The upper bracket run for DENCH went very smoothly today, taking a 2-0 victory against Choke Gaming team. The latter then had their lower bracket run ahead of them at the begininng of the day.

DENCH (2) vs. Choke Gaming (0)

The first series of the day saw DENCH secure their spot in Sunday's best of five Grand Final. Once again they were allowed to play their farming game and there was little that Choke could do to stop them. The first game featured an aggressive trilane from Choke to try their best to attempt to disrupt Gron's farm. Unfortunately, this game back to bite them, as their high risk strategy failed to pay off. 

They essentially lost every lane to some extent and could see no way back from their deficit. They ended up calling the game at 20 minutes before any of their tier 2 towers had really been touched. Choke realised their gambit hadn't worked in the way they intended and decided to return to the drafting board rather than draw out the game unnecessarily.

The second game of the series went longer, but only marginally. Choke decided to run an agressive dual lane this time, which meant they weren't risking the entire success of the game on one lane. Just to frustrate DENCH, they drafted a Tusk OmniKnight to again try and target Gron's feared farming capabilities. We also saw the first Lone Druid of the LAN being put in a safelane position. Regardless, Choke trailed in kills at 25 minutes and could do nothing to stop the bleeding. 

With this defeat, Choke moved down to face the winner of the next series of the day: The Hideo Kojima team vs. EX CINERE. After the simplicity of the upper bracket, the lower bracket matches were a refreshingly tight contest.

The Hideo Kojima Team vs. EX CINERE

The series began, as was perhaps expected, with Hideo taking the game to put EX CINERE match point down. The next few hours, though, brought all the excitement, intensity and raised voices you could ever want from a UK DotA 2 LAN.

Hideo found themselves in a commanding position once again at the start of game two, pushing themselves forward to take two sets of barracks in quick succession. What followed was an ill-advised push further into the tier 4 towers. Meep and Kundral were confident on their cores and made the call to try and end. Perhaps underestimating the potential turnaround from Jakiedota and the boys. Respawn timers turned into buybacks, buybacks turned into kills and kill turned into throws for Hideo Kojima. 

A few more tentative back and forths from the teams ended in a quick pickoff on Meep's Silencer, meaning that the all important Global Silence was unavailable to throw a spanner into EX CINERE's teamfight potential. They pushed right for the Ancient and managed to secure an extremely tight game.

The final game was once again fiercly close, as both teams faced elimination from the bracket, the LAN and the potential prize pool. Kundral was given his Invoker again, which struggled at first against the Doom of EX CINERE, but the game stalled out sufficiently for Hideo to get their items up to effectively counter what CINERE was playing with. The Doom became irrelevant to Kundral's Linken's and Meep's Wraith King reached a suitable raidboss status, chopping down anything in his path. 

They marched forward to the ancient and the lower bracket final, to try and secure their place against DENCH tomorrow in the Grand Finals. Stay tuned for the result of Choke Gaming vs. Hideo Kojima and who will guarantee themselves some prize money.