Dota 2 teams Vici Gaming and Evil Geniuses have both been guaranteed slots for the Playoffs of the ESL One Birmingham 2019. The two teams managed to get the top spots for their respective groups on day two of the tournament.
In Group A, OG had the lead after Day One. However, on Day Two OG was off to a rather bad start as TNC Predator managed to get game one of their match. OG won game two, however. VG, on the other hand, was able to sweep Ninjas in Pyjamas, taking game one in around 44 minutes and game two in 30 minutes.
The next game had OG and VG going against each other. In the first game, OG went with Anathan “ana” Pham on one of his signature heroes, the Phantom Lancer. However, OG had no answer to Zhang “Paparazi” Chengjun on Morphling, as VG dominated the entire game and never looked back. Game two still had Paparazi on Morphling, and it was pretty much the same as the previous game. The only difference is that the second game took longer to finish.
《#ESLOne Birmingham》
— VICI Gaming (@VICI) May 29, 2019
Game 1 was top notch! Let’s see if se can keep it up in Game 2 against @OGesports for our final game of the day.
? https://t.co/7X7MJtGtCf #VGFighting pic.twitter.com/05FwCpXZmu
For Group B, EG grabbed the top spot after Day One and this continued on Day Two. In the first game, EG faced off against Keen Gaming. Despite efforts by KG’s Zhai Jingkai on Razor, it was be enough as EG took the win. In the second game, Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan stayed true to form, with EG winning.
In the second match, EG played against Alliance with the first game going to EG on the backs of SumaiL and Artour “Arteezy” Babaev. With the second game, Arteezy carried the team to victory.
.@SumaaaaiL has had enough and drops the hammer onto @Keen_GamingCN, @EvilGeniuses takes game 1！#ESLOne pic.twitter.com/Pq7EjRxIgh
— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) May 29, 2019
While both VG and EG have one game remaining each, both teams retain the top as the other teams no longer have a chance to overtake them.
For Group A, the ranking is:
- VG (1)
- OG (2)
- Team Liquid (3)
- TNC Predator (4)
- Ninjas in Pyjamas (5)
- Forward Gaming (6)
Group B meanwhile has:
- Evil Geniuses (1)
- PSG.LGD (2)
- Team Secret (3)
- Keen Gaming (4)
- Alliance (5)
- Gambit Esports (6)
Day Three is important to the remaining teams, as the bottom two teams after the Group Stage are immediately eliminated.
