Evil Geniuses, the returning Champions at TI6 found themselves facing a Chinese team in the upper bracket final for the third year in a row, and for the third time in a row they got knocked down in the lower bracket with a 0-2 defeat.
In 2014 it was Newbee who defeated EG 2-0 in the TI upper bracket finals. Last year they were denied an easy ride to the grand finals by CDEC Gaming and now a new Chinese juggernaut, Wings Gaming just snatched the guaranteed top two finish in Seattle from the Boys in Blue.
The Chinese team came prepared to face the Champions with two different strategies, however both drafts emphasized the team fight.
Game One:
For the opening game Wings Gaming let Io go through the first banning phase almost like a bait for Evil Geniuses who didn’t hesitate to pick it first, trying to pair it with a mid lane Sand King to match Wings’ aggressive plays. But the Chinese secured a tanky draft to survive through early relocates and went quite greedy with both Tidehunter and Enigma. To ensure fast levels and farm for their key heroes, Wings sent the Tide to solo safe lane and Razor and Rubick in the offlane. However EG had a very good laning stage, dominating the Chinese with early rotations from the duo SK-Io, Wings scoring the first kill under their name only at the 10 minute mark.
But as the laning stage was coming to an end, Wings had all their heroes at level six and were actually the first to group up to take objectives. Having all the big ultimates on their side, it was quite impossible for EG to stop them and by the 23 minute mark the NA team was left with no tier two towers on the map. A pick off on Clinton 'Fear' Loomis’s Anti mage farming near the dire Secret Shop opened a free Roshan for Wings who pushed afterwards the high ground with the Aegis placed on Chu 'shadow' Zeyu’s Razor. Although the push was not exactly a walk in the park, a very well placed Black Hole took down three of EG heroes and forced the boys in blue to buyback on a couple of heroes to defend their base. But it was all in vain as Wings took the first game of the series in one well planned and executed push.
Game two:
Quite the same story happened in game two, with total different drafts however. While EG tried again to secure the early game potential with a Night Stalker off lane and an Ogre Magi - Mirana - Winter Wyvern aggressive tri lane, Wings tricked them with a third pick Shadow Demon. But instead of going for an Illusion strat, as many would have thought, they reserved the last pick for Huskar.
The game started in the same fashion, EG taking the first blood with a three man smoke right after the starting rune shenanigans and continued to dominate with their aggressive trilane. Fear on Mirana was already 3-0 before the laning stage would end and EG was feeling in control, rotating on all the lanes to pressure Wings.
Although Wings was always responding to EG’s rotation and traded kills in every engagement, the big turnaround came at the 16 minute mark when EG attempted the first Roshan kill of the game with Syed Sumail 'SumaiL' Hassan’s Alchemist Solar Crest. The Chinese players successfully contested it and took the Aegis for themselves and five minutes later they were pushing the high ground via top lane and closed the series before the 25th minute.
Advancing into the TI6 grand finals, Wings Gaming are now fighting for a chance at a little bit over $9,000,000 lion's share for the first place, while EG will have to fight tomorrow in the loser bracket final with the winner of Digital Chaos vs Fnatic series.
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