picture source: @Newbee
After recovering from a stomp in game one, Newbee showed their resilience and handily took the series back from EG, sending the North Americans home.
Game One
In their first game against Newbee, Evil Geniuses took a solid win. After a somewhat overzealous play, Newbee lost their Divine Rapier, and shortly after, the game. Draftwise, EG looked very strong with the classic Drow Ranger-Medusa combo for Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev and Syed 'SumaiL' Sumail Hassan respectively. Newbee went with a pretty balanced draft with a strong frontline in Xun 'uuu9' Han’s Wraith King and Damien 'kpii' Chok’s Centaur Warrunner.
Early game started off great for EG, as Andreas 'Cr1t-' Nielsen picked up a quick double kill in return for Arteezy’s death in the top lane. Ludwig 'Zai' Wåhlberg’s compounded this with some great pressure around the map, which put EG up by four in the first seven minutes, along with some great farm. As the game progressed,the pressure eased on Arteezy leaving him free to farm, while Newbee concentrated on the other areas of the map; Newbee constantly smoked up looking for kills, which they found constantly on a Cr1t-‘s Rubick, but never really anything more.
As the game wound down to its final stages, it was clear that EG had much better late game scaling. A ray of hope appeared first at 33 minutes, as Newbee defended EG’s highground push brilliantly with a stellar play from Hu 'KAKA' Liangzhi, catching out SumaiL. This continued at 42 minutes, as Chun 'Sccc' Song picked up a Divine Rapier, which was crucial for stopping another of EG’s pushes onto the high ground. Newbee defended, taking Arteezy’s aegis and sensing blood in the water, smoked up for more. Newbee shortly found SumaiL farming alone. It looked to be disaster, but SumaiL’s quick fingers turned the fight around, as a clutch BKB activation gave the boys in blue the time to back up the gorgon and claim the Rapier along with four from Newbee. Shortly after, EG stormed down bottom lane, and with the Rapier in hand, along with their clear farm advantage, Newbee called gg after a valiant effort.
Game Two
Seeing the strength of the roaming Monkey King in game one, Newbee decided to pick it up for themselves, along with some more aggressive heroes with a Juggernaut for uuu9 and Ember Spirit for Sccc. With an Abaddon for kpii to round it out, Newbee’s lineup looked very strong in the midgame. EG went with a more push focused lineup, with a signature Naga Siren for Arteezy and a Lina for SumaiL.
Early on, pressure was once again on the mid lane, as KAKA came time and again, harassing SumaiL with little effect. As such, Arteezy was left to free farm, along with Saahil 'Universe' Arora’s Earthshaker on the offlane, as he simply moved to the jungle. Likewise, uuu9 got some great farm as well. The first 10 minutes saw EG well in control of the lanes, but Newbee began to move their farmed uuu9 around the map and began to take control of the game. After a few more stumbles from Newbee, the Chinese squad hit their power spike, as past 20 minutes, Newbee continually dominated fights as EG continued to hemorrhage heroes, their hopes resting on Arteezy’s Naga Siren.
As the game moved into its final stages, the Naga Siren just wasn’t enough to deal with Newbee’s four cores. Despite stalling out Newbee with some great split pushing, Newbee eventually found the fights they needed off of some dire mistakes from EG, and the Chinese squad claimed victory after a failed smoke from EG just under the hour mark.
Game Three
With elimination on the line, both teams played their hearts out. But in the end, Newbee clutched it out and sent EG packing in just over 30 minutes. Draftwise, Newbee had a terrifyting agro triplane in the Crystal Maiden, Rubick, and Core Vengeful Spirit for Hong 'Faith' Da Zeng, KAKA, and uuu9 respectively. Matched with an Sccc Alchemist, the Chinese squad looked in prime position to take the mid game. EG likewise, had a potentially devastating lineup, with an Enigma for Universe, and a Morphling for the sad-boy himself.
Early on, SumaiL played very aggressively and contested Sccc well in lane. The real aggression however, happened in the top lane, as the aggro tri lane continually took advantage of the smallest misstep from Cr1t-‘s Io. With the aggression, Arteezy got very little in terms of farm and was forced to swap lanes, which went equally poor against kpii’s Abaddon. Zai did his best however, moving around the map but Newbee were wise to his antics, and continually tp’ed or rotated to prevent anything detrimental from happening.
Despite his absolute free farm, Universe just couldn’t seem to find the right initiation, as time and again, he was stunned or prevented from blinking in. It was a fight at 30 minutes around the Rosh Pit that spelled the end for the boys in blue, as Newbee bought back to finish the game, knowing that without Universe’s Black Hole, EG could do little to stop the onslaught. Newbee move on to face iG V for a spot in the lower bracket finals, while EG bids adieu to DAC 2017.
