The last Group A game series started with yet another hour delay, this time because of a medical emergency that prevented EHOME from reaching the lobby on time. Ren 'Old ELeVeN' Yangwei had to undergo a tooth extraction due to an infection.
Clearly not a situation that any of the players participating at an important tournament would like to face, the tooth extraction might have had a lot to do with the sloppy plays that EHOME displayed in the first game.
Game One
The first game started really well for EHOME who were able to get both the bounty runes and a few minutes after the horn, they even secured the first blood on Aliwi 'w33' Omar’s Invoker. A lot of aggression was applied onto Team Secret’s safe lane with continuous rotations from Phoenix, and strong harass from the Enchantress, which put EnVy behind in terms of farm and levels.
However, the kill score by the ten minute mark was in Secret’s favour courtesy of well coordinated ganks on Cty’s Sven. Slowly but surely the key items started to come online for Secret; Blink Dagger and Necro 3 for Rasmus 'MiSeRy' Filipsen‘s Beastmaster along with Boots of Travel on Invoker and a finished Linken’s Sphere on Jacky Mao’s Morphling allowed them to take the map control and put EHOME on a defensive stance.
A totally wasted Chronosphere from Old ELeVeN at the 25 minute mark enabled Secret to take two very easy kills and an uncontested Roshan. Despite having the Aegis placed on Morphling and a clear map advantage, Secret preferred to resume the farming and waited for their captain Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov to get the perfect Ancient aura stack on his Chen.
With the next Roshan spawn, Secret was ready to seal the deal for the first game of the series and with mischievous distracting maneuvers in the top lane they invaded EHOME’s base with Puppey and EnVy via the other two lanes. EnVy finishes off all 3 sets of rax within a minute, getting the gg call out of EHOME and taking game 1 of the series.
Game Two
Game two was very different in the early game, starting with no early first blood. EHOME sat back and allowed EternalEnVy on a Clinkz and Puppey on his proficient jungle Enigma easy farm without any pressure being applied by the opposition. Soon after the 6 minute mark, there was a quick courier snipe from EHOME’s Night Stalker and Rubick; but the over-extension to acquire the courier kill led to the death of the NS and first blood going the way of Team Secret’s carry Clinkz.
By the ten minute mark there had been no other kills, with both teams focusing on farming and getting their cores setup for team fighting. But soon after that 10 minute point, EHOME initiate on Secret’s Tidehunter with Disruptor, Morphling and a Warlock ultimate. This ends up being a terrible engagement as the quick rotation comes out from Secret along with the Ravage, picking out 4 of EHOME’s heroes and a 5th soon after. Losing only 1 hero in that fight, Secret looked far better in team fight scenarios.
With EternalEnVy roaming around invis with the Clinkz, it became tough for EHOME’s supports to find any space on the map; getting quickly picked off by the fire arrows and strafe. At the 15 minute mark, EHOME find a kill on Enigma at the Rosh pit but trade it for a NS death, and blow the Disruptor ulti too, thus making the Rosh take rather easy for Secret. Just under 17 minutes in, Clinkz with his desolator and Secret fight ready, take Rosh and begin to take map control easily, pushing towers with ease.
By 25 minutes, Secret had knocked down all their oppositions tier 2 towers and get another Aegis on Windrunner at the 28 minute mark. Even with vision in their own jungle showing them the Secret rotations, EHOME were confined to their base and unable to find any initiation. At 32 minutes, Secret push highground and remove the bottom set of rax, killing of NS and Disruptor and subsequently destroy the mid melee rax too. With the situation looking dire for the Radiant sided EHOME, a refresher orb comes online for Warlock.
34 minutes down, EHOME attempt to pick off Puppey's Enigma but a turn around Ravage and a double kill for W33 ends the game, forcing the gg call from EHOME, dropping them to the lower bracket of the main event and allowing Team Secret to proceed through to the upper bracket.
