Even as we reach The Summit’s precipice, we have already witnessed so much insane action.

Quarter Finals

 We saw the end of the quarter finals with Vici Gaming and Evil Geniuses dominating their opposition, finishing their games 3-0 and 3-1 respectively.

Evil Geniuses took their games convincingly, having little trouble with Not Today’s innovative drafts. All games lasted around 30-40 minutes, but a common theme was the ability of EG to be much, much more stable than Not Today.

Not Today would make some great plays to get a few kills, but EG’s consistency and their lack of mistakes won them the game overall.

Vici Gaming went through Team Tinker after dropping Game 1, largely owing to Team Tinker’s inability to deal with Black^’s position 1 heroes. Black^ is the very model of a versatile and solid carry, being able to play the usual carries; Anti-Mage, Faceless Void and Terrorblade, but his Invoker is really one to watch.

They also ended their matches in the 30-40 minutes time frame, really showing us that this patch’s expected game length more or less centers on this timing.

Semi Finals

The semi-finals were really, really close, with each team winning 2 straight in a row against each other forcing the game 5. You can really see how the competitive scene in Dota 2 has developed into something truly amazing, with great games being played in both series.

Cloud 9 (3) vs Evil Geniuses (2)

After winning 2 in a row in 25 and 27 minutes respectively, Cloud 9 dropped their lead by allowing EG to catch back up, tying the series 2-2. Watching game 3 onwards, you could see that EG had adapted to Cloud9’s winning strategy.

Cloud 9’s lynchpin was their supports creating space by baiting themselves. EG simply went away from those lanes and soon were catching Eternal Envy (EE), their carry player, left right and centre. EE adapted only after the second loss, using Faceless Void’s elusiveness to extend and eventually close out game 5.

It was a slow-roll game 5, filled with mistakes from both sides. Cloud9’s endgame bans, combined with EG’s greedy draft (Naga, Weaver and Dark Seer) which made them lack the damage on heroes to kill Cloud9’s heroes quickly, brought them through game 5, which lasted over 71 minutes.

Vici Gaming (3) vs Team Secret (2)

http://gfycat.com/MajorEasyAndeancockoftherock

Vici repeated Cloud9’s performance, also winning the first 2 games in succession before dropping the next two to Team Secret. For the first game they lost, Vici drafted a mid-game lineup and didn’t execute their winning strategy in time, losing the game in the late game.

Despite fighting hard against each other, at the end of the day, all players are friends.

The second game was more of a draft loss as Vici experimented with a Phoenix pick on Fenrir (who was, in professional dota 1, the top phoenix player according to dotabuff.), ending up with a team that didn’t have the damage to close out the late game. The third game was a stomp as Black^ went 14-0-9 on his Terrorblade, winning the game for his team in 25 minutes.

Chen Yiji
The Gaming Ground

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Tags: Cloud 9, DOTA2, Evil Geniuses, The Summit 2, The Summit finals, Vici Gaming