image source: PGL
OG took down Newbee in the upper bracket finals of Manila Major and secured themselves another appearance in a Major grand final.
After becoming the first team ever to win a Major, OG secured their second grand final spot and will have a shot at boasting two Major titles =in the span of one year. Their confrontation with Newbee started quite badly, losing the first game of the series to a very dominant performance from the Chinese.
Game One
With a Lifestealer first pick for Chen 'Hao' Zihao and a Bounty Hunter for Hu 'Kaka' Liangzhi, Newbee started the game extremely aggressively and focused all their resources on shutting down Amer 'Miracle-' Barqawi‘s Invoker. But, as proved many times before, Miracle was not an easy target to take down. He managed to escape the first gank and even secured the first blood on the Bounty Hunter. However, Newbee had one task only for the laning stage, kept the pressure on the Invoker and took him down several times, which forced a lot of rotations from OG to protect the mid lane.
By doing so, they allowed the Lifestealer to safely farm and only six minutes into the game Hao surprised OG’s Sven with the Infest bomb combo. With both Invoker and Sven falling really behind in terms of farm, OG was not able to survive in teamfights and started to get wiped in every engagement. Their first five man defeat came at the 17 minute mark, two minutes later they tried to contest Roshan but served Hao with a triple kill streak to eventually lose the high ground defense only 23 minutes in.
Game Two
With their backs against the wall, OG opened the second game draft with an Earth Spirit for Andreas 'Cr1t-' Nielsen and secured a minus armor Dazzle -Templar Assassin strategy. However, their last pick was what made the difference and took Newbee by surprise, a Naga Siren for Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein. Once again Newbee almost tunneled vision on securing constant kills on Miracle, and even if the Refraction charges melted quite fast under the Dire spells, OG supports managed rotate in time not only to save him but also to ensure the counter attack.
What looked to be a lost match for OG around the 20 minute mark was completely turned around once Earth Spirit bought his blink Dagger and Naga had her Radiance ready and was able to join fights. The game changing moment for OG was a fight near the Radiant Ancients camp where they lured LGD into a Naga Song for counter initiation. From there on Naga continued to snowball in farm while Cr1t-‘s incredible control over the Chinese enabled the rest of his team to win every engagement and forced the series into a deciding game three.
Game Three
OG didn’t hesitate to deny Lifestealer for Hao and Lion for Wong 'ChuaN' Hock Chuan, which pushed Newbee into a couple of very greedy picks, drafting an Alchemist on top of Spectre while OG pulled out a pushing line-up based on multiple auras to enhance the early aggression.
Only ten minutes into the game Newbee were forced to defend tier two towers, which was impossible as neither Spectre nor the Alchemist had any of their key items finished. The Alchemist was still sitting on brown boots trying to finish the Radiance while Hao was struggling to complete the Diffusal Blade. OG’s bonus damage from the Elder Titan - Astral Spirit secured not only easy building objectives but also multiple kills in the skirmishes that happened during their push. OG kept the pressure on and the control over Roshan, in turn continually denying the farm for the scary Newbee cores
Eventually the Radiance came online for Alchemist and Spectre’s Blade Mail started to hurt OG, which made the high ground push rather challenging. Newbee successfully defended their bottom lane of barracks twice to spark a glimmer of hope for a possible comeback into the game. But OG surprised Newbee with a BkB on Tal 'Fly' Aizik’s Crystal Maiden, who fully channeled his ultimate in a team fight taken in front of the Roshan Pit to claim the series and a spot in the Manila major grand finals.
