Virtus.Pro is the first team to secure their spot in the grand final of the Corsair Gaming Summer Tournament after they defeated Fnatic 2-0 earlier today.
In both games, Virtus.Pro drafted Morphling and built Linken's and Ethereal Blade on him for the extra burst damage they needed during pushes. Both games were relatively tough for the Russians in which VP nearly gave room for Fnatic to make a comeback in the game. At the end of the day, VP pulled their socks up and coordinated their attacks well.
With the win, VP guaranteed themselves a second place finish in the Corsair Gaming Summer Tournament. Fnatic on the other hand, is guaranteed third but will have to play the loser bracket final to get revenge on VP.
In the match between Evil Geniuses and iCCup, iCCup was able to outplay EG in both games which resulted in two quick games. For winning the match, iCCup proceed to the third round of the loser bracket while EG has been eliminated from the tournament.
You can read the match report here.
EG vs iCCup
Game one
Wanting to avoid the trilane versus trilane situation, EG placed their heavily pooled Bounty Hunter on the top lane. Realizing that, iCCup started pushing and took the tier-one shortly under three minutes and tier-two a minute after. At the same time, EG claimed First Blood on the Dragon Knight from a smoked Shadow Demon and Leshrac. iCCup then moved on to take down the middle tier-one and soon enough, the bottom tier-one. This gave iCCup a 5,000 gold lead just 7 minutes into the game.
iCCup continued racking up more and more kills around the map and eventually took down EG's last outer tower 13 minutes in. With a big lead built up, iCCup killed Roshan while Anti-Mage and Nature's Prophet tried their best to split push, taking down 3 towers. At 19 minutes, iCCup went for the base push and although it started out great, the Russians overextended and EG was able to capitalize on that and defended their barracks.
iCCup pulled themselves together and pushed mid again but Gyrocopter got picked off by the Shadow Demon and the Bounty Hunter before he could get to his team. Regardless, iCCup pushed mid and got the middle barracks while EG failed their split push. In their last ditch effort, EG continuously split push and place Bounty Hunter in awkward positions to buy time but it wasn't enough. iCCup went straight for the throne at 32 minutes and EG did not have enough firepower to stop it.
Game two
In the second game, iCCup once against opted for a pushing strategy, this time picking up the Broodmother and the Lycanthrope. The first engagement of the game broke out right after the creeps spawned and the fight went in favour of iCCup. EG even the score at 2-2 in a subsequent fight, killing Rhasta in the trilane versus trilane clash but they quickly lost the lead when iCCup engaged upon EG again. In the drawn out fight, iCCup was able to trade the Rhasta for four of EG, including the Spectre who was chasing a 20 hp Lycanthrope.
iCCup made the first move, dropping all their skills to take the tier-one tower on the top lane. As a result, EG had to teleport Sand King in to defend the tower but he ended up stunning into five and died immediately from the subsequent hex. Meanwhile, Broodmother took bottom tier-one tower. With the massive lead in hand, iCCup pushed all three of EG's towers on the middle lane after securing the Aegis and retreated after. At 16 minutes, Broodmother walked onto the bottom tier-two tower with a big swarm of Spiderlings and destroyed EG's final outer tower.
After destroying EG's middle melee barracks, iCCup pushed on with their tremendous pushing power onto the top barracks and destroyed that too. As the second Roshan spawned, EG contested for the Aegis but once again, failed in doing so and that resulted in a quick loss for the Americans.
Fnatic vs VP
Game one
In the opening game of the winner bracket final, things did not look good for Fnatic from the get-go with Virtus.Pro picking up several kills off Fnatic's awkward positioning and overconfidence. The matter got even worse with Queen of Pain barreling down on Spectre, causing him to only last hit 6 creeps 6 minutes into the game. Fnatic did eventually even the kill score at 16 minutes.
VP continued applying pressure on Spectre, ganking him multiple times but he got away with less than 50 hp in three of the four ganks performed. VP's ganks were often met with counter-ganks from Fnatic which soon enough, built up a gold advantage of 2,000 16 minutes in. Realizing they need to make a miraculous come back, VP sneaked into Roshan and safely secured the Aegis but it was short-lived as Fnatic moved in as VP was retreating.
The Russians big chance came at the 29th minute mark when Morphling waved into the Rosh pit to steal the Aegis and at the same time, annihilate the rest of Fnatic. From there on, it was all downhill for Fnatic and VP slowly began controlling bigger portion of the map and outfarmed Fnatic. At 48 minutes, VP picked up enough courage to for a barracks push and they took down the bottom barracks before retreating. The second push sealed them game one.
Game two
The First Blood was picked up by the Chen due to Naga's underestimation on the health of Chen's Furbolg creep. After that kill, VP was off to a blazing start, picking up three more kills mostly on the bottom lane while Fnatic repetitively failed to gank the Morphling. They did eventually killed the Morphling when he waved into Naga and Weaver. They took a long time to kill him but Riptide and Shukuchi was too much for strength conversion to withstand.
Going into mid-game, Virtus.Pro put together a fantastic wrap-around gank on the top lane to corner three for Fnatic and they were successful in taking down all three as well as the tier-one tower. The Alchemist came after his teammates were all dead but ended up stunning himself because his target, the Lion, was teleported back by Chen at the nick of time.
No kills were traded for a while during the mid-game and Fnatic seized that opportunity to take down Roshan without VP knowing. The Aegis was given to Weaver but Fnatic did not engage throughout the Aegis' lifetime. Just as Fnatic looked like they were on the verge of a comeback, securing the Aegis through the help of Naga's sleep, they lost a crucial teamfight at the entrance of their base and immediately called gg when VP destroyed their barracks.
