An impressive display of coordination near the enemy base guaranteed a Game 1 victory for UCSD’s DOTA squad. Sam Baik’s signature Dark Willow provided essential crowd control to deal with UBC’s evasive character lineup. In Game 2, UCSD’s late game carry duo, Tahmid Khan (TMK) and Wei (Draray), wielded their characters at full strength and were able to fully wipe UBC’s team despite a crushing snowball strategy that had left UCSD in dire straits. While UBC was able to straighten up and continue their pressure to finish the second game in their favor, UCSD worked very hard to make it a difficult and nail-biting contest of late-game ingenuity. A fierce back-and-forth in Game 3 ended in a UBC victory due to a strategy focused on constant pressure and a brick wall of strong sustain-type characters that ate up all the damage UCSD could throw at them. While the match was lost, valiant plays and displays of high-level mechanics and teamwork from UCSD players in the face of one of the top-ranked teams show promise for the remainder of the season!