Just one month after finally being dethroned as the kings of the American scene, the true rulers of the region have reclaimed their rightful place. Quincy Crew may not have topped the group stage at Realms Collide: The Burning Darkness as they are often expected to, but they certainly made up for it when it counted the most — the playoffs.
The kings of America are back with a vengeance, reclaiming their place atop the local Dota 2 scene. (Photo courtesy ESL)
In fact it was the two teams above them in the preliminaries that dropped the ball hard in the bracket stage, with both 4 Zoomers and Omega Gaming failing to win a single map in their quest to make the Realms Collide Grand Finals. Neither squad looked nearly as good as they did in the group stage once the brackets rolled around, as they both lost their respective upper bracket matches in a maximum of 70 minutes of elapsed game time.
Return of the Kings
Quincy Crew wasted no time getting back on track after the Realms Collide group stage, sending second placers Omega Gaming spiraling down into the lower bracket in two games. The first map saw the team’s namesake Quinn “Quinn” Callahan get his hands on Leshrac, now truly one of his go-to heroes in the middle lane. Quincy Crew’s draft allowed him to get to work effectively, lining up their area-of-effect stuns nicely while countering Omega Gaming’s Black King Bar purchases with the threat of Axe’s Berserker’s Call.
Their lineup made it pretty easy for Quinn to impose his will on the map, mowing down towers with the help of Diabolic Edict and shredding Omega Gaming’s heroes to pieces with his other spells. Not everything was smooth sailing for the young American player as he found himself getting picked off a few times in the laning phase and the mid game, but his contributions were more than enough to keep his team in the lead for the entire contest.
Yawar “YawaR” Hassan certainly appreciated the space he was making, as it allowed him to comfortably play his own game as Spectre. Having Haunt handy also made for some easy kills and assists for YawaR, leading to a quick 19-minute Manta Style timing. By the end of the 40 and a half minute game, YawaR was just 1,700 points ahead of Quinn in terms of damage dealt to heroes, making it clear that Quincy Crew’s cores did exactly what was asked of them.
The second game ended in a massive stomp in favor of Quincy Crew, with 55 kills to their name versus just 19 over on Omega Gaming’s side. Every member of the team thus went positive in terms of their KDA ratios, YawaR and Quinn once again leading the charge with 24 kills between them. Rodrigo “Lelis” Santos was likewise a big factor in this game as Viper, thanks in no small part to his lightning fast 11-minute Rod of Atos timing against Omega Gaming’s mobile picks.
The MVP award definitely has to go to Quinn, though, who handed Gonzalo “Darkmago” Herrera a huge loss in the middle lane in their Puck versus Storm Spirit matchup. Darkmago just couldn’t get the ball rolling as the latter hero as a result, dying seven times before 15 minutes had even passed. With the rest of his team unable to recover from their own losses in the mid game, it was only a matter of time before Quincy Crew finally slammed the door shut on the series.
At the Gates
Fresh off their win against Omega Gaming, Quincy Crew then turned their attention to Infamous — the squad right below them in the standings. The Realms Collide upper bracket final went the distance with all three games played, but once again it was Quinn’s band that won the day. They struck first in the series with another fantastic performance by Lelis on his favorite hero Dark Seer, as the Brazilian veteran racked up 11 kills and 21 assists. Drawing even against Crhistian “Pakazs” Savina’s Terrorblade meant that Infamous’ carry player could not truly maximize his farm — which is saying something considering that he ended up with 700 GPM anyway.
What Lelis’ stellar play enabled though was YawaR’s Spectre and Quinn’s Viper, both of whom really appreciated the movement speed from Surge. The former also enjoyed the additional close-range damage provided by Ion Shell, which combined with his 20 minute Radiance for some serious passive punishment. Arif “MSS” Anwar added some more global presence to the mix, running people down with his 9-3 Spirit Breaker. The game was practically over by the 30 minute mark, with Quincy Crew taking just eight minutes of additional time to close things out.
Infamous did not simply roll over and take the series loss lying down, though, fighting back strong and hard in the second map. Pakazs dominated the game as Morphling, easily winning the safe lane matchup against Lelis’ Viper with the help of Christian “Accel” Cruz’ support as Io. The carry player snowballed way out of control early on, scoring kill after kill after kill while dying only twice himself. His item timings were out of this world as well, with a 14 minute Manta Style followed by a 20 minute Eye of Skadi. Quincy Crew just had nothing that could stop his rampage, and thus were forced to surrender after just 27 and a half minutes of play.
But of course, we all know how this story ends at this point. Quincy Crew said no more messing around in the third game, bringing the hammer down in order to punch their ticket to the Grand Finals. Lelis put in yet another outstanding performance — this time with a perfect 17-0 game as Nature’s Prophet. The highly skilled offlaner proved once again that he is one of the driving forces in the team, dishing out some ridiculous damage fueled by his 10 minute Orchid Malevolence pickup. The rest of his team naturally followed suit, with the game ending in a 51-14 landslide victory. The Peruvian squad barely knew what hit them, and by the time they finished blinking they were already in the lower bracket.
The Final Siege
Infamous were not done just yet though, pretty much swearing to themselves that they would at least earn a rematch with their rivals in Quincy Crew. And that’s exactly what they did, beating neighbors Thunder Predator in two games to make the Grand Finals for a second round with Quinn and his gang. Unfortunately, they did not turn in anything particularly inspiring in the final round.
They only managed to win one game out of the four played, while Quincy Crew looked just as comfortable as they always have been playing in American tournaments during the pandemic. In fact the first game was a 26-minute routing going the way of Quincy Crew, with YawaR getting whatever he wanted out of the map the whole time. The Pakistani player cleaved his way (literally) through Infamous’ heroes as Sven, enabled by his fast farming pace that translated into a 20 minute Aghanim’s Scepter. Infamous simply stood no chance in this one, and right out of the gate it seemed like another walk in the park was in store for Quincy Crew.
It did look like an actual series was about to develop after Game 2, though, as Infamous showed that they can at least hang with Quincy Crew with the championship on the line. They rode Pakazs’ hot hand in the second game, leaning on his Phantom Assassin heavily in teamfights. This strategy paid dividends of course, as Pakazs had a fun time for himself lopping heads off left and right. His final score was 10 kills and just one death, which was more than enough to get them on the board in the series.
Sadly, the rest of the Realms Collide match was not kind to Infamous even after scoring a map win. Quincy Crew put the series in a chokehold in the third game, with MSS this time making his presence felt as the 15-0 Skywrath Mage. The kind of impact he had on the game could not be understated, slicing through Infamous’ mobile and heavily armored cores with his immense magical damage output. The 20 minute Rod of Atos pickup certainly helped as well in this regard, particularly against Infamous’ Morphling and Batrider picks. It was all Quincy Crew all day in this game, which meant that they had all the momentum they could ever want heading into the fourth map.
As was anticipated, the fourth and final Realms Collide game in the series was merely a formality to give Quincy Crew the title. Another excellent performance by the entire team made sure that Infamous would not be able to force a deciding Game 5, with both YawaR and MSS doing most of the heavy lifting as Phantom Assassin and Mirana respectively. Such was their advantage in this game that both YawaR and Quinn (playing Ember Spirit) got their Desolators at the same time — which normally would be redundant, but in this case just proved how much they were rolling in the early game.
With no proper answers to Quincy Crew’s lineup (particularly when it came to countering YawaR’s evasion), there was very little that Infamous could do to save their championship hopes. Thus, the kings of the American scene are back where they belong, and could very well be setting themselves up for another massive streak of online tournament wins in the next few months. They earn themselves $24,000 for their efforts, as well as a sense of relief when it comes to the question of whether or not they would slip in form after losing the DOTA Summit 13 Grand Finals.
