Team Secret win ESL One Hamburg

At ESL One Hamburg, Team Secret showed the sort of exceptional play that’s worthy of a brand new Mercedes-Benz car.

After topping the charts in the group stage, Team Secret faced powerhouse Virtus.pro in their first playoff series. The team fell short there and were made to fight their way out of the lower bracket with impressive sweeps of both Evil Geniuses and paIN Gaming.

The lower bracket finals saw a rematch between Team Secret and Virtus.pro. Secret emerged as the winning team this time, with another clean 2-0 score.

Team Secret would then face upper bracket winner Vici Gaming in a best-of-five grand finals series.

The first game heavily favored Team Secret with their Lina, Terrorblade, Tiny, Chen, and Kunkka draft. Secret had a consistent net worth lead, reaching up to 17K gold.

The second game lasted for an hour with Vici Gaming eventually finding their stride. Team Secret made several slips during team fights but managed to defend their high ground to extend the game to its hour length. In the end, Vici Gaming overcame and won with a 22-kill advantage.

Vici Gaming again showed their strength in the third game, dominating Team Secret. VG easily took objectives with their carry combination of Luna and Lina, and Team Secret called GG after 35 minutes.

With Vici Gaming only one game away from the tournament trophy, Team Secret brought their “A” game and easily took game four with Michał “Nisha” Jankowski’s Terrorblade stomping Vici’s heroes.

The fifth and deciding game was lopsided, lasting for 38 minutes. Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng’s Monkey King and Nisha’s Troll Warlord proved too much for Vici Gaming to handle.

Team Secret was awarded $125,000 for winning the tournament, while Vici Gaming received $65,000 for placing second.

MidOne was voted as the most valuable player in the tournament for his stellar performance and took home a Mercedes-Benz car for his trouble.