Evil Geniuses and CDEC Gaming are amongst the first teams to progress to the semifinals of the upper bracket in the Frankfurt Major.
Evil Geniuses emerged victorious as they were the first team to progress towards the semifinals of the upper bracket. After an intense three game series against the formidable CIS side Vega Squadron, EG successfully took them down 2-1.
The first game of the series saw some pretty solid drafts from both the teams but it felt like Vega Squadron had an edge over EG when the drafts were compared. Vega were off to a strong start as they were able to get several early game pick offs and achieved a solid gold and experience lead. Alexey 'Solo' Berezin on his Tusk and Vladimir 'Noone' Minenko on his QOP were able to find good initiations. Vega were marching towards a comfortable win till Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev on his Sven was able to stop them with several kills giving EG the advantage. Pavel ' 9pashebashu' Khvastunov played an amazing Ember Spirit but it just wasn’t enough to handle the extreme damage output from Sven and Lina.
In Game Two Peter 'PPD' Dagger differed by drafting an Invoker for Syed 'sumaiL' Hassan for the first time in the majors while Vega opted to go something more relevant to the meta with a Doom. Evil Geniuses were off to a confident start with Clinton 'Fear' Loomis roaming in his Spirit Breaker and setting up several kills. But the game started going against Evil Geniuses when Vega bolstered their team fight. Syoma 'CeMaTheSlayer' Krivulya on his Witch Doctor was causing a lot of trouble with the Death Ward. Noone on his Shadow Fiend and 9pashebashu on his Doom were able to capitalize this advantage and successfully take game 2.
In Game Three, both teams opted to stay with a very standard draft. Vega got a good start to the game but unfortunately that did not last as Fear on the Bane and Universe on the Beastmaster got some crucial initiations which put Evil Geniuses on the front seat. This also created space for Arteezy on the Anti Mage who was unstoppable in the late game with a heavy farm. This win helped them take the series and a spot in the Semifinals of the upper bracket in the playoffs.
The second playoff series was the clash of the Chinese giants LGD and CDEC Gaming where CDEC absolutely dominated LGD to progress to the next stage of the playoff bracket.
In Game One between CDEC Gaming and LGD, CDEC were able to successfully defeat their Chinese counterparts. Sun 'Agressif' Zheng on his Phantom Lancer yet again proved why he is the best Lancer player around. With a poor start CDEC were able to pick themselves up during the mid game when the Phantom Lancer went berserk getting kill after kill. Huwang 'Shiki' Jiweii on the QOP had a great game too with 8 kills and 2 deaths. Lu 'Maybe' Yao and Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun of LGD couldn’t just create enough impact to stop CDEC late game.
In a crucial and decisive Game Two for LGD, it all came down to the drafts. After a phenomenal performance from CDEC in game one, they were oozing confidence. In game two Aggressif was yet again drafted with another signature hero of his and this time it was a last pick Ember Spirit. True to his name Agressif was extremely aggressive. Getting constant pick offs CDEC took an early advantage. The threat of Sylars Bristleback was suppressed with co-ordinated ganks. Once again emerging on top, CDEC took the series 2-0 and progressing to the next stage.
With consistent performances, both EG and CDEC have been phenomenal in this tournament so far. The only question at this point is will this form continue in the long run.
photo credits to ESL
