As we advance into the Shanghai Major bracket match-ups the Dota 2 show becomes spectacular. Today we witnessed a breathtaking upper bracket semifinal from EG and Team Secret and a super determined Team Liquid to write history for their name.
Team Liquid vs MVP Phoenix
Day four at the Shanghai Major main event had once again a two hours delayed start, but once the games kicked off the long wait was totally worth it. The opening series featured the Korean sensation in Shanghai, MVP Phoenix fighting for a top three versus Team Liquid. MVP Phoenix came into the series with a 6-0 winning record and a bit too confident in their ability to surprise with their drafts and play style.
A weird five melee line-up built around the Ogre Magi Bloodlust from MVP into a Fata-Invoker and Matumbaman Gyrocopter ended up to be a terrible choice for the Koreans, who got steamrolled by Liquid in the shortest game at the Shanghai Major so far, 17 minutes.
Although it was clear that you can’t simply ignore Liquid’s team fight execution, MVP decided for the game two to rely again on the individual plays rather than a clear tactic and made odd picks - Faceless Void and Phantom Lancer, a duo with zero synergy that eventually lost them the game.
Evil Geniuses vs Team Secret
Basically a rematch of the Frankfurt Major upper bracket finals, Evil Geniuses vs Team Secret series from Shanghai had the same intensity and phenomenal plays that we once witnessed at Festhalle Messe.
Game One
For the first game of the match-up Secret opened the draft with an Earth Spirit for Aliwi 'w33' Omar followed by Enigma for Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov and dedicated four of their banns to the old man Clinton 'Fear' Loomis. Heading into the game facing one of the hardest lane match-ups; Earth Spirit vs Batrider, w33 focused on farming and safe plays trying to reach his level six as soon as possible to start the ganking rotations. He got seriously out leveled by Syed Sumail 'Suma1L' Hassan and EG had the ganking opportunity on Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao’s Spectre first, which cement their laning phase lead.
While EnVy was completely shut down, continuously hunted by EG, Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev - Sven got the luxury of free farming and rotating into fights on his terms. Despite a considerable gap in both levels and farm, Secret decided to take a huge fight in the mid lane at the 20 minutes mark and due to perfectly landed spells from w33’s Earth Spirit, who also had a fresh Veil of Discord to boost the magic damage, suddenly Secret made a real comeback by taking down four of the EG heroes.
From there on EnVy started to recuperate and eventually out farmed Arteezy’s Sven, while w33 was the pivotal factor for Team Secret in team fights. He managed to control Sven most of the time and secured a flawless win for his team in game one.
Game Two
A very decided Peter 'ppd' Dager to not fall to Secret with a 0-2 defeat came with a strong plan for the second game and drafted a heavy push line-up with Suma1L on Death Prophet, Areezy on Lycan and Fear Enigma. Although the heavy push strategy was obvious Secret decided to end the draft with an Anti Mage for EE-sama trying to punish EG’s intellect based heroes. Unfortunately for Secret, EnVy’s AM never got the chance to become relevant as the boys in blue perfectly executed their strategy and won a very one sided game in less than 25 minutes with a 23 -6 kill score.
Game Three
The last game between the two favorites to take the Winter Major trophy home featured an ultimate four protect one line up from EG and a very mobile, ganking and emphasizing the split push draft from Team Secret. It was arguably the most intense game played on the Mercedes Benz Arena so far and if you missed it, we strongly recommend you to check the replay for it.
If w33 was the main reason of Secret’s victory in game one, this time around it was Johan 'pieliedie' Åström’s turn to shine. His early rotations and quick fingers in fights put Secret into a huge lead in the early game. 12 minutes into the game Secret was on a 7-1 kills core lead and looked like they are ready to claim the upper bracket finals with ease. But Evil Geniuses didn’t want to go down without putting up a hell of a fight. Acknowledging that one of the things that allows Secret to play ultra aggressive is the map control and the vision they had because of the Aghanim’s Scepter on Night Stalker coupled with a Gem of True Sight, EG started to make calculated moves around the map and managed to find Puppey and took the gem from him. That kill alone opened a series of pickoffs on EnVy’s Ember Spirit and gave EG a glimpse of hope for a comeback.
Although the game looked quite decided around the 35 minutes mark, EG had the power to survive long enough for Arteezy to find the farm for a Divine Rapier. With the shiny item on their side, EG was able to clear the waves of creeps invading their base and forced Secret to calculate their high ground engagements carefully. From there on they had to rely on the split push and on Rasmus 'MiSeRy' Filipsen’s awareness and reactions in fights.
By the 40 minute mark EG was defending against mega creeps and decided to take a full yolo action buying a second Divine rapier on Sven in order to decisively push Secret’s mid lane up to the throne.
The last 10 minutes of the game were defined by breathtaking fights, big individual plays coming from both sides and a dramatic effort made by EG to secure the top three at the Shanghai major. Unfortunately for them, Divine Rapiers fell on the ground and they are forced to fight their way to the grand finals from the lower bracket.
