Virtus Pro win against Evil Genius; set up rematch with Team Secret
The Lower bracket final at the Kuala Lumpur Dota 2 Major saw Evil Geniuses take on Virtus Pro. The two teams have survived so far in the tournament after taking down several strong teams. Virtus Pro comes into the Major once again as a favourite to win it. However, not many expected Evil Geniuses to reach the Top 3, although no one is complaining.
Virtus Pro was ready for the Arteezy Terrorblade.
After their phenomenal run at the tournament so far, it was no surprise to see Evil Genius pick up the Terrorblade right off the bat. However, Virtus Pro was more than prepared for this hero pick. They had watched hours of demos of Evil Geniuses and the one strategy that has worked wonders for the NA team is Terrorblade. We saw in yesterday’s match against NIP how Arteezy was the only one getting any items on the team and yet that was more than enough. Ofcourse it was more to do with Peter Dager’s insistence on running the Drow strategy [ unsuccessfully] than actually countering Arteezy in any way at all.
Virtus Pro knew exactly how to counter Arteezy’s Terrorblade
Today’s match saw No[o]ne play his trademark Invoker. The number of the sun strikes in the early to mid-game ensured that Virtus Pro was
No[o]ne’s Invoker was the X-factor for Virtus Pro in Game 1.always ahead of Evil Geniuses. Their knowledge of Evil Geniuses playstyle ensured that they were always winning the early to mid game team fights. This was the time when Arteeezy was still trying to get his items by farming. Winning these team fights made sure that when Arteezy was online with items, Virtus Pro was already way ahead of Evil Geniuses. In the end, it was just a bit too much for Evil Geniuses to handle Virtus Pro. By the time they got the crucial items, Virtus Pro had already tanked up with a Crimson Guard, A pipe of Insight etc. Sumail’s Leshrac had almost zero impact on the game and the extremely late Black King Bar did not help matters at all.
Virtus Pro looked extremely dominant in this game, but we have seen game series where the losing team makes an insane comeback later.
The Second Game saw Evil Geniuses make crucial Mistakes
The Second game did not see Evil Geniuses pick up the Terrorblade for Arteezy. They did pick up the Kunka and the Enigma, a surprising combination. The heroes rely heavily on their cooldowns and it was important for EG to start winning the team fights.
The early Game was very even with both the teams focussing on getting crucial items. However, once the mid-game came online, we saw how Evil Geniuses lacked the coordination and the synergy required to defeat Virtus Pro. There were team fights when EG went in one by one against 5 heroes and gave away a big advantage to Virtus Pro.
S4 had a very difficult time on the Enigma for Game 2. Then there was also the situation where Enigma could not clear out the trees with the Midnight Pulse. A 5 man gank on No[o]ne turned disastrous for EG as No[o]ne was able to take down Sumail and still safely Teleport away. It was these crucial individual plays that not only helps Virtus Pro get the advantage but also proves as a major discouragement for the NA side. With Rubick and Winter Wyvern ready to deal with the Enigma blackhole, S4 had a very tough time trying to get a good ultimate off. With this victory, Virtus Pro are all set for a rematch with Team Secret in the Grand finals. The two teams did meet previously in the Upper Bracket finals. Team Secret won the series 2-1 after a closely contested Game 3. We will see how the Grand finals go for both the teams. The Grand Finals will be a Best of Five series between the two teams.