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Dota 23 years agoAndreea "divushka" Esanu

Singapore Major playoffs open with Techies-Naga madness

Title image courtesy of PGL

ONE Esports Singapore Major playoffs stage kicked off this Wednesday with the first official series between North America and Southeast Asia

Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang, who left Fnatic for Evil Geniuses just a few months back, got his first chance at playing against his former team. Both EG and Fnatic were seeded straight into Singapore Major playoffs upper bracket rounds courtesy of their run in the Dota Pro Circuit Leagues and got pitted against each other by a random draw made at the end of the group stage matches.

With Fnatic making a great sprint in the last couple of matches in the SEA DPC league with a carry Io, along with the hero boasting a fairly good 67% win rate in 15 games he’s been picked thus far at the Major, Evil Geniuses opened the first game draft by denying it from the SEA representative.

EG’s bans were focused on heroes that would have opened the window for snowball tactics coming from Fnatic, while they ensured for themselves a fast paced push oriented line-up with Juggernaut in the carry position, while iceiceice was responsible for taking the objectives with Beastmaster. The game went down fast, Fnatic getting shut down from the laning stage and being forced to make the GG call at the 25-minute mark.

But despite both teams showing an appetite for fast paced Dota in game one, the second game took a wild turn once Fnatic picked Techies. EG had the last pick of the draft and chose to counter it with Naga Siren for Artour "Arteezy" Babaev.

Fnatic’s overall strategy was built for early aggression with Techies, Ember Spirit and Tusk, who were supposed to disrupt the lanes and make space for their Wraith King and Enigma to hit key items timings. However, their game plan was countered by an aggressive trilane from EG and clutch plays coming from both support players. While Andreas Franck "Cr1t-" Nielsen was flawless in executing Mirana-Arrows into the Naga song set-up, Tal "Fly" Aizik was spot on with the Winter Wyvern ultimate to quash the Enigma Black Hole. But, even though EG were superior in almost every team-fight on the map, the Techies bombs were a real threat even for a beefy Naga Siren and Fnatic managed to drag the game past 50 minutes.

However, with EG scaling much better in the late game, Techies couldn’t defend the base endlessly and the series closed with a clean 2-0 victory for Evil Geniuses, who advanced into the upper bracket semifinals.

Unfortunately for SEA fans, Fnatic’s loss from today will lead to one of the two Southeast Asia teams at the Singapore Major getting eliminated tomorrow, April 1. The Fnatic versus OB.Neon Esports lower bracket battle for survival will close the second day in the playoffs.

 

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Andreea "divushka" EsanuI can resist anything but temptations... Follow me @DivDota

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