The winner-bracket finals of the Manila Masters saw Newbee outclassing Evil Geniuses and sweeping them without dropping a single game.
With many people favouring the Evil Geniuses going into the match-up, Newbee shocked spectators all over the world at the Mall of Asia Arena as they swept EG 2-0 and steered their way to the Grand Finals of the Manila Masters in convincing fashion.
Game One
Evil Geniuses were able to secure a Puck in the first phase of their draft, and also a signature throwback to TI4 with Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev on Razor, with which he recently secured an insane rampage against Team Faceless.
The top lane was the center of attention as it was Tri-Lane against Tri-Lane, while the mid-lane was a classic Syed Sumail 'SumaiL' Hassan show, as he was able to outclass Song 'Sccc' Chun’s Queen of Pain and was miles ahead in creep-score. By the end of the laning phase, Evil Geniuses’ cores were dominating in net-worth and SumaiL was more than twice as rich as Sccc on his QoP.
However, slowly but surely, Newbee were able to get the farm game going, especially on the Engima who was able to farm his way towards an early Black King Bar. Playing defensively, Sccc was also able to recover from a bad laning stage and slowly get his Orchid up. Newbee continued their plan of economically starving EG as they had already secured a 10,000 Net-worth advantage 35 minutes into the game. Hu 'Kaka' Liangzhi on his Sand King was able to get a clutch snipe on the Radiant Courier who was carrying Arteezy’s BKB.
Roshan was a hot point of contention for both the teams and disaster struck for EG when they took the decision of going into the pit. Newbee were able to land a great Black Hole and Epicenter to wipe almost the whole of Evil Geniuses, and get the Aegis on their Queen of Pain as well as the Cheese. Newbee outmaneuvered EG now and Kaka was able to again get a PogChamp-worthy courier snipe with his illusion, a courier which was carrying Arteezy’s Skadi this time around. Things went downhill from EG from here, as Damien 'kpii' Chok was able to land a 4-man Black Hole in the middle lane and soon enough, the fight ended with Sccc being able to sweep the Evil Geniuses on his Queen of Pain. The man that had been shut down by EG was now the hero of Newbee. A smoke from the side of Evil Geniuses proved to be unhealthy for them as Newbee were able to take down 3 of their heroes, take the Aegis and march down the middle lane and seal Game 1 for them.
Game Two
The draft for Game 2 showed EG in their comfort zone, drafting SumaiL his Templar Assassin and Universe his Dark Seer, while the picks for Arteezy and Andreas Franck 'Cr1t' Nielsen were the same as the last game. Newbee, however, looked to change up their draft quite a bit, going for a rather niche choice of a support Clockwerk as well as bringing out a Chinese specialty in Tidehunter.
The early game this time around was a very active one. The focus of both the team’s supports seemed to be towards the middle lane, however Newbee's Clockwerk-Crystal Maiden duo was very active all over the map and kept roaming throughout the early stage of the game. But this time around, it was Sccc on his OD who seemed to be a cut above SumaiL’s TA. Eighteen minutes into the game.
Newbee went into the Roshan pit with all their heroes, but as Evil Geniuses tried to contest Roshan who was low by now, kpii was able to catch them off guard with a well-timed Ravage and the Sanity’s Eclipse from Sccc on top of that meant that he was able to get an Ultra Kill on his Outworld Devourer. From then on, the game went downhill for Evil Geniuses as with the Aegis on their hands, Newbee were now in a commanding position and were able to get objectives for their side. After getting the T2 tower top, Arteezy was picked off near his top shrine, and Sccc was able to finish off the support that came from the EG side with a triple-kill. With 80 Stolen Intelligence as well as the Aegis on him, Sccc pushed through the bottom lane and went ham on his OD, as he single-handedly deleted the Evil Geniuses, even diving the fountain, and forced out a sub-25 minute GG.
The MVP for both of the games was undisputedly Sccc, with insane performances on both his Queen of Pain as well as on his Outworld Devourer and was able to secure both the games for his teams. Evil Geniuses now await their opponent in the Lower Bracket finals with iG, NP, OG and Faceless fighting for their tournament lives.
