Steven R. October 28, 2020
Team Secret has absorbed an absolutely shocking loss.
The world’s best Dota 2 squad has landed in the lower bracket of the ESL One Germany playoffs. While that’s surprising on its own, more surprising is the fact that this loss came from the newly-formed mudgolems team. The kicker is that this came in a relatively convincing 2-0 fashion.
The first game was a slow but lopsided win for mudgolems. Despite playing as a hard support, Adrian "Fata" Trinks looked to be back in carry form against Secret by leading the game with 12 kills and 25 assists as Undying. Secret remained strong defensively, but wasn’t able to really threaten mud golems’ base or otherwise disrupte their lead. Though it took 56 minutes, mudgolems started the series with a relatively clean win.
The second game was an odd one, illustrated by the fact that it had a 15-15 kill line in 46 minutes. The first 15 minutes were very slow, but mudgolems began to build a lead after coming out on top thanks to a few successful skirmishes. Things swung hard in the opposite direction later as Secret scored a massive team fight win to even the gold and XP scores.
Things unraveled in a hurry not long after as Clement “Puppey” Ivanov died three times in a four-minute span. This set off a series of events that resulted in Secret’s tier-threes and barracks being wiped out.
Secret ceded the game from there, giving mudgolems the 2-0 series victory.
Who are ESL One Germany's mudgolems?
Dota 2 fans might not yet be familiar with mudgolems, but the team looks ready to become a serious contender at ESL One Germany. Despite mudgolems just coming together in September, it already sits inside the top 10 of WIN.gg’s Dota 2 team rankings and is poised to climb even higher.
mudgolems has a roster largely made up of veterans who struggled to find a good home in the 2019-2020 season:
- Oliver "skiter" Lepko
- Duško "BoraNija" Boranijaševic
- Neta "33" Shapira
- Milan "MiLAN" Kozomara
- Adrian "Fata" Trinks
33 and Fata are looking to be the backbone of the team. The pair were surprisingly released from Alliance in March after a strong start to the season and disappeared for months after. Now they look ready to start right back from where they left off as a serious European contender. The team debuted by qualifying for ESL One Germany, then made a strong first impression in its first official tournament by taking second in BTS Pro Series season 3. With the win over Secret, mudgolems has secured a top-three finish in ESL One Germany.
They will next face Natus Vincere in the upper bracket finals. Secret will look to stay alive by taking on Alliance.