Wings Gaming Soars to the Peak of Summit 5
In a massively impressive Bo5 series in the grand finals, Wings Gaming takes first place at Summit 5 while implementing an unbannable strategy.
Let’s get right to it. In case you missed the incredibly fun to watch grand finals of Summit 5, Wings Gaming and Team OG had a good ol’ fashioned showdown that lasted four games in a best of five matchup. Over the course of these four games, Wings picked 20 different heroes. By any standard, that’s an impressive hero pool. What’s more, in game four they surprised with their last pick, Spirit Breaker, which definitely turned out to be the right decision. More on that later.
OG is a team that has long been highly regarded for their strong understanding of the drafting phase of the game. Throughout the tournament, they showed us that they do their homework regarding the teams they play against. Sam Richards even talked about how strong their drafts were in an article she wrote toward the start of the tournament.
Alas, that didn’t really help them out in the grand finals.
Strong draft is another term for win…d
Strong drafts are what gives OG an advantage before the action even gets started, but Wings defused the situation by making it literally impossible for OG to draft them into a corner. With 20 different heroes in their rotation, and each of them played spectacularly well, there aren’t enough bans in a game for OG to do what they generally do so well.
And there really doesn’t seem to be a way of predicting Wings’ picks or item builds, which means that OG was largely operating in the dark and playing responsive DOTA. How could they have foreseen the Spirit Breaker picked in game 4? Furthermore, how could OG have known how devastating that pick would be? I refuse to go into details here. You need to see it to fully appreciate it. I’ve embedded the highlights below. Watch it.
Predictably unpredictable
Wings have become masters of unpredictable and unorthodox play. They’re well practiced in cobbling together strange combinations of heroes and items into a whirling death machine. Trying to engage them in their strongest area when they’re stripping you of your typical draft advantage is just deranged. OG needed to commit to a specific strategy from the outset, and other teams should heed of this fact as time rapidly dwindles between now and TI6.
Before I wrap things up, I want to say congrats to Wings. I also want to thank them for making this tournament as good as it was. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go play about 15 games with SB.
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