With Dota 2 teams TNC Predator and Vici Gaming all set to fight it out for the first place spot in the Grand Finals, today's matches were all focused on the Lower Bracket. At the end of the day, it was Evil Geniuses that moved on. Meanwhile, three other team have been eliminated from the tournament.
Team Liquid vs Alliance
In the first match it was Team Liquid going against Alliance. In the first game, Liquid took control through the competition for an easy win. Since dropping to the Lower Bracket, Alliance previously had a good match against Team Aster, with Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov showing good performance when carrying his team to a number of victories. However, for the first game against Liquid, it appeared that Alliance would be unable to find an answer to Liquid's picks. Almost an hour later, Liquid grabbed the win with Samuel "Boxi" Svahn getting 10 kills on Legion Commander and Michael "miCKe" Vu on Faceless Void contributing with nine kills. The second game was pretty much the same. Despite taking 40 minutes, it was still Liquid that dominated. Using Faceless Void, miCKe ended the game with 10 kills and no deaths. He was helped by Maximilian "qojqva" Bröcker on Lina with 12 kills.
Invictus Gaming vs beastcoast
The second match showcased Invictus Gaming against beastcoast. In the first game, Hector Antonio "K1" Rodriguez played using Chaos Knight. You pretty much knew what was going to happen.
With Jean Pierre "Chris Luck" Gonzales on Kunkka at mid and Adrian "Wisper" Cespedes Dobles on Ancient Apparition at offlane, IG had trouble finding an answer. Despite close overall team scores, beastcoast was able to close out the game and take the win.
IG did manage to find its footing in the second game. In less than 30 minutes, IG destroyed beastcoast. In fact, beastcoast as a team could only manage one kill against IG's 30 kills. The top performance of the match went to Adrian "Wisper" Cespedes Dobles on Templar Assassin with 13 kills. This meant a do-or-die third game.
Initially the two teams traded blows, with beastcoast slowly pulling away thanks to Chris Luck's Drow Ranger. That all changed in one teamfight. Despite not having vision, beastcoast initiated a fight and Thiay “JT-” Jun Wen, who was on Legion Commander, panicked. JT- got himself trapped in the trees. Fortunately, Chan “Oli” Chon Kien on Ogre Magi managed to set JT- free and in turn, managed to get a kill on Chris Luck's Templar Assassin. With the Templar Assassin out for two minutes with no buyback, IG made the smart choice to go for the GG push. Despite resistance and defense from beastcoast, IG took the victory and eliminated beastcoast.
Team Liquid vs Evil Geniuses
Fresh off victory against Alliance, Liquid had a chance to do the same versus EG. This was a rematch of their Group Stage match where Liquid took the upper hand against EG. In the first game, it was EG all the way. Abed "Abed" Yusop dominated the match on Storm Spirit with 19 kills and more than 33,000 hero damage inflicted. Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev also had a good showing on Omniknight with nine kills and no deaths. There was the expectation that Liquid would do the same in the second game and it looked that way at the start. However, once EG's heroes managed to get their timing, Liquid had problems answering it. Abed had another good performance with Kunkka and dished out nine kills with no deaths. This time, though, it would be Artour "Artezzy" Babaev on Faceless Void that stepped up to the plate and brought in 19 kills. With this combination, EG eliminated Liquid from the match.
Upcoming Matches
Tomorrow features another three matches. The first will be IG against J.Storm, with the winner going against EG. Before the fight with EG, it will be the match everyone has been waiting for as TNC takes on VG to decide who gets the first seat in the Grand Finals.
So who do you think is joining TNC and VG in the top three?
