The final series of Group A has concluded with OG achieving a 2-1 victory over Empire and securing themselves a slot in the upper bracket at the LAN event. As for Empire, they will be placed in the lower bracket.?
Game One
Empire opened the game by losing their gamble on weak lanes, allowing OG's Alchemist and Juggernaut to farm freely. As night fell, the situation worsened for Empire as OG's Night Stalker pressured their Enigma and Life Stealer, creating large amounts of space for OG. However, when OG became comfortable with walking into Empire's jungle, Enigma was able to land a four hero Black Hole, propelling Empire back into the game. The game dragged on and the next thirty minutes went by with limited kills; it was only when Empire executed their team fight potential well enough to wipe the farmed OG in front their base that they forced OG to call GG.
Game Two
Once again, it was failure in the early game for Empire, dedicating most of their supports' time to ganking OG's mid Tinker, only to end up feeding him and allowing OG's supports to build up large camp stacks. After OG's Sven received free farm and Tinker farmed the stacks and got some kills, OG was too much for Empire to stop and left Empire with only one option, concede.
Game three
What do you get for not drafting a stun? A Huskar. OG utilized a Huskar to crush Empire's aggressive tri-lane in the early game and then abuse Empire's lack of stuns in the mid-game. These advantages allowed OG to attempt Roshan early. Empire valiantly contested the Roshan attempt, but showed a lack of teamwork, running in one at a time and - unsurprisingly - dying to Huskar. This went on for several minutes and by the 21st minute, OG had enough of a lead to destroy Empire.
Headline and banner image from OG's Twitter.