OG defeats EG and get the chance to win their third Major title.
Going into this semifinal Evil Geniuses seemed to have the momentum on their side after sweeping first The International 6 champions Wings Gaming and then Virtus.pro, arguably the best team since the end of TI6. However, OG was not to be underestimated. They had a great run as well, defeating IG Vitality, Ad Finem (also in the semifinals), MVP Phoenix, Warriors Gaming, and being the only team in the world to hold two Major titles.
Game one:
The draft in game one was straightforward. EG went for proven combos and hero picks. OG went for a four-protect-one strategy with the Naga Siren, Johan 'N0tail-BigDaddy' Sundstein's signature hero. Everything looked balanced on paper, and it was just a question of who would play better and make the most out of their heroes.
The game began disastrously for OG. They gave up first blood, and Ludwig 'Zai' Wahlberg's Leshrac took out the courier carrying Anathan 'Ana' Pham's Dragon Knight bottle. However, they immediately bounced back by turning an EG mid lane gank around and killing Syed 'Suma1L' Hassan twice in a row. The two teams had similar net worths after the first seven minutes of the game, but OG quickly began to take control and slowly increased their lead with each free kill they got.
With a decent gold lead and a Radiance on their Naga Siren, OG went for EG’s mid lane T1 tower at around the seventeen minute mark. OG dove, initiating a fight. EG lost the tower and four of their heroes in the clash, while OG suffered no casualties.
With map control slowly but surely being taken away from them, EG lost the farm game and kept giving away free kills to OG. Almost every single initiation from Gustav 's4' Magnusson's Clockwerk resulted in a kill. In team fights, EG's Nyx Assassin got killed almost immediately thanks to the prescient sentries, while the Mirana ultimates were completely ineffective.
N0tail’s Naga Siren wasn’t dealt with at all this game, simply because OG’s other 4 heroes (and especially s4’s Clockwerk) outplayed EG so badly that Andreas 'Cr1t-' Nielsen's team simply didn’t have room to do anything about it. With every minute Naga kept growing into the late game monster that simply couldn’t be stopped. OG closed the game in 28 minutes without even needing a Roshan.
Game two:
The second game saw EG take a slight lead from the draft, stealing OG’s Clockwerk and putting an Ursa mid, forcing OG’s Alchemist to go to the safe lane.
Once again, the start of the game saw EG get several important kills and quickly gain an advantage. But just like in game one, OG bounced back with kills of their own and a better overall team coordination. At around the 15 minute mark, even with an Aegis on Sumail’s Ursa, OG won a big team fight near EG’s mid lane T1 tower, and Cr1t’s team saw itself falling behind. From this point forward everything seemed to go the same as in game one, with s4 playing exceptionally well and helping his team outplay EG and make space for the Alchemist, who achieved a 10K gold lead over Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev's Morphling at the 25 minute mark. With the second Roshan secured by OG, Tal 'Fly' Aizik`s team sieged the EG base and took two lanes of barracks, ending the game in a little over 30 minutes.
And so, to the surprise and disappointment of many, EG is eliminated from yet another important competition just one step away from the Grand Final, while OG gets the incredible chance of winning their third Major title. The question is: Can they do it?
