The second day at the WePlay Dota2 League Season 3 LAN playoffs ended with promising results for the only representatives of North America, and not well at all for three CIS squads.
Natus Vincere was eliminated in the first series of the day by Team Empire, who put on a dominant performance and took the victory with a clean 2-0, propelling them into the semifinals of the lower bracket. Their adversaries for the semifinals were decided in the Evil Geniuses vs Elite Wolves match up, a quite interesting series where the Peruvians had a solid game one, but ended up falling 2-0 to the NA team. Elite Wolves put a lot of resistance to the Anti-Mage - Legion Commander line up from EG and managed to dodge the early duel ganks but had no chance of holding their towers once Syed Sumail 'Suma1L' Hassan's Death Prophet focused on objective oriented Dota.
Game two went smoothly for EG, who crushed the Peruvian Vengeful Spirit carry and had no trouble eliminating Elite Wolves. But moving on to face Team Empire was a wakeup call in the first game of the series, where the Russians were unstoppable from start to finish. Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov had a flawless Magnus run, dominating SumaiL’s Invoker in the mid lane and causing havoc with every rotation he made. Empire repeated the tactic from their series against Na’Vi, with the safe lane carry Faceless Void for Vasily 'AfterLife' Shishkin, and landed the big RP - Skewer into Chronosphere combo with every teamfight, bringing them the victory in the first game.
However, EG adapted quickly to Empire’s aggression and played a reactive draft in game two where they shut down the Russian ganking line up with a support Mirana. Although Empire tried to secure the late game with an Alchemist for Scandal, their plan was thwarted with a last counter pick Ancient Apparition. By doing so, EG was able to control and outmaneuver Empire to push the series into a game three.
The last game of the day in the lower bracket featured the signature Dark Seer for Kanishka 'BuLba' Sosale paired with a support Lich for a powerful Vacuum - Wall - Chain Frost wombo combo. With incredible coordination between Bulba and his captain, Peter 'ppd' Dager, Team Empire was forced to tap out after 41 painful minutes.
Evil Geniuses moved on into the lower bracket finals where Vega Squadron will be waiting for another shot at the grand finals spot. Vega’s perfect run in Kiev was stopped today by MVP Phoenix who are confirmed as the first finalists of the WePlay Dota2 League Season 3. After a 53 minute battle in their upper bracket series against Vega Squadron, they managed to come back and secure game one. With a clearer plan in game two, they claimed the victory in just 24 minutes with a hard pushing draft featuring Jakiro and Invoker, and are guaranteed a top two finish.
WePlay Dota2 League Season 3, day 3 schedule:
12:00 CEST: Evil Geniuses vs Vega Squadron - bo3 lower bracket finals
17:00 CEST: MVP Phoenix vs TBD - bo5 grand finals
