Western European juggernauts OG got off to a strong start to their campaign at The International 11 (TI11) as they soundly swept Southeast Asia’s BOOM Esports 2-0 in their first best-of-two match of the tournament’s Group Stage.
Both OG and BOOM were seeded into Group A, dubbed the ‘Group of Death’ of TI11.
With such tough competition in their group, every win matters for these teams as they fought to be among the 16 squads advancing to the Main Event.
How the game went
BOOM Esports started the series by drafting an aggressive lineup that can do significant damage to buildings.
A mid Primal Beast for Erin “Yopaj” Ferrer was responsible for charging in and disrupting enemies while Saieful “Fbz” Ilham’s Death Prophet and Rolen “skem” Ong’s Snapfire would provide the teamfight and tower damage.
OG, on the other hand, had a more balanced approach to their draft. Mikhail “Misha” Agatov would save allies on Oracle while Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov tried to make space on Ember Spirit.
Unlike BOOM, OG was more concerned about securing the late game and took multiple scaling cores in Terrorblade and Razor for Artem “Yuragi” Golubiev and Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf, respectively.
OG’s greedier draft was punished heavily in the early game, as BOOM won all three lanes and racked up a lot of early kills. Yopaj in particular was on fire, as he dominated the lane against bzm by creatively utilizing Uproar to secure a massive amount of denies early on.
BOOM’s plan to run over OG worked until they took the first Aegis of the game and failed to capitalize on it. The Southeast Asian team seemed content to farm instead, a costly mistake as their draft had no chance of going late against OG.
Tommy “Taiga” Le on Clockwerk proved his worth as he kept baiting BOOM to chase him around the map and waste valuable Aegis time. OG was making a comeback until BOOM took an incredible fight when the second Roshan respawned.
Securing the second Aegis wasn’t as impactful for BOOM’s draft, as they relied on snowballing early and couldn’t scale as well as OG in the late game. Despite having the Aegis, BOOM was unable to win a high-ground push at the 38-minute mark, which spelled the beginning of the end for them.
Despite getting overrun in the early and mid-game, OG now clawed their way back thanks to some incredible split pushing by Taiga along with a fantastic understanding of their draft. OG sent BOOM running to their base when they amped up the aggression 42 minutes into the game.
Game two saw BOOM switch it up a little with their supports, giving Snapfie to Timothy “Tims” Randrup while Skem went for his more traditional Undying.
Yopaj would scale better in the second game courtesy of playing Leshrac while Souliya “JaCkky” Khoomphetsavong would carry the team late with Terrorblade.
OG also adjusted their draft to try to keep up with BOOM’s tempo. Even though the Western European team won game one, it was a close shave and they recognised the need to have a better laning stage in order to avoid being run over.
Jakiro for Misha would stabilize the top lane while ATF went for Slardar, a slightly less gold-dependent hero than Razor.
The laning stage went exactly the same as it did in game one, despite the adjustments made by OG. The Southeast Asian team ended up tripling OG’s kill count by the 16-minute mark, fully taking control of the game.
BOOM had the lineup to dominate the early game and unlike last time, they also scaled pretty well later on. The team wasn’t on the clock to try to end the match and this allowed them to take their time when engaging in team fights.
With a gold disadvantage and an equal draft, OG found themselves on the back foot. and this time they couldn’t rely on Taiga to split push, as he was brought down 16 times in the game. A costly fight for OG 32 minutes in saw them lose their top set of barracks.
Things were looking even more grim for OG in the second game, as they fell further and further behind as time went on.
But that’s the amazing thing about Dota 2, so long as you keep fighting, there’s always a chance to win and OG are the comeback kings for a reason.
OG went for a smoke attempt to find anyone they could and despite not having vision of the area, they come across a lone Yopaj. They quickly bring him down and then proceed to mow down the rest of BOOM, securing the fight, the second Aegis, and complete control of the game.
After that, there was no hope for BOOM, as they went from a 10,000 gold lead to a 15,000 gold deficit.
Despite such a promising start in two games in a row, in the end it was OG that took the 2-0 series sweep.
With this victory over arguably the strongest team in Southeast Asia, the Western European powerhouse has started to establish themselves as a serious threat to take home the Aegis of Champions.
OG will now look to continue their strong start by winning their remaining Day 1 matches against Gaimin Gladiators and Evil Geniuses. Meanwhile, BOOM will be looking to bounce back as they will next face Hokori and Royal Never Give Up.
TI11 will be hosted in Singapore from 15 to 30 October and features a revamped format and a longer schedule.
The tournament will begin with a Group Stage from 15 to 18 October, where 20 teams will fight to become among the 16 squads to advance to the Main Event.
TI11’s Main Event will be a double-elimination bracket and is split into two phases, the first being held from 20 to 23 October while the second will take place from 29 to 30 October.
For everything you need to know about TI11, check here.
OG roster:
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Artem “Yuragi” Golubiev
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Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov
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Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf
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Tommy “Taiga” Le
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Mikhail “Misha” Agatov
BOOM Esports roster:
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Souliya “JaCkky” Khoomphetsavong
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Erin Jasper “Yopaj” Ferrer
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Saieful “Fbz” Ilham
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Timothy “Tims” Randrup
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Andrei “skem” Ong
Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.
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