In the lower bracket finals at EPICENTER, Newbee got their chance at a rematch with OG, who sent them to the lower bracket in the first place and ended their 29 game winning streak.
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Game One:
The lower bracket final started with a signature draft for OG, which relied on split push and was built around Amer 'Miracle-' Barqawi’s Invoker. Although Newbee had an advantageous laning phase with successful early rotations from Enchantress, all that OG waited for was Lifestealer to hit level six to start the Tuskar Infest rotations.
After they recognized the pick off power of OG, Newbee started to move around the map in groups of four or five and forced OG to defend their towers. However, Miracle kept avoiding team fights as much as possible and despite his team being continuously pushed chose to split push and continue farming. Around the 25 minute mark Newbee was spotted in the Roshan Pit and a team fight ensued with OG committing only four heroes while Miracle solo bashed the top lane barracks, killing any teleporting heroes in the process.
Two minutes later it was Newbee’s turn to start the high ground attack, but the Aegis advantage did not tip the balance and they weren’t able to breach the tier three tower. For the next ten minutes, until the next Roshan spawn, the game was defined by pick offs with OG’s Beastmaster and Invoker always finding an opening somewhere on the map. When the time came for the Aegis to be available again, OG grouped bottom, took the tier two tower and placed the Aegis on Lifestealer. However, their potential high ground push was postponed when David 'MoonMeander' Tan got caught at the dire secret shop and Newbee grabbed a three to two kill trade in their favor.
An Eye of Skadi completed by Razor made OG approach team fights with a bit more caution and triggered a Linken’s Sphere answer from Crystal Maiden. With Naix getting the extra spell damage protection OG was finally able to take down Newbee in one push at the 50 minute mark and claimed the victory in game one.
Game Two
The game two strategies couldn’t havve been any clearer, as Newbee secured a heavy late game team fight line-up while OG went with a full pick off hero distribution. A few kills on Chen 'Hao' Zhihao’s Spectre delayed his Radiance and Newbee couldn’t properly involve themselves in the five man team fights. The turnaround came at the 20 minute mark when Hao got initiated in the river mid lane but the entire Newbee was just behind to protect him. Hao miraculously escaped with seven HP points and OG were wiped out, which boosted Spectre’s farm towards her Radiance.
Transitioning into the mid game, Newbee took the entire game control with three consecutive wipes on OG and pushed the series toward a decisive game three with a double rampage from Hao’s Spectre.
Game Three
For the final game of the lower bracket finals, Newbee was allowed once more to pick the Spectre and matched OG’s tanky mid Dragon Knight with a Tiny. OG tried to secure an early push draft with Drow Ranger and DK strategy but the laning stage went against their expectations.
Newbee abandoned their bottom lane for the first three minutes and sent Dark Seer straight to the jungle to get his starting items along with a level two Iron Shell. With the double shell on its creeps, Damien 'kpii' Chok looked to control Drow, got his level six and Newbee started to fight extremely early. By the 15 minute mark they were leading OG with a 11 - 3 kill score and kept snowballing. Without a blink initiation from either Axe or Dragon Knight, OG made a desperate Roshan attempt but were spotted by the Chinese who placed the Doom on Miracle and managed to scatter them easily from the Pit.
The Chinese dominance continued, giving no space to farm for OG’s cores. At the 21 minute mark OG lost any glimpse of hope at making a comeback when they tried to catch Newbee with a five man smoke but instead they got counter smoked and wiped out. Three minutes later they attempted Roshan once more but Newbvee found the dream ultimate’s overlaps, Vacuum Wall into Winter’s Curse followed by Avalanche -Toss and wiped OG one last time to claim the EPICENTER Grand Finals spot next to Team Liquid.
