Team Liquid continues its dominance of the MDL Macau 2019 as the group secured an Upper Bracket Finals slot for this Dota 2 tournament.
For the first match of the Playoffs, Team Liquid took on Royal Never Give Up. Royal had previously beaten Liquid in the Group Stage, although the match was a clear back-and-forth. The Playoff contest was a different story, and Liquid dominated Royal. In the first game, Miracle-'s Phantom Assassin had eight kills out of Liquid's total of 17. This match would also see MinD_ContRoL going for an Underlord instead of his usual picks. Game Two would follow the same pattern with Miracle- getting 14 kills on his Troll Warlord and MinD-ContRoL getting five kills and zero deaths on his Batrider.
Two CLEAN games later, and we advance to upper bracket finals of MDL Macau!
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) February 22, 2019
Thank you to everyone who cheered us on, we hope to keep the momentum going! pic.twitter.com/sB4rOmmMbT
The second match would see Vici Gaming going against Evil Geniuses, who did not have their mid player SumaiL. Game One saw EG taking the win and Arteezy getting 12 kills on his Spectre. Game Two would go the way of Vici Gaming with Paparazi's Morphling getting the highest number of kills. With Game One going above 40 minutes and Game Two reaching 53 minutes, there was expectation of a long battle for the final game. However, EG would not be denied as the team overpowered Vici Gaming 28-6 and GG was called just under 22 minutes. Arteezy, Cr1t-, and stand-in CC&C, had zero deaths in the game.
In the lower bracket, Virtus.Pro secured a hard-earned victory against Invictus Gaming. Invictus Gaming would take an early lead with HAlf's Ember Spirit in mid. A number of team fights continued to go in favor of Invictus Gaming. Virtus.Pro would make a major comeback and secure the victory.
In other lower bracket match, Newbee took on EHOME in a best-of one game. The fight lasted around 46 minutes before EHOME called GG and Newbee took the victory. EHOME had been one of the favorites going in, but with this loss has been eliminated from the tournament.
The upcoming matches will see Team Liquid take on Evil Geniuses with the winner securing a slot in the Grand Finals and guaranteed a runner-up finish. Other games scheduled have Royal Never Give Up versus Newbee and Vici Gaming going against Virtus.Pro.
