On Day 3 of TI9’s Main Event, Infamous faced off against Newbee in an elimination match in the Lower Bracket.
This is the first time the teams have met at TI9. Newbee was dropped to the lower bracket by OG in devastating fashion; while Infamous bested Keen Gaming in a best-of-one lower bracket match.
Game one
Infamous went with their comfort-picks, opting for Wraith King for
Hector “Hector” Rodriguez, with Jean “Chris Luck” Gonzales on Monkey King in the middle lane. Newbee decided to go with hard carry Sven for Yawar “Yawar” Hassan.
Going into game one, Hector and Yawar were the two players with the highest gold per minute averages in all of TI9.
Infamous looked to be in top form during the early stages of the first game, winning most of their lanes. And Hector had an amazing start on his Wraith King.
Newbee tried to take down Hector at the middle lane, but because of Wraith King’s’ Reincarnation ability, Adrian “Wisper” Dobles’ Magnus was able to time a perfectly placed Reverse Polarity ultimate that bailed out his team.
With Hector way ahead in the net worth chart, Infamous decided to group up and push towards the Radiant base. Newbee tried to contest this but they lacked the damage and the hero control.
While Infamous was busy taking down the Radiant base structures, Yawar was caught farming by Elvis “Scofield” Peña’s Nyx Assassin at the bottom jungle. This prevented Sven from teleporting back to help defend their base.
With Newbee’s heroes taken care of, Infamous continued to destroy enemy structures unopposed, forcing Newbee to call GG.
Game two
For game two, Newbee decided to go with a lineup that relied on sustainability; while Infamous chose to go with the Juggernaut instead of the Wraith King this time around.
Yawar had a better start in game two and took the top spot on the gold graph with his Lifestealer, beating out Hector’s Juggernaut. And Newbee managed to keep up with Infamous’ early game hero rotations.
Infamous failed to secure a kill for a full 16 minutes of game time. And, after a successful team fight for Newbee at the middle lane, it became clear that Infamous lacked the damage to win a prolonged clash.
At the 40-minute mark, Newbee pushed down the bottom lane and took out Infamous’ heroes, taking game two, and forcing a decisive third game.
Game three
With both teams trading one-sided beat downs in their first two games, for the third game, Infamous decided to go back to Wraith King again, together with a Slark for Chris Luck on the middle lane. Newbee hoped to counter this with a support Invoker on Arif “MSS” Anwar, along with Yawar on the Lifestealer.
In the early stages of game three, Chris Luck played a hyper-aggressive Slark that kept hunting for kills instead of staying in the middle lane.
While all four of Infamous’ heroes continued to wreak havoc all over the map, Hector continued farming and eventually built up a significant gold lead.
Once Hector joined the team fights, Infamous began to take control of the game and took down the enemy Radiant heroes one by one.
Newbee tried to equalize the game by taking down Chris Luck at the top side of the map. But this caused more problems for them, as Infamous quickly ran into the Radiant base and took down two lanes of Barracks.
After a terrible middle lane fight where Quinn “CCnC” Callahan missed his Ghost Ship, Infamous began eliminating Newbee’s heroes. Shortly after, they rushed back into the Radiant base to finish the game.
Infamous now advances to Round 3 of the lower bracket and awaits the winner of Team Secret versus Mineski.
Check out our full TI9 Main Event coverage here, and don’t miss out on the Group Stage action.
