LGD Forever Young (LFY) face TNC in their first upper bracket match of The International 2017 Dota 2 tournament.
LGD Forever Young
LFY qualified for The International 2017 by taking one of the spots reserved for the Chinese region, after they won the second phase of its qualifier. In the months prior to TI 7 LFY had a number of good results, including a 3rd – 4th place at Epicenter and a 2nd place at the Mars Dota 2 League tournament. They are one of the strongest teams in China and the best performing team so far at this year’s TI, ending the group stage with 6 wins and 2 draws.
LFY are coached by Wang “Banana” Jiao and led by Leong “ddc” Fat-meng. Under their leadership, the Chinese team has improved a lot in recent months, getting better and better results and peaking right at The International 2017. Their performances were simply formidable, leaving the impression that even top teams like Virtus.pro cannot stand in their way. All of their wins were very dominant, and in the two games they lost (against Digital Chaos and OG) it was more than obvious that they weren’t taking the game seriously and were drafting exotic line-ups just to fool around.
TNC
They qualified for this year’s TI by winning first place in the SEA regional qualifier. Prior to that they also took third and second place respectively at the recent Galaxy Battles and StarLadder i-League Invitational #2 tournaments. They’re the strongest team in Southeast Asia at the moment, and their performance during the group stage of The International 2017 was solid: two wins (against Fnatic and Infamous), five draws (against EG, Team Empire, Invictus Gaming Vitality, Team Secret and Team Liquid), and one loss (against LGD).
Recent Performances
Head To Head Record
Head To Head RecordWith their current rosters, the two teams have never played against each other.
Betting Odds And Predictions
Based on the two team’s performances during the group stage of The International 2017, LFY clearly have a much better chance of winning this encounter. TNC are not a weak team by any means, but LGD Forever Young have simply demolished their opponents so far, and it’s unlikely that the SEA squad can put an end to their dominance. Furthermore, TNC lost their direct match against LFY’s sister team (LGD) in the group stage. Given that the two Chinese teams are on the same level of strength (based on their recent encounters), this is another indication that LFY is currently significantly stronger than TNC.
Betway puts the odds at 1.30-3.20 in favor of LGD Forever Young. Betspawn gives similar odds in favor of the Chinese team: 1.33-3.05.
A lot of special bets are available for this match on websites like betway.com and betspawn.com. Among them, it’s well worth a bet that LFY will win the first map. Another bet worth considering is that TNC will win the second map, as they have done this multiple times in the group stage, against very strong teams. On top of this, LFY do have a tendency to fool around in the second game of their matches, so a 1-1 result after the first two games is highly probable.
Top Betting Tip
My top betting tip for this match is LGD Forever Young to win 2-1. They seem set to make it far into the competition and their upper bracket run is likely to start with a victory against TNC.