picture courtesy of Epicenter
The last group stage day of EPICENTER started with an unfortunate event in group A which disrupted the schedule a little. While the final results of Group A will be determined tomorrow, group B concluded and two teams are already eliminated from the event.
The EPICENTER group stage should have finished today, but Team Secret’s support Yazied 'YapzOr' Jaradat had to deal with some medical issues which escalated with him getting checked out at a hospital. Due to the very unfortunate situation, the OG vs Team Secret opening series from Group A was pushed to the end of the day while the LFY vs Team Secret series will be played tomorrow, June 8.
Luckily, Yapzor is feeling all good now and will be able to continue play the remaining series from the group stage.
In the meantime, all the Group B matches have been played and after three days of dominance, Virtus Pro have been finally defeated and lost the group top seed slot to Evil Geniuses. The boys in blue had a clean execution of two pushing oriented drafts against VP, both revolved around a carry Venomancer for Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev. With their 2-0 victory over VP, Evil Geniuses will enjoy an extra day off as they have secured themselves a spot straight into the playoffs semifinals.
While EG can rest, practice and work on perhaps unveiled strategies, as captain Andreas Franck 'Cr1t-' Nielsen pointed out in the winners interview from the end of the series, two team teams can already pack their bags.
Clutch Gamers haven’t won a single match during the group stage and will finish their Moscow experience at the bottom of the group with 0 points and no other events ahead to prove themselves worthy for a TI invite. Unfortunately, they were forced to withdraw from the upcoming Dota Summit 7 due to visa issues and all their amazing qualifiers run from the past several weeks yielded no real results.
Despite being much more experienced and with a second place finish at the previous International, the boys from Planet Odd didn’t do too well either. After a disappointing 9/16th place at the Kiev Major as Thunderbirds, the squad rebranded to Planet Odd now, has won only one series in Moscow, result which places them second bottom team in the group and which is not allowing them to advance into the playoffs. The final three teams of Group B moving further in the competition are: Evil Geniuses, Virtus Pro and Invictus Gaming.
Planet Odd will have a last chance at landing a tournament victory next week, at Galaxy Battles in China, where they compete from a direct invite seat.
