'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Team Liquid and Alliance, two of the Western European giants of Dota 2, kicked off their journey in the DPC 2021 season 2 by facing off against each other.
Fans eagerly waited for an epic battle to unfold, and the matches did turn out to be a treat to watch for any Dota 2 fan.
What happened in the Dota 2 series between Alliance and Team Liquid
Match 1
Liquid pulled off a surprise as most people expected it to be a Queen of Pain mid, and a Juggernaut carry. Instead, Michael "miCKe" Vu (Juggernaut) chose to go mid against Linus "Limmp" Blomdin's Mars.
Alliance got first blood as Gustav "s4" Magnussen, on his Razor, managed to finish off Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi's Oracle in the top lane.
Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov made up his farm by finishing his core items while maintaining accurate timings, despite having to deal with a difficult lane. It looked like he was about to carry Alliance to victory when they went to take down Roshan, which drops the Aegis of the Immortal to give an extra life in the game of Dota 2.
They had a prolonged teamfight inside the pit, where Alliance's Phoenix and Mars used their ultimate abilities to zone Team Liquid, but when the actual fight broke out, the same abilities remained on cooldown.
As a result, s4 had to take the Aegis to prevent the enemies from getting it, and Liquid managed to kill him twice, as well as their carry, Nikobaby.
Team Liquid went on to siege Alliance's high ground after this and secured the next teamfight to force the GGs out of Alliance in the game of Dota 2.
Even though the cores of Liquid played extremely well, Tommy "Taiga" Le caught the eye a few times, as he was impossibly tanky and proved extremely difficult for the opposing heroes to kill.
Match 2
This game of Dota 2 started off brilliantly for Team Liquid, as they took a seemingly unassailable lead of 25-6 by minute 22, where Taiga on his Enchantress went on another Godlike killstreak of nine kills.
Nikobaby was massively underfarmed under the constant pressure from Samuel "Boxi" Svahn and Taiga.
When Team Liquid tried to siege the high ground of Alliance at minute 23, Nikobaby had his Black King Bar (the spell immunity item of Dota 2).
It was an uphill journey for Alliance in this game of Dota 2, as by then, Sven was dealing immense damage to Team Liquid, and that too while being spell immune. Despite a few excellent Manta dodges, miCKe could not out-damage or out-survive the Sven, and Team Liquid called the GGs to end the game.
Match 3
The third match started off at a rather slow pace, with Nikobaby on his signature Morphling and miCKe on the massively successful Juggernaut from the first match in the series.
Maximilian "qojqva" Bröcker secured first blood by killing Limmp in the midlane with less than 2 minutes on the clock, but Alliance came back with some successful smoke ganks on miCKe.
Nikobaby showcased some excellent strength shifts and Black King Bar uses to secure the game with a perfect score of 17/0/8 and eventually led Alliance to victory in this series of Dota 2.
