The North American leg of the EMS One qualifiers has progressed past the groupstages and the semi-finals, until only two teams remain on the cusp of clinching one of eight spots up for grabs for this season LAN Finals. The last hurdle infront of these two teams is the best-of-five Grand Finals scheduled for tonight, October the 6th at 24:00 CEST.
The easy favourite going into tonight's match might be for many the bigger name of the two, Evil Geniuses, the rebuilt squad of Clinton 'Fear' Loomis. The addition of veteran players Saahil 'Universe' Arora and Ioannis 'Fogged' Loucas from Team Dignitas along with the talent and energy of Arif 'MSS' Anwar has after a slightly rocky start slowly started paying off, as evidenced by their 2-0 victory over Team Dignitas in the semi-finals. Still, EG are getting used to playing together and there are holes in their play, making them not quite the sure thing they may look at first glance.
One team which knows all too well what to exploit when it comes to EG is Take Five, who in fact defeated them 2-1 in their groupstage match. Between DeMoN and Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev, the team lacks no potential. The big concern for them is not so much where they are right now, as they've shown that they can tangle with good teams and can be a presence in the current North American scene, but more so the limitations of the schedules of their players, in particular mid lane star Arteezy, who even left the former Kaipi squad after The International 2013 in a gesture of admitting his inability to focus on playing Dota 2 for at least another year, due to his high school schedule.
Has EG improved enough in the few days since the two teams met last? What lessons did Fear bring back to his squad from the mistakes made? These will be the key questions to determine who will be North Americas EMS One representative this season. All games will be cast by Travis 'Maut' Bueno over at National ESL.
Source: EMS One