They’ve done it: PARIVISION are your ESL One Raleigh champions, which makes them back-to-back ESL One winners in this current competitive Dota 2 season. They got knocked down to the lower bracket early in the playoffs by Tundra Esports, which made it seem like teams might have their number in this tournament — but they’ve proven yet again that the ESL One buff is theirs and theirs alone.

ESL One Raleigh Grand Finals: PARIVISION Make it Two for Two

Their grand final performance against Team Spirit was nothing short of spectacular, and they’ve convinced everyone watching that they are still a force to be reckoned with.

Game 1: Yatoro Makes a Critical Mistake

The first game was quite indicative of how evenly matched the series could have been, as it was actually a very even contest literally up to the very end. Both teams showcased exactly what they’re capable of, with their cores in particular pulling out all the flashy moves one would normally expect from them.

Team Spirit had a small but not insignificant advantage close to the 30 minute mark, which Illya “Raddan” Mulyarchuk wanted to take advantage of as Terrorblade by pushing PARIVISION’s tier 2 mid lane tower. This would have been a sound decision, had the rest of Spirit not been anywhere else on the map. PARIVISION were quick to punish this aggression, recognizing that Raddan wasn’t going to survive the sheer burst damage coming from a lineup with Morphling, Tiny, and Ancient Apparition in it.

True enough, they brought down the Terrorblade in a hurry, and as it turned out, Raddan himself didn’t even have access to buyback. A few more pickoffs going the way of PARIVISION ensued in the following minute and a half, and they quickly began to realize that actually, no one on Spirit’s side had buybacks at all. Taking advantage of the situation as such, PARIVISION breached Spirit’s high ground, and there was just little in the way of stopping them just bowling their opponents over.

Game 2: PARIVISION Punish the Repeat Draft

PARIVISION really threw the hammer down in the second game. They allowed Team Spirit to get basically the same draft as game 1 with a few adjustments here and there, chief of which was switching Raddan and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov in terms of playing Terrorblade and Medusa. But PARIVISION showed their Eastern European rivals that it didn’t matter anyway.

They proceeded to just run Spirit completely out of the game, taking advantage of the fact that they drafted Bounty Hunter into such a greedy lineup with Medusa and Terrorblade in it. Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov’s Silencer pick had practically zero impact throughout the game as well, since his Global Silence (R) was pretty much always too late to turn PARIVISION’s teamfight advantages around.

The game ended just a few minutes shy of the 40 minute mark, but the way the drafts were so lopsided in PARIVISION’s favor, it honestly could have ended much sooner. I don’t really know why Team Spirit think that they should be picking greedy offlane heroes for one of the best initiating offlaners of all time, but they definitely got what they deserved for it in game 2.

Game 3: Larl Makes it a Series

With their backs against the wall and PARIVISION overcooking their own draft a little, Team Spirit took the opportunity in game 3 to get themselves on the board. They finally stopped picking Terrorblade and Medusa for Raddan and Collapse, and actually drafted support heroes that Miposhka and Aleksandr “rue” Filin could impact the game with. I questioned the Grimstroke pick at the start, but the combo with Tinker turned out to be really potent.

But the real star of the show in game 3 was Denis “Larl” Sigitov, who ran roughshod over PARIVISION as Leshrac. Position 4 Slark for Edgar “9Class” Naltakian? Not a problem with all the burst damage coming from Larl. Yatoro and Collapse playing Tiny and Sand King respectively was the icing on the cake, allowing Spirit to invalidate 9Class’ survivability with raw, overwhelming damage.

It didn’t help PARIVISION’s case that this was also just an awful game for Volodymyr “No[o]ne” Minenko’s Monkey King. Between the blind effect from Tinker’s Laser (Q) and all the healing from March of the Machines (D) with the Repair Bots facet, No[o]ne just couldn’t deal enough damage to actually carry his team in full on engagements. And speaking of healing, rue ended the game with more than 35,000 health healed up — more than any single PARIVISION player’s total damage output this game.

Game 4: Satanic Unleashes His Inner Demon

Well, it was a nice effort to at least make it interesting for Team Spirit, but in the end it just wasn’t enough — not after PARIVISION reminded them that ESL One is their home court this season. Picking Templar Assassin for Satanic and Storm Spirit for No[o]ne, PARIVISION held themselves steady through the laning phase to set themselves up for a great mid game timing.

They capitalized on their draft’s strengths as soon as the laning phase ended, with Satanic going absolutely nuclear on Templar Assassin. He posted a disgusting 921 gold per minute on the hero, and was already level 18 by around the 23 minute mark. His blazing fast item timings helped PARIVISION prevent the game from even going late, which is just textbook Templar Assassin play.

Amazingly, PARIVISION picked the position 4 Slark once more for 9Class this game, and it didn’t just turn the game into a 4v6 like in game 3. The pick is still a bit of a meme, but I guess Satanic just wasn’t going to allow his team to lose with it a second time. And with no answers to his overfarmed Templar Assassin, Team Spirit just had to throw the white flag.

Unfortunately for Spirit, their upper bracket run did not culminate in their first LAN victory this year. They’re still very much one of the best teams in the world right now, so they can definitely hang their hats on this second place finish. PARIVISION have found another gear, though, and will be even more dangerous as we get closer to The International.