’t reach the crucially important 6^th level for an unforgivably long time. The difference in gold reached a whopping 24 thousand by the end of the 30^th minute. If there was a chance of a comeback, it was irrevocably lost due to Juggernaut hanging around without a buyback. NiP caught the enemy’s core and reached mega creeps while he was spending the time of his life in the tavern. 1:0 for pyjamas-wearing athletes.

Second map

Team Empire once again picked both Shadow Shaman and Juggernaut with the latter taking over the middle lane, although the main force was represented by Doom, Huskar, and Lich. To counter that, Ninjas in Pyjamas chose Faceless Void, Pugna, and Sven while the final pick of Broodmother was indisputably brilliant.

That tactical pick secured the second game for NiP. The team was completely dominating over the lanes having reached a huge gap in their favour in terms of gold, experience, and artefacts. Team Empire did their best to defend themselves, but the initial flaw of their draft (while the enemy’s draft was strategically better) defined the result from the very beginning. Ninjas in Pyjamas got a second win.

Ninjas in Pyjamas was the second team to reach semifinals where they’ll face Gambit Esports, the winners of Winter Madness. Team Empire went down to the lower bracket.