by This match-up starts on Wednesday, 4 December, 2018 – 23:30 UTC+8
Hippomaniacs will seek revenge against Team Spirit when the two teams clash in the Dota 2 g4L Challenge on Wednesday.
Team Spirit eliminated Hippomaniacs in Round of 8 of the ESL One Katowice 2019 Europe Open Qualifier on November 25. In that match-up, Hippomaniacs drafted Faceless Void and Huskar, but their third core hero was a mistake — Tinker.
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Tinker had to farm until he had the dagger until he could only join the team fight, while Faceless Void and Huskar both had to pressure enemies without Tinker in first 15 minutes of the game.
Huskar is a hero that is able to pressure the game in first 20 minutes while whole the squad supports him. Their greedy picks of Tinker and Huskar were getting crushed by Team Spirit.
In game 2, Team Spirit drafted the classic combo picks — IO and Gyrocopter. Hippomaniacs immediately reacted to that with pulling Winter Wyvern into their picks.
Winter Wyvern ultimate skill — Winter’s Curse — was able to counter IO, who always need to be tethered to someone. With Winter’s Curse casted on IO, IO became a liability.
Things did not go to plan for the Hippomaniacs. They were lacking synergy and under too much pressure when Gyrocopter had his Black King Bar at the 19-minute mark.
From their recent draft, we know Hippomaniacs are heavily dependent on Huskar. This should be an advantage for them because Huskar is not a strong tier 1 hero in this meta and opponents might just let them slip under the radar.
Team Spirit rely more on Dark Seer and Spirit Breaker. These picks are strong because Spirit Breaker has high impact in team fights when Dark Seer uses his abilities – Ion Shell and Surge.
However, we must always remember combo picks are very easy to get countered because banning one of the heroes is enough to tear down the strategy.
Hippomaniacs vs. Team Spirit betting prediction
After analysing the drafting abilities of both squads, we give Hippomaniacs a 20 per cent chance to finish this best-of-three match 2-0.
Considering the odds, our suggestion is to go low on Hippomaniacs and bet on a Hippomaniacs 2-0 win at better than +750 at BetOnline.
