Empire win Raidcall D2L over EG

The first ever Raidcall Dota 2 League hosted by Evil Geniuses found its champion. Russian-Ukrainian mix Empire managed to snatch first place away from American sides dignitas and Team EG after an intense playoff weekend.

In the weeks leading up to the finals, eight teams from Europe and North America were thrown into a league in order to compete for one of four slots in the culminating double-elimination bracket.

Germany's Team Zero was the first to drop in the playoffs leaving Empire as the only European contender in the ring with dignitas and EG. The StarLadder runner-ups marched through to the grand final in dominating fashion however and looked as the designated champion already, yet the final encounter versus EG suddenly became a tough challenge:

Game 1: After EG went ahead 3:1 in the early laning phase by repeatedly picking off Silent who had an off-day in Empire's last two D2L matches, the CIS squad still got their feared ganking style going early enough, which allowed them to take out the first row of field towers quickly.

Key contributors to Empire's early dominance were Goblak on THD, Funn1k on Batrider and Scandal on TA who provided Blowyourbrain's Siren with enough room to obtain an early Radiance.

Even though not all skirmishes went in the Radiant's favour and kills were traded on occasion, Empire never lost their grip on the game and forced EG's surrender after only 32 minutes.

The second game saw a strong response from EG who came out aggressively and overran bottom lane where Funn1k's Sand King did not have much to laugh against a Broodmother with Earthshaker-Enigma support.

Empire tried to gain momentum back on mid lane where Jeyo's TA laned against a solo Jakiro, that primarily maxed Liquid Fire while skipping Ice Path, in order to counter Refraction. Top lane meanwhile saw Demon's Windrunner mostly standing safe against Sven, Undying and Keeper of the Light.

Despite not having performed too badly at said lanes, a severe lack of concentration suddenly befell Empire shortly after the initial laning phase, during which several of their heroes got picked off. This eventually proved to be too much for them. A decisive fight around 24 minutes marked the conclusion of a short second game won by EG.

Going into the third game, many wondered wether Empire's sudden performance-drop was just a fluke. While the Radiant's solo players Funn1k and Scandal got off to solid starts and moderately won their lanes, things on bottom looked grim most of the time where EG's Undying-Queen of Pain-Venomancer trio were up to no good.

Fortunately for Empire, Dark Seer managed to take down top tower fairly quickly, which allowed him to help out in the danger zone with a level advantage, just before things started to get out of hand.

After EG's severe pressure on bottom lane was fended off, Empire decided to group up as five to unconditionally tear down towers and force a victory, despite not having worked out a big lead.

A couple of clashes on Dire territory as well as Roshan-raids later, the well-equipped Templar Assassin, Sven and Dark Seer, supported by Chen heals let Empire come out on top eventually, after an earlier siege only brought them one outer base tower.

Empire can therefore call themselves Raidcall Dota 2 League champions - a title worth $5,000.

Raidcall Dota 2 League final standings:
1st Place - Russia