I trace the path of Evil Geniuses’s victory, explaining how EG won the way they did.

If you haven’t heard yet, Evil Geniuses has won The International 5. Each player walks home with 1.3 million dollars, a good amount of prize-money for anyone to make. EG took a path similar to their victory at DAC, starting in the upper bracket and moving through until they met the eventual upper bracket winner, losing to them 2:0 and then getting into the Grand Final through the lower bracket, finally beating the team that put them into the lower bracket in the first place.

Strategy vs Teamplay

Game 1 was the most important game for both EG and coL. After hitting marvelous ganks and tower timings with their mid-game draft, coL rushed into highground and fed gold to EG. This delayed the game so much so that they were unable to lock EG into their high ground, allowing EG to splitpush relatively quickly despite the early game advantage of coL.

Fear’s Anti Mage(AM) was the lynchpin which held EG together. Finishing the game 12/0/5 and with 420 last hits at 42 minutes, you can tell how successful his splitpush was in keeping coL away from EG’s highground. coL lost the game when they pushed highground too early –  it was their inexperience and anxiety to end the game that caused then to make the highground push too early. EG had AM, true, but before the failed highground, they could have easily locked the AM into the base by warding bot lane while pushing in top and bot. They had a clockwerk and QoP with orchid, and a underfarmed splitpushing AM would have been easy to take down. EG lucked out against inexperienced opponents who had the game in their hands until they threw it away.

Game 2 really showed Game 1’s importance to coL. The lack of LAN and tournament experience meant that coL was on the verge of tilting and not knowing what to do in-game. After getting the first two kills in the game, it seemed that coL got complacent against EG’s highly maneuverable and full of burst damage line up. EG’s Tusk and Ember Spirit literally walked down midlane and killed coL’s Dragon Knight who was lingering around the tower at 25% hp. This forced two bad TPs from dazzle and timbersaw – bad because the two heroes had no lockdown against an Ember and a Tusk. This allowed Crystal Maiden and Razor to go on the top duolane of Sven and Lina, outranging Sven with Frostbite and allowing Razor to drain most of his damage. With the TP from dazzle gone, Sven was a sitting duck without shallow grave.

From that point on, coL was done. compLexity has good individual skill reminiscent of VG Gaming, but none of the much-needed strategic knowledge of TP rotations, predicting enemy movements and itemization. Where you will never ever see EG go high ground without either a pick-off or a tanky hero, you see coL going high ground assuming they have enough advantage to outdamage their opponents. Starting off strong in the upper bracket, but failing to capitalize in Game 1 due to inexperience, coL sadly could not wrangle their way through EG.

Matchup 2: Evil Geniuses (EG) vs EHOME

ppd flexes his strategic muscle in this match, running circles around rOtk this match in the draft. Game 1 was an overwhelming victory of cty’s Storm Spirit and YJ’s Luna, suffering only 3 deaths, EHOME simply snowballed out of control after Cty won middle lane off SumaiL. This would be the famous 32:22 322 game, and was an exciting game for EHOME fans as they had just decimated Team Secret 2:0.

In Game 2, ppd unveiled one of his pocket strats: Bloodseeker Spirit Breaker Techies. This threw rOtk’s team off due to their inexperience in dealing with Techies. EHOME’s call was to defend and delay, but a poor engagement at minute 32 cost them the game. Maybe if they managed to drag it out to minute 60 they could fight better off of a farmed PL, but EHOME did not challenge Aui_2000’s Techies and was simply afraid to move out as 5 due to SumaiL’s Ember and UNiVeRsE’s Lina already snowballing out of control. The call to defend was a game-losing strategy as EG slowly farmed their way into a 15k lead. Despite losing two heroes in an overextension at the middle lane at minute 27, EG by then was too farmed and EHOME could not wrangle EG back into their bases.

Matchup inexperience against Techies from EHOME gave EG the victory. Just like how Navi had the game figured out during Ti1 where other teams were still figuring out the game, EG was ahead of the curve. By being able to play such a diverse range of heroes across lanes, by such amazing team coordination and by having adequate tournament experience for the young talent SumaiL, EG was able to amazingly outsmart the veterans of EHOME, LaNm and rOtk, and take the victory.

In Game 3, EHOME just got utterly destroyed by SumaiL’s Windranger. Their Phoenix pick was a game-winning pocket strategy against Team Secret, but ppd had already figured them out. Combined with rOtk’s multiple misplays where he had not enough mana for a Supernova in important teamfights, EHOME dropped the game to EG, with SumaiL’s windrunner even blinking into EHOME’s lineup and shackling two heroes together to end the game at 43 minutes.

Matchup 3: CDEC Gaming vs Evil Geniuses (EG)

EG gathers information for their eventual Grand Finals clash.

As syndereN said during Game 2, “The team that has been the best at adapting and finding solutions for the draft has been EG”. EG would lose both games in a row, but get clues as to how to draft against CDEC. CDEC pulled out their Bounty Hunter against EG in Game 2, which utterly smashed EG into pieces given how aggressive CDEC plays.

Game 1’s draft showed ppd that CDEC is not confident enough to play against Techies. This gives ppd room for his draft, as he already knows what will be first banned by CDEC and thus denies CDEC the luxury of a first ban. EG takes Naga Siren, assuming that they will be able to delay engagements since CDEC’s first two picks, Tusk and Undying, which are teamfighting mid-game heroes. 15 minutes into the game, EG was up 5-4 with a very farmed Shadow Fiend with 7.4k networth. It really looked like EG had figured CDEC out. However, Agressif’s Ember Spirit, Shiki’s Templar Assassin and Q’s Visage tipped the chaotic teamfights in CDEC’s favor combined with Tusk and Undying. The lack of lockdown from EG (only Universe’s Sand King for stuns) allowed CDEC to play around Ice shards with blink daggers and Flame Remnants.

The rest of the game was EG trying to outplay with less map presence compared to CDEC, but what sealed the deal was an amazing Snowball counterplay by Xz, completely nullifying UNiVeRsE’s Epicenter + Burrow Strike Combo. SumaiL got bursted down by Templar Assassin’s Desolator + Meld Strike with Ember’s magical burst damage helping him go back to the fountain and without buyback, EG lost the game.

Matchup 4: LGD Gaming vs Evil Geniuses

It’s like a bad recurring dream for LGD in both games in this match. Every game would stalemate into the mid-game, with EG always having the better farming cores than LGD. By some flaw in the director xiao8’s script, his team will always be wiped out one by one, allowing EG to take the lead and win the game.

Game 1 was a good mid-game lineup for LGD. Gyrocopter for Sylar, Maybe’s trademark Storm Spirit and the director xiao8’s Clockwerk, reprising his role as Earthshaker to Yao, an awkward choice given that it was his own Earthshaker who has been dominating the early to mid-game with excellent fissures for his team up till this point in the tournament. A last pick Silencer meant that Lina, Dazzle and Enigma were all vulnerable to Storm Spirit if he got ahead enough.

The early game was disappointing for LGD. Similar to CDEC’s policy of spending all their smokes in the early game, LGD’s first smoke gank on mid not only failed to kill SumaiL’s lina, but also gave away the first blood thanks to a fortuitous haste rune from Aui_2000, running in and Maleficing xiao8’s earthshaker. With Lina now ahead, Maybe’s Storm Spirit was kept bowed throughout the early game.

Coming into the mid-game, LGD’s smoke movements failed most of the time, allowing Fear’s Phantom Lancer, Aui_2000’s Enigma and SumaiL’s Lina to free farm top lane and bottom lane as they rotated through the enemy jungle in vain multiple times. LGD’s wards did not manage to track Aui’s farming movements, and Enigma managed to farm up a Mekansm before he was really threatened by anything.

MMY tried to build a Midas on his Silencer, but frequent deaths meant he never quite got his timing for the item for him to get an Aghanim’s on time. A horrible, drawn out fight on the bottom lane allowed EG to kite around the less maneuverable LGD, with a haste rune on Universe allowing him to survive the initial engagement by running away from Sylar’s Gyro. LGD’s call to remain in the fight up against the disables from Enigma, Tusk and Lina meant that their cores rarely had the chance to fight uncontested. They were stunned, kited, lead around and eventually killed by Phantom Lancer(PL) illusions and Lina’s absolutely insane attack range combined with 3 stacks of Firey Soul. PL and Lina both climbed to the top of the networth chart after the fight on the bottom lane, and LGD called the gg.

The 5 men of EG displayed a great deal of trust and co-ordination with each other to outplay LGD in-game 1. Low health EG heroes were everywhere during fights against LGD, but they never got killed. This allowed them to continue re-engaging with their lower cooldown disables after Earthshaker and Clockwerk were taken out during the first engagement. The relatively more powerful and better farmed cores of LGD were still unable to close the gap, feeding themselves away into EG’s victory.

In Game 2, director 8 reprised his lead role as Earthshaker, but alas, when your Earthshaker is trying to gank a SumaiL Leshrac in the middle lane, a lot of things can go wrong. The first engagement went as the director planned: xiao8 ended up getting a double kill, and the vulnerable Maybe died after SumaiL did, so Maybe got the experience advantage. However, it showed us how fragile Shadow Fiend was, and perhaps he should have gotten Drums before Mekansm. This would have allowed him to survive the later gank a lvl 6 Fear and lvl 5 SumaiL did, which barely killed him.

Fear’s Clinkz terrorized LGD, with MMY’s own overextensions eventually costing LGD the entire game. His first misplay on Rubick was when LGD’s 5 man converged on the middle lane. ppd’s Winter Wyvern used Arctic Burn to fly from the middlelane leftside towards the ancients, escaping xiao8 and MMY by reaching highground. MMY decided to keep chasing in spite of the director’s withdrawal, and he paid for it when UNiVeRsE came walking in with a battery assault. MMY’s death meant that LGD were left with a low mana Earthshaker, which enabled a speedy gank by Fear’s Clinkz and SumaiL’s Leshrac mere seconds after MMY’s death.

MMY would go on to cause LGD’s defeat by diebacking himself after a botched 3rd Roshan. Maybe and Sylar took the 3rd Roshan, but just as Roshan was dying, EG engaged onto LGD’s supports. Earthshaker wasted his spells on a singular Leshrac which blinked on top of both him and MMY, and Tusk had so little durability that Fear erased him in 4 hits. MMY boughtback and tried to chase a fleeing ppd, who, by then, had Blink Dagger and a Glimmer Cape. This allowed him to go invis, juke Sylar Maybe and MMY and blink away, frustrating MMY to the point he went all in to chase ppd down. ppd then simply used cold embrace on himself on the highground between the medium and hard creep camp near middle lane, and MMY realized his folly. His dieback would allow EG to 5-man kill both an Aegis Shadow Fiend Maybe and a Cheese Gyrocopter Sylar, allowing EG to march down middle and end the game.

LGD’s inability to work together as a team at crucial moments cost them the game. At times, their teamplay was a notch above EG’s – much like EHOME’s own ability to teamfight even when behind (see Game 2 EHOME vs EG), but lack of stable performance eventually cost them their Grand Finals chance. Perhaps the most consistent offlaner, EG’s UNiVeRsE really came through for his team, especially when it came down locking down LGD members in Game 3. Amazing hooks came out left and right, allowing EG to catch and kill fleeing LGD members, making each EG rotation more effective than LGD’s own rotations.

You can see ppd’s draft analysis here of the Final games against LGD.

You can follow me on twitter @TheFreakofnatur and email me at [email protected]. Until next time!

Chen Yiji
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheFreakofnatur

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Tags: Defense of the Ancients, DOTA 2, Evil Geniuses, The International 5, Valve