After they eliminated Vici Gaming, a team comprised of Chinese all starplayers like Sylar,Cty, rOtk and BurNing, the humble group who started as the second team of the organization a few months back also took down the next favorites for a TI6 slot EHOME, in the best-of-five grand finals.
Coming to these qualifiers with their coach, Vici Gaming Reborn relived their incredible run from Starladder i-League invitational when they won the whole tournament. Although 29 years old, the playing coach Tong 'Mikasa' Junjie lead VG.R to victory from his pivotal mid role and proved everyone that age has nothing to do with one’s determination and success in Dota 2.
Game One
Starting the series on the Radiant side, EHOME secured a very good line-up for contesting Roshan with two of the strongest heroes to do just that, Tusk and Elder Titan, but Vici Gaming Reborn had a very mobile draft, with Mikasa on Storm Spirit and an Io, all enhanced by Drow Ranger aura.
The laning stage was packed full of action, both teams looking to gain the advantage and 12 kills were registered by the ten minute mark. However, VG.R capitalized of their dire side and made sure they took down EHOME’s main team fight factor, Lifestealer before going into the Roshan Pit. With Aegis placed on Storm Spirit 13 minutes into the match, they were able to adventure in deep dives and clean EHOME heroes one by one to claim the tier one and two towers and the map control.
Ten minutes later, when Roshan was up again, EHOME tried to secure it for themselves but VG.R smoked as four and jumped in the pit to contest the kill, wiped Zhang 'LaNm' Zhicheng’s team and placed the Aegis on the Beastmaster who had an amazing game. His initiations and team fight positioning won every team fight for VG.R, including the last battle that happened in the EHOME base. VG.R took the grand finals lead with a very strong performance in only 28 minutes.
Game Two
For the second game of the series VG.R continued with the Mikasa Storm Spirit and tried to protect him from EHOME’s Doom with a last pick Omniknight but they got seriously outdrafted by LaNm who first picked a Kunka and placed Daryl Koh 'iceiceice' Xiang on a safe lane Timbersaw.
The Kunka pick proved to be a support choice for the laning stage, perfectly used as a counter to Disruptor’s Glimpse with X Mark the Spot spell placed on whoever Leong 'ddc' Fat-meng would have grabbed. But as soon as Mirana started to roam, Kunka took her place mid lane and transitioned to more of a core role, going with an interesting mix of items like Armlet, Wards, Smokes, Eul’s Scepter and Crystalys. EHOME went fully aggressive on VG.R from the start and never allowed them to get pick offs or kill trades. Timbersaw was able to get early solo kills on Terrorblade and bullied him and Omniknight out of the lane while the rest of the EHOME focused Mikasa. VG.R lost all the lanes fairly fast and had no answer to their adversaries continuous push which reduced the grand finals to a best of three scenario as EHOME took game two.
Game Three
The third game was won by VG.R again from the drafting stage, where they opened with Io and Drow Ranger first two picks and continued with a Puck offlane for Zhou 'Yang' Haiyang and closed the lineup with Templar Assassin for Mikasa mid lane.
The hyper aggression from VG.R started in the top lane at the eight minute mark when Puck outplayed four EHOME players gathered to defend the tier one tower. The incredible control from Puck and Io took down EHOME under their own tower and from there on VG.R kept snowballing and had a dominant presence through the next twenty minutes to take the series lead once more.
Game Four
The fourth game story was totally different from the previous three, with both teams securing heavy team fight drafts, Vici Gaming Reborn with a bit of an advantage in the mobility department with their Xu 'fy' Linsen support Io. After the first tier one towers went down on both sides the game became extremely intense, dominated by continuous team fights. However, EHOME had the better high ground push with Death Prophet’s ultimate and took down the first tier three tower 32 minutes into the game. But as they were doing the siege in a five man effort, VG.R defended with four heroes while Lycan was split pushing bottom lane and took alone EHOME’s melee barracks.
At the 43 minute mark the kill score was even 33 to 33, and the breaking point for EHOME came only 20 minutes later when they managed to catch both Bristleback and Io in a Chronosphere, annihilated them and also killed the Batrider in the pushing process which secured the mega creeps and the GG call from VG.R who were left without buybacks.
Game Five
Both games won by VG.R were taken with a Drow Ranger strategy, hence the hero first ban coming from EHOME in the decisive game, while they drafted a full push line up with Death Prophet, Darkseer and Lycan. In response, VG.R went with a Faceless Void - Phoenix duo and a map splitting tactic relied on Tinker and Clinkz.
Although Yang had remarkable performances in the previous games, with all the pressure on his shoulders to land the team fight winning Chronosphere, he had a couple of hiccups in the first game. His Chronos either trapped two or more of his own teammates or were totally out of mark for the first thirty minutes of the game and allowed EHOME to always turn the tam fights around with the Death Prophet or the Torrent - Boat into Vacuum-Wall combo. But even so, the game was far from going drastically in one team’s favor as VG. R was able to defend their base all the time and counter push EHOME and even take the first tier three tower and melee barracks with sneaky plays from Clinkz.
Only forty minutes into the game Yang has finally calibrated his jumps - Chrono and made the winning move for VG.R who found a perfect initiation with the Phoenix Egg and a three man Chrono near the tier three tower top lane, and took down EHOME’s Kunka and Dark Seer while keeping the Oracle controlled. Without buybacks and no Exorcism available, EHOME lost the bottom lane of barracks and VG.R kept pressuring the mid lane as well. The same Egg-Chrono combo was landed once more time a few minutes later and this time wiped the entire EHOME squad who had to watch their base falling apart same as their chance for a direct qualification at The International 6.
They will now join Execration, Escape Gaming and compLexity Gaming in the wild card last qualifier stage which is bound to happen in Seattle at the beginning of August. From the four participating squads only two will qualify at TI6.
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