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Dota 2’s biggest tournament of the year, The International 10 (TI10, in short), featured one of the most feared hero combos in the history of professional Dota. Tiny emerged as the single strongest hard-hitting carry hero of the tournament, with the best Dota 2 teams strategizing around the hero to make him even stronger with buffs.
However, Team Spirit cracked the code and beat the Chinese maestros at their best strat in the tournament's final game. While the breakdown of the match can lead to many factors that helped Team Spirit win over PSG.LGD, the draft played a significant role in that. The Eastern European Dota 2 squad found an answer to the seemingly unbeatable Tiny-Lycan combo.
PSG.LGD had won all games with Tiny at Dota 2 TI10 prior to the grand final against Team Spirit
As far as the history of the current Dota 2 metagame goes, PSG.LGD first brought Carry Tiny to the forefront. They were inventors of the Tiny strat. Eventual Dota 2 meta development included heroes like Lycan and Ogre Magi being paired with Tiny.
For the uninitiated, Ogre Magi’s bloodlust gives a vast attack speed boost to his allies. And a hero like Tiny, who has excellent damage but struggles in the attack speed department, benefits immensely from it. On the other hand, Lycan’s Aghanim Scepter-granted ability, Wolf Bite, turns Tiny into a wolf just like Lycan’t ultimate power and lets him run around the map at hasted movement speed and have critical strike. This makes playing against the Tiny-Lycan combo a living nightmare as the hero deals obscene amounts of damage and can’t be kited as easily.
Until game 5 of the Dota 2 TI10 grand final, PSG.LGD had a 100% win rate with Tiny. However, Team Spirit achieved what was deemed impossible - they beat PSG.LGD at their best.
How did Team Spirit actually counter the seemingly unbeatable duo of Tiny-Lycan?
PSG.LGD picked Tiny and Lycan at the first pick phase of the drafting stage as both heroes were available past the first ban phase. While this ensured PSG.LGD got their best combo to play in the deciding Dota 2 match without one or the other getting banned. This also meant it was now open to getting countered in the following drafting phases.
PSG.LGD banned Naga Siren, Ursa, Luna, Lifestealer, and Sven as their subsequent bans over the second and third ban phases - all of these heroes have been thought to be potentially decent in their matchup against carry Tiny.
However, Team Spirit picked Terrorblade as the carry matchup against Terrorblade. Other heroes included Ember Spirit as mid, Magnus as offlane, and Bane and Winter Wyvern as the support duo.
Terrorblade does not mind the heavy physical damage that Tiny brings to the table as Terrorblade has high base armor throughout the game and as the game goes late, Terrorblade out scales Tiny.
Ember Spirit can also jump away from the Tiny in Lycan form by using his Spirit Remnants. As he gets an item or two to ensure that he does not die in the initial burst damage of Tiny, he can jump to the backline and attack the supports on Tiny’s side.
Magnus has looked ridiculously strong throughout the tournament, thanks to his low cooldown enemy repositioning capability. But it seemed broken in the hands of Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov, the 19-year old Russian offlaner of Team Spirit. Although this hero does not directly counter Tiny, he can make team fights lopsided by bringing Tiny quite far away from his teammates.
Bane's enfeeble's percentage-based attack damage reduction is also an important factor, along with Winter Wyvern’s percentage-based damage on her Arctic Burn. Thus the support duo constituted Team Spirit’s answer to PSG.LGD’s Tiny-Lycan.
While drafting is a vital part of winning in Dota 2, the other large part is execution. Team Spirit executed their draft to sheer perfection. While PSG.LGD managed to gain a lead in the early stages of the Dota 2 match, and Team Spirit masterfully sniffed out their smoke moves which saved them from losing more heroes and, resultingly, more map control.
The fight at the Bottom Tier 2 Tower at 19 minutes flipped the game back to Team Spirit’s favor, and there was no looking back for the CIS squad until their win at the 36th minute of the Dota 2 match.
