Team Liquid’s Tommy “Taiga” Le and Samuel “Boxi” Svahn somehow won a two-versus-five base defense against Virtus.pro (VP) to win a crazy, back-and-forth 72-minute thriller at the DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major.


Liquid was in control for much of the game and even enjoyed a gold advantage well over 50,000 over their opponents, but they could not overcome a stout base defense by VP that dragged the game into the 68-minute mark.

At that point of the game, both teams clashed in a long engagement that ended with Liquid killing Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko’s Outworld Devourer — who was the lynchpin of the VP defense — without buyback.

That gave Liquid the confidence to dive into their opponents’ base to mop up the rest of the opposition, but VP was somehow able to defend and take down Liquid’s two big heroes — Michael “miCKe” Vu’s Naga Siren and Maximilian “qojqva” Bröcker’s Storm Spirit — without buyback.

VP looked like they were just about to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat as their entire team was up while Liquid only had Boxi’s Slardar, Taiga’s Dark Willow, and Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi’s Disruptor to man the defenses.

While VP killed iNSaNiA to whittle down Liquid’s last line of defense to just Boxi and Taiga, they lost Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok’s Underlord soon after. But even so, it looked like there was no hope for Liquid.



VP understandably focused all their efforts on taking down Liquid’s Ancient — which was brought to as low as 280 HP — but Boxi’s Slardar was able to use his Slithereen Crush and Bash of the Deep abilities to keep them stunned and slow down their assault.

That gave Taiga’s Dark Wilow — who was dealing an absurd amount of damage with both Aghanim’s Scepter and Monkey King Bar — the time to get an Ultra Kill to teamwipe VP.

With all the VP heroes dead without buyback, Liquid somehow snatched back a victory that was almost stolen away from them.


With that improbable win, Liquid advance to the next round of the Lower Bracket to face the loser of the Upper Bracket match between Natus Vincere and Alliance.

Meanwhile, VP bow out of the Leipzig Major in 13th-16th place with US$12,500 and 100 Dota Pro Circuit points.


READ MORE: Leipzig Major Group Stage Day 2 recap