Bravado Gaming Takes SteelSeries Spring League

After two months of practice, hard work and strategising, Bravado Gaming has taken the SteelSeries Spring League in a final that ended 2 – 0 against BASH.

Bravado Gaming made their way to the finals in the playoff by taking down Liberty in the quarter-finals and then taking down ASF in the semi-finals to meet BASH. BASH on the other hand beat Death Division Clan and PewPew LEGS to make their way to the final.

Interestingly enough, BASH actually topped the group stages in the Premier Division, finishing on equal points to Bravado but then beating them in a tie-breaker game which led to them taking the top seed.

So now, after beating BASH 2 – 0 over the weekend, Bravado Gaming take home the grand prize of five SteelSeries KANA DotA 2 bundles, five cases of Monster Energy drinks and five 2TB hard drives, all thanks to our sponsors for the tournament, SteelSeries, Monster Energy and Telkom.

Telkom Do Gaming caught up with both captains of each team to find out how things went in the tournament and how they found the match.

Basson from Bravado

Sakkie ‘RandomHero’ Basson, captain and manager of the Bravado Gaming DotA 2 team, said the team has been feeling a lot more confident and versatile since they re-evaluated their roles and play-style inside the team.

“We went through a rough patch a while back and changed things up in quite a big way. Anthony ‘scant’ Hodgson is a big factor in our team and does some top-notch drafting and calls in-game. He has a precise plan and when it doesn’t work, he keeps the team under control and focused. He really does add a lot of value to the team,” he said.

After Bravado went down to BASH in the tie-breaker game, some may have thought there may have been some kind of mental edge over the team against BASH. Basson assured us that there wasn’t.

“Within the group stages of the SteelSeries Spring League, we felt quite comfortable and with each passing game we were becoming more disciplined. There was a game against 1AM that I felt we shouldn’t have dropped but the group stages as a whole went really well. That game in particular forced us to have the tie-breaker. The tie-breaker against BASH was a best of one and BASH had an amazing counter-strategy combined with some really strong plays and a massive game by Wazeer ‘waz_mac’ Kamdar. We didn’t feel too shaken by it though and I personally felt that when the sides met in a best of three, we would come out on top,” he said.

Basson said that in the first game they weren’t really phased by the BASH picks and felt they had a stronger line-up. He said that they didn’t expect them to have an aggressive tri-lane which threw them off a bit, but after juggling the lanes a bit things seemed to sort themselves out.

“We kept our top dual lane safe against the aggressive tri-lane and we were able to set up some good gangs and a kill on Roshan. After we secured the Aegis, we decided to take down the middle barracks with the Chaos Knight and Rhasta ultimates and then used the Aegis on the Chaos Knight to bait BASH into team fights. This worked for us and we were able to take down the barracks in middle lane and then we applied the same strategy on the bottom lane,” he said.

The second game saw Bravado Gaming in a comfortable position with the picks and opted for a ‘counter-strategy’ which worked well at the start with First Blood and some kills, but over-extended once to Dirge and then found themselves on the back foot.

“We felt comfortable holding out for our Magnus and Bounty Hunter to get levels in the other lanes for them to help the team gang later on which they did, which then gave us extra space and farm. After that the game sort of slowed down a bit and both teams ended up farming. After our Magnus and Slardar picked up Blink Daggers, we were able to pull off some strong gangs and pushes with them. Towards the end of the game, it was essentially our three semi-carries against the Clinkz and our carries ended up being better,” he said.

Basson said that special mention needs to go out to Anthony ‘scant’ Hodgson for his superb play as Panda in the first game constantly interrupting the SK’s ultimate. Mike ‘nakor’ Jones deserved a man-of-the-match award and was able to keep the map control going and allowed the Enigma ultimates to be vitally important. Basson also mentioned Hodgeson for the second game as he was “getting some amazing fail, but even more amazing, perfect ultimates off”.

“I’d like to start off by thanking my team; it’s been great playing with them. Of course, Bravado Gaming and our sponsors Roccat, who give us such amazing support. Shout-outs to ASF and BASH, great teams too and a special shout-out to LEGS because they are my favourites. We would also like to thank DGL and the sponsors for hosting this amazing event as well as the casters for doing such an amazing job,” Basson said.

Teixera from BASH

Telkom Do Gaming also had a chat with BASH, the runners-up for the SteelSeries Spring League, speaking specifically with Donio ‘DoniBest’ Teixeria, the captain and manager of BASH, to hear his thoughts.

“Personally, I didn’t expect much from the finals. I was hoping we would win but we haven’t been practising much lately due to exams and stuff. Bravado just played better than us, that’s all really,” he said.

Teixeria said that he didn’t feel that the picks were the problem and perhaps not even the lanes but he felt that Bravado just had better teamwork than BASH at the end of the day.

“In the first game their gangs were just flowing much better than ours. They had the Panda as well which made fights really difficult so it was essentially just an uphill battle with regards to the fights, but I felt that we weren’t that far behind in farm. The second game we positioned ourselves stupidly which meant that the Magnus was just getting off his ultimate perfectly which resulted in a lot of us getting caught out,” he said.

At the end of the day, it seems that all teams involved really enjoyed the SteelSeries Spring League and Teixeria had this to say on behalf of BASH:

“Shout-out to our sponsors CM Storm, Panda Security, Frontosa and Battery Energy Drink. We also want to thank the DGL for the tournament and a decent prize-pool. Also a special shout out to George 'curiousgeorge' Van Rensburg.”

In terms of the top teams, there are still many who believe that the top-rated teams are on a different level from the rest of the playing field. Both Basson and Teixeria believe that this is the case right now with a number of top teams competing for the top spot.

Basson seems to think that things are different with DotA 2 than with DotA 1 because the competitive scene is really good at the moment and it's keeping all the teams on their toes as opposed to there just being one team that stomps out the opposition. Teixeria believes that Bravado, PewPew and BASH are all on a similar level with ASF slightly behind the top three.