YaLLa Esports and Lucid Dream took one map each in Match 1 on Day 2 of DreamHack Delhi CSGO Invitational 2019.
The match started on Mirage, with YaLLa on the offence. YaLLa got off to a strong start with a pistol round victory and followed up with a clean anti-eco. Lucid Dreams brought their rifles out in the third round and capitalized on the inferior weapons of YaLLa.
After Lucid Dream got their first round on the board, they were rock solid on their defence, winning 11 rounds in a row. YaLLa were back on board on the 14th round and close the first half with a 12-3 scoreline in favour of Lucid Dream. YaLLa are a team that like to stick together, play on compact structures and it was evident on their CT side, which was way better than their offence. Lucid Dream raced to a 14-6 lead. But, YaLLa were far from done. Everyone from the Middle-Eastern roster started stepping up individually, with superb plays from Senpai and 3ARKOOZ pulling it back to 14-14.
Lucid Dream finally got to match point but YaLLa shut down a B split to take the game to overtime. Senpai was having a phenomenal game picking 34 frags from the middle-eastern side.
The Thai stack continued to find success on the B site though as it boiled down to a 1v3 for PTC, who converted the round for Lucid Dream. YaLLa punished Lucid Dream for a fallible attempt to take control of A to put themselves on the Board in Overtime.
After the failed attempt, Lucid Dream went back to the tried and tested B split but YaLLa’s aggression at Mid completely shut them down, with the first overtime ending 2-1 (17-16) in the favour of YaLLa.
Lucid Dream though, didn’t even give YaLLa a look-in, locking down both the sites and closing out Mirage 19-17.
YaLLa started on the offence once again on Inferno, winning the pistol round and converting the following round with ease. Lucid Dream had a full buy thanks to an eco on the second round and that allowed them to put a successful defence at A.
YaLLa went for a force buy, with DEAD on the CZ and 3ARKOOZ having to make do with a Mac-10. The middle-Eastern stack sold the B fake well and cleared A with ease, forcing Lucid Dream to save their weaponry. The Thai stack chose to buy around the two-man save and somehow made it work to break YaLLa back again.
3ARKOOZ opened up the B site in the 7th round, forcing Lucid Dream into a 3-man save. The half ended 9-6 in favour of Lucid Dream. YaLLa though, started their defence well, lapping up the pistol round along with the following one, thanks to a 3k from Kheops on the anti-eco.
YaLLa took the lead soon, thanks to their controlled yet unanswered aggression as well as good chemistry on the A site. With the game poised at 12-10 in favour of YaLLa, the attackers went for a Mid execute fake to a slow B take, which was well read by YaLLa, putting them within 3 rounds of sealing Inferno.
YaLLa continued to reap the dividends of their aggression, always finding pickoffs. The sites were on absolute lock down as Lucid Dream failed to find any chink in YaLLa’s armour, with the defenders closing out Inferno 16-10, sharing the spoils.
