Two European titans, Team Secret and OG, battled for dominance at ESL One Malaysia 2022 and the series did not disappoint.
Secret midlaner Michal “Nisha” Jankowski was once again incredible, as evidenced by his Void Spirit play. Secret and OG fought in the upper bracket, where the winner is guaranteed to get into the top three of the tournament. The first game was a biting nail with twists on both sides.
That brilliant play may have led to a loss, but the rest of Secret more than made up for it with two straight wins in games two and three, sending OG into the lower bracket.
Nisha torments OG with unkillable Void Spirit at ESL One Malaysia 2022
At 28 minutes, Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf’s brilliant initiation meant that the Secret Dawnbreaker carry and the offline Centaur Warrunner were quickly taken out of the fight. Secret did the same with OG’s two supports, but Nisha’s Void Spirit remained the only core against OG’s terrifying tricore.
Rather than call it a lost battle and back off, the 21-year-old decided to take on the half-health ATF, whose Mars was already using BKB. Getting involved in the fight, he quickly checked the bottom rune in case something could help him, and found Regeneration, which would become important later.
Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov’s Queen of Pain had the same idea, but Nisha beat him to a rune and cast a spell combo that weakened bzm so much that he went down.
OG, who had all three cores still alive, were still rushing into battle. They periodically baited mid Secret with spells, expecting Void Spirit to back off. Encouraged by the many defensive spells and items he received from his supports, including Phoenix’s Sunbeam, Treant Protector’s Living Armor, and the Glimmering Cape, Nisha decided it wasn’t enough to simply retreat.
Knowing that ATF and bzm were low on health, Nisha proceeded to dive three OG cores with Astral Step despite having a third of his health. He missed his ultimate but still found it with Ethereal Blade and Aether Remnant.
With less than 200 health remaining, he drew his regeneration rune before entering Dissimilate, managing to avoid damage over time from Shadow Strike Queen of Pain and restore some precious resources. In the end, Dissimilate was enough to destroy Mars, but the battle wasn’t over yet.
Bzm winked to use Cry of Pain, bringing Nisha’s health down to 30, making his regeneration rune crucial to his survival. When the Astral Step finally ended, Nisha ulted.
But Slark and Queen of Pain were more than willing to use their mobility to try and finish off Void Spirit. Instead, Nisha easily outflanked Pounce Slark, and thanks to Glimmer Cape, he survived again with barely 30HP for a bzm Scream combo.
With the release of the final Dissimilate, Nishi’s breathtaking streak of games is finally over, and he is left alive to tell the story – with much gratitude for being saved from his supports.
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