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Drawn in the same group as Newbee, both Evil Geniuses and Team Secret were defeated 2-0 by the Chinese team, who now sit on a 29 game win streak.
Few of us truly expected Newbee to continue their domination from the Manila Qualifiers at EPICENTER, especially given that they’ve been drawn in the group with the strongest competition possible in Moscow.
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Team Secret came extremely close to winning the second game in their direct confrontation with the Chines,e but towards the end of the 71 minutes of action Chen 'Hao' Zhihao made perfect use of a Divine Rapier purchased on his Gyrocopter. This allowed him to plough through Secret’s tanky Huskar and Death Prophet to turn around a game that had seemed to be in the bag for Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov's team.
After the Secret matchup, it was Evil Geniuses turn to get stomped. In the first game of the series their squishy draft with Crystal Maiden and Puck had no chance against Hao’s signature Spectre, who finished with a personal K/D/A of 16/0/17. For the second game EG aimed for an Aghanim’s Scepters game with Syed Sumail 'Suma1L' Hassan on a mid lane Alchemist and a full hero line-up that could have made great use of the item. Unfortunately for them, their late game push was denied by Newbee’s Radiance Naga and Invoker.
With their two victories from day one in the group stage, Newbee not only increased their winning streak to 29 but also secured first place in Group B and an upper bracket start in the playoffs.
Day two will begin for Group B at 13:00 CEST with Virtus Pro facing Team Secret. The winner of this match-up will play Evil Geniuses for second place in the group.
