The Evil Geniuses used its vast experience to fend off The Elephants, 1-0, in their best-of-one Round 1 showdown on Tuesday to remain in contention in the ongoing Dota 2 premier event, The International 10 (TI10).
Canadian pro Artour “Arteezy” Babaev and Filipino gamer Abed “Abed” Yusop produced the most kills with their respective characters to reach Round 2 of the lower bracket following a 41-14 score over The Elephants.
EG anticipated most of the Chinese pro squad’s aggressive start in their 39-minute, 44-second-long skirmish as it joined Quincy Crew and Alliance in the next stage.
The win allowed EG to bounce back from its misfortunes a few days ago when it suddenly slipped to sixth spot in Group A following a 1-1 draw with Team Undying. The setback relegated EG to the lower bracket.
The 25-year-old Babaev, an immigrant from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, led the EG with 10 kills before his Level 25 character Luna died in the final minutes of the game.
Babaev left the game after losing out to Eurus’ Sven in a one-on-one slugfest.
Yusop, who had 13-14-13 kill-death-assist ratio in the match, picked up from Babaev’s demise with his level 26 Void Spirit creating havoc in the battlefield.
The Void Spirit is a melee intelligence hero, which leans on the element of surprise to blast apart foes with the power of the void.
The 21-year old Yusop unravelled the Astral Step in the game’s final stages. The spell creates a rift through the astral plane that appears at a target location and attacks all enemies which are within reach and inflicts a void mark that slows for 2 seconds before exploding.
This is the first time for EG to play in the lower bracket since joining eight years ago.
Another Pinoy gamer, Djardel “DJ” Mampusti and his Clockwerk character, towed Fnatic past Team Undying, 1-0, to also make it to the second round
Mampusti, a 26-year-old support drew first blood early when he assisted Polo “Raven” Fausto’s Luna to get the early kill off Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek (Night Stalker).
Fnatic ran away with the lead mid-game before Team Undying caught Anucha “Jabz” Jirawong (Nature’s Prophet) and Ng “ChYuan” Kee Chyuan (Void Spirit) during Fnatic’s siege up the top lane —giving them one last shot at a comeback.
Moments later, Fnatic returned up top for the kill—taking out SabeRLight-, David “MoonMeander” Tan Boon Yang (Earthshaker), and Kim “DuBu” Doo-young (Enchantress), forcing Team Undying to call GG.
“I think as a team we came in this tournament not as strong, not as good and we’re kind of inconsistent,” said Mampusti, who was named the MVP of the best-of-one series.
The TI6 fourth placer finished with a game-high 21 assists along with four kills and five deaths in the 28-10 win, which only took 28 minutes and 18 seconds to finish.
Also making his mark was Raven with a perfect 13-0-8 KDA line, while Yang “Deth” Wu Heng (Legion Commander) ended up with six kills and 15 assists against just one death.
On the other hand, leading the charge for the North American squad was Enzo “Timado” Gianoli’s Naga Siren with two kills, a death, and an assist.
With the victory, Fnatic will advance Wednesday to the best-of-three lower bracket Round 2 against Team Spirit—which fell from the upper bracket after a 1-2 loss to Invictus Gaming.
