After Team Secret’s absolutely insane series against Mineski on Day 3 of the Main Event, the North American team faced off against South American squad, Infamous, in Round 3 of the lower bracket.
Infamous is the first South American team to make it this far at TI, eliminating Keen Gaming and Newbee on the way. Would they be able to pull off another upset?
Game One
Secret had clearly done their homework, and immediately banned Hector “Hector” Rodriguez’s Wraith King during the drafting phase. They then picked up a Tiny, Faceless Void and Earthshaker for Yeik “MidOne” Zheng at the middle lane.
In response, Infamous chose to go with the Phantom Lancer on Hector and a Riki for Jean “Chris Luck” Gonzales to go against MidOne.
Infamous continued with their strategy of having Hector separate himself to free-farm, while the rest of the team instigated team fights against Secret, and it almost worked. Secret struggled to gain map control and was often forced to rush back home to defend their base.
Secret eventually repelled their opponents, and once the game hit the 30-minute mark, Infamous’ mid-game advantage rapidly dwindled.
MidOne also looked to be in top form against Infamous. His Earthshaker continued to do massive amounts of damage in team fights, which forced Infamous to retreat multiple times.
With a 48,000 gold lead, Secret pushed into the Radiant base and finished the first game.
Game Two
In game two, Infamous decided to let Secret pick the Faceless Void and Tiny again, while they went with a Lifestealer and Storm Spirit as their hard carries.
This time around, Secret adopted a hyper-aggressive strategy and took control of the map early. Secret took advantage of Hector farming by himself instead of helping his team, leading to the rest of Infamous getting picked off by Secret.
When Infamous did decide to make a move, Secret was always ready with a response. Yazied “YapzOr” Jaradat’s Enigma and Michał “Nisha” Jankowski’s Faceless Void locked down the Dire team with their area-of-effect ultimates.
Team Secret continued to outmaneuver their opponents all over the map. Infamous’ draft looked significantly weaker against Team Secret, but they tried to give Hector as much space as possible in hopes that he would be able to carry them to victory.
Unfortunately, Hector wasn’t able to save his team this time, and Infamous ended up being completely outplayed. Secret had far superior team fight abilities and they never gave Infamous the chance to gain any momentum. Infamous decided to tap out at the 34-minute mark.
Team Secret moves on to Top 6 of TI9, where they are set to face Vici Gaming in Round 4 of the lower bracket.
Infamous’ amazing TI9 run ends with a 7th-8th place finish, and they will take home US$840,000 in prize money for their efforts.
Check out our full TI9 Main Event coverage here, and don’t miss out on the Group Stage action.
