After an intense four days, 1win Series Dota 2 Spring tournament witnessed a close grand finals between Virtus.pro and Entity. Both teams having gone without a single tournament win since 2022 were longing for this victory, price and morale on the line.
Virtus.pro reached the grand finals undefeated, not dropping a single game despite going against strong opponents like L1GA, Team Spirit, and Team Liquid.
Entity also had a similar story, defeating 1win and MOUZ, after which they swept Liquid clean, all odds stacked against them, to reach the grand finals,
Here it all came down to a best-of-five series where the winner was crowned as the champions while also walking away with lion’s share of the prize pool.
Game 1 | Virtus.pro Wins
The first game started with Entity opting to play it safe as they went with their trusted picks of Meepo carry and Brewmaster offlane.
However, Virtus.pro having learnt from Entity’s game against Liquid countered this draft with a Gyrocopter carry. Entity took this game past the 40-minute mark despite the counterpick by Virtus.pro but soon gave way after a crucial Divine Rapier was picked by Gyrocopter, rendering Entity powerless as they were unable to sustain the massive damage out.
This resulted in the game getting over in 44 minutes, Entity waving a white flag while plotting for the next game.
Game 2 | Entity Wins
Virtus.pro still undefeated throughout the tournament at this point moved on to the second game of the night. With the momentum on its side and feeling optimistic Virtus.pro opted for an Alchemist carry in hopes of snowballing in the game on the back of massive gold advantage.
On the other hand, Entity was ready with its strategy which they executed perfectly to hold the game until Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov’s Phantom Assassin was able to fight head-to-head with the Alchemist.
The game eventually concluded after Dzmitry “Fishman” Palishchuk on Bane was able to get a crucial Fiend’s Grip on Alchemist at the 47th minute mark.
Alchemist was gone with no buyback and shortly after Entity was able to equalize the score in the grand finals, breaking Virtus.pro’s perfect score at the tournament.
Game 3 | Entity Wins
In the third game of the grand finals, Entity went with a Venomancer pick for Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin against Virtus.pro’s Sven carry, needless to say, Sven struggled to farm and had a bad lane.
To add fuel to the fire, Entity maintained the pressure on Virtus.pro and sniped Virtus.pro’s carry who tried to recover from a bad lane.
Meanwhile, watson’s Terrorblade was having the time of his life and thanks to his illusions he was farming incredibly fast. On the back of a sizable gold advantage that Entity had built over Virtus.pro, they were able to push relentlessly and the game came to an end after 39 minutes.
Game 4 | Entity Wins
In the final game of the series, Virtus.pro strangely opted for an Omniknight carry which did not go according to whatever they had planned. Entity now donning a Sven carry, had a massive damage output to strengthen its push power.
Notably, Volodymyr “No[o]ne-” Minenko’s Ember Spirit also put on a show during the game and had a KDA of 10/0/13 at the 30th minute mark.
Fishman, now playing Bane for the third game in a row, started a team fight at the 38th minute mark with a Fiend’s Grip on Ilya “squad1x” Kuvaldin’s Leshrac.
Unable to hold the aggression and sustain the damage from Entity, Virtus.pro eventually conceded defeat after a final defense attempt that was easily shrugged off by Entity.
After an intense 3-1 series showdown at the 1win Series Dota 2 Spring, Entity won its first tournament since 2022 and broke its streak of losses, taking home $50,000 while Virtus.pro had to settle for a still respectable runners-up finish and $30,000.