The final round of Group A’s group stage was full of hard fought match-ups, and once the dust settled, the final standings set the scene for what the Main Event is going to look like. the wings gaming took both games off of LGD-GAMING, OG Dota 2 ran roughshod over Natus Vincere, TNC Pro Team put some superfluous nails in Escape Gaming’s coffin, and Evil Geniuses and Alliance DID SOMETHING.
wings absolutely beat up on LGD, taking both games in little over twenty minutes and without having more than five deaths on any player across the whole set. In game one, shadow’s Morphling stormed past the efforts xiao8’s Axe and Banana’s Shadow Demon made to contain him and he crushed all opponents on the way to their 20 minute victory, leaving it 15-7. Game two was much the same, with Blink stepping in as Invoker to carry his team past Agressif’s Juggernaut and Maybe’s Anti-Mage. This time, it took 23 minutes to end the game with a final score of 19-7. wings took the much needed 2-0 to secure their top half finish.
NaVi were looking to win both games against OG in an effort to clear the halfway mark in the standings, but OG showed no mercy in handily defeating the CIS celebrities. Instead, Team Green swept the series and secured their first place finish in Group A. Game one was all about Miracle-‘s signature, team-carrying plays on Slark. His 18-2-7 record paved OG’s way to a 31 minute victory, final score 31-17. Game two certainly went better for NaVi, who managed to get Dendi and Ditya Ra performing on Razor and Slark, but they couldn’t hold off the tide of Miracle- on Morphling. After losing all tier three towers and a set of barracks without managing to crack high ground at all, NaVi conceded at 43 minutes with 24-23 on the scoreboard. OG emerged top of their group off of this 2-0 result.
TNC nailed down Escape’s hopes of not ending in last place with two firm victories. The first game was particularly tough for Escape, who had a struggling Era on Timbersaw and qojqva on Templar Assassin fail to achieve the results necessary to take the match out from under a well rounded performance by the whole TNC side who achieved victory at 28 minutes, 26-15. Game two was more even, but qojqva’s Tinker and Era’s Tiny couldn’t keep up with Kuku and Raven’s farm on Timbersaw and Terrorblade. As the net worth advantage stretched out to over 20,000 gold in favour of TNC, Escape had to concede after 39 minutes with a final score of 21-15. The 2-0 series is a nice finisher for TNC, who are the best of the worst at fifth place.
Alliance and EG went for a very long match and a very short one, with the first taking 67 minutes in a real barn burner that had two AdmiralBulldog heroes in Lone Druid and Broodmother, but only one AdmiralBulldog. He played the Broodmother, and Loda stepped into the bear zone with quite a lot of success on both sides. It looked good for Fear on the Tesla Drow Ranger with Aghanim’s Scepter and Mjolnir, but even that wasn’t enough to hold back the arachnid army from storming the base and winning with a final score of 34-25. After all that Dota, both teams felt like they wanted to end early, with AdmiralBulldog and S4 pumping out the pushing power with Broodmother and Dragon Knight overrunning Suma1l’s Timbersaw and Fear’s Drow Ranger. 19 minutes later, the game was done, 13-2.
Group A finished up with OG in first at 11-3, EG in second at 9-5, Alliance and wings tied for third at 8-6, TNC at fifth with the even 7-7, NaVi in sixth at 6-8, LGD in seventh with 5-9, and Escape in last with 2-12. OG will get to choose whether they play the third or fourth place team out of Group B in the Main Event Winner’s Bracket, with EG playing the other, and TNC will get to choose whether they play the seventh or eighth place team out of Group B, with NaVi playing the alternate, in the Main Event Loser’s Bracket.
