Shocking Defeat for Team Secret at ESL One Germany 2020

Someone finally did it. It was bound to happen at some point because no king rules forever. But nobody expected Team Secret to be defeated by mudgolems. If you lost the last month of professional Dota, you might even be asking “mud who?”.

The Brief History of mudgolems

FATA-‘s newly created team is quite a menace. From being a local nobody, it quickly became the finalist of BTS Pro Series Season 3. But after losing that Grand Final against Vikin.gg with a score of 0 – 3, people thought that mudgolems would not amount to much. And that their chances to succeed in Europe’s tier 1 division were practically 0. Now, just one month later, mudgolems has secured a top 3 result at one of the most important tournaments of the year: ESL One Germany 2020.

Team Secret – mudgolems

No doubt, Team Secret went into this match poorly prepared. Puppey and FATA- used to be teammates, so FATA- clearly understands how Puppey thinks as a captain. But I don’t think that he thought that was relevant. A couple of years can change the game dramatically. With the ever-evolving meta and the massive modifications made through the regular patches, Puppey’s playstyle had to evolve in order for him to be so dominant in the world’s strongest Dota 2 region. So he must have felt like FATA- didn’t know him at all.

Game 1 started with a very strange draft from mudgolems. While Secret went for comfortable heroes that are good in this path, such as Drow Ranger and Chen, mudgolems went for 4 melee heroes plus IO. This could have been a total disaster but somehow, 33 and his squad made it work. The game lasted for 56 minutes and mudgolems was victorious, thanks in part to the massive amount of damage dished out by Mars.

In game 2, everyone was expecting Puppey to ban IO or at least Undying, the other hero that mudgolems had abused to perfection in the first game of the match. But it didn’t happen. Guess what FATA- did. He picked IO and Undying once again. And then he built a strategy around their lane and healing potential. Secret responded with a lineup designed to withstand great amounts of damage, but to no avail. After 45 minutes and some massive net worth swings, mudgolems won once again.

Significance

Team Secret is not yet out of the race and will have the chance to make a comeback in the Lower Bracket, where they’ll first face Alliance. But the loss still remains. And keep in mind, before this match, Puppey’s squad had been on a massive winning streak: 20 matches in a row. And prior to ESL One Germany 2020, they managed to win the previous 7 tournaments. All of them with a score of 3 – 0 in the Grand Final. Needless to say, nobody expected mudgolems to be victorious in this match.

 

Photo credit: Valve