Liquid completed a full lower bracket run en route to the grand final, and even though they’ve finally dropped a game against LGD, they completed the comeback to set up a date with OG for the biggest prize in gaming. It wasn’t to be for them though as their Game 1 win was answered in dominant fashion with three quick victories by the defending champions.

The last day of TI9 began with the lower bracket final between LGD and Liquid, and the main storyline here was the fact that the TI7 winners breezed all the way through the lower bracket without dropping a single map. Though fy and co. won the first game of the series, KuroKy’s men turned things around with a 59-minute marathon win followed by a comprehensive game 3 win off the back of w33’s 14/2/11 Templar Assassin and a nifty Winter Wyvern pick.

This meant that no Chinese team would make it to the finals in Shanghai, the first time in since TI 2013 (and the second in the history of the competition). It also guaranteed that Western teams would win three Tis in a row. Liquid also wrote history in a plethora of other ways:

At this point it was guaranteed that we’d crown our first two-time TI winner – the question was whether it’d be “just” four players of Liquid or the entire OG side.

Liquid scored first blood in the grand final in an exciting game where N0tail and co. almost turned things around after a brutal teamfight 37 minutes in but couldn’t quite get it done in the end. However, OG came back with a statement showing in Game 2, using their fast and aggressive draft to completely dominate Liquid throughout the entire match and record a comprehensive victory in 32 minutes to even up the score. The third game was also quite one-sided and ended in quick fashion as the TI8 winners took the lead.

The crowd roared as OG picked Io as their first hero for the Game 4 draft. It only took them 24 minutes to finish off Liquid and make history, crowning themselves as the undisputed all-time bests of DOTA 2.

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