Evil Geniuses stay alive at DreamLeague Major by beating iG

Evil Geniuses are still alive in the DreamLeague Leipzig Major.

The North American squad scored a huge victory over Invictus Gaming in the lower bracket. This sends the Chinese team home, and moves EG into position for a guaranteed top-four finish.

The series started in impressive fashion for Evil Geniuses. Playing as Outworld Devourer, Abed “Abed” Azel L. Yusop got off to an exceptional start when he racked up three kills in the first 10 minutes. By 13 minutes he had Hurricane Pike and Power Treads, and by 22 minutes he had a Scythe of Vyse on top of that.

There’s no real answer to Outworld Devourer when he’s that far ahead and EG knew it. They played the map, padded their gold lead, and scored the opening win in 27 minutes.

Evil Geniuses rally to advance in DreamLeague Leipzig Major

Game two went in a very different direction. Invictus Gaming rolled out a surprise Clinkz pick for Jin “flyfly”‘ Zhiyi to lane against Artour “Arteezy” Babaev’s Anti-Mage. While the casters questioned the pick, it drew a clear line between either team in terms of their item timings, with IG looking to end things in the mid game and EG holding out for the late game.

Invictus Gaming was firmly in command early. Though Arteezy got reasonably good farm, flyfly picked up an early desolator and immediately established himself as a global threat. Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev inexplicably fell apart around that time as well, wildly running at Invictus Gaming and dying without any kind of trade.

Arteezy eventually emerged from the jungle with a fair bit of farm and scored a huge team fight win for EG. This hinted that the tide was about to turn in the game, but after Invictus Gaming respawned and took Roshan, they were able to close out the game and even the series.

Invictus Gaming seemingly looked to add insult to injury in game three by locking in Anti-Mage for themselves. But that went as poorly for them as it did for Evil Geniuses.

A close laning phase gave way to a very strong mid game from Evil Geniuses. Arteezy came online quickly with Lifestealer as Abed’s Storm Spirit ran wild across the map.

Just like Arteezy in game two, flyfly was forced to farm as quickly as possible in an effort to swing things around in the late game. Evil Geniuses gave him no time to do so and pushed onto high ground to claim two sets of barracks. Invictus Gaming managed to stall things out for a while but couldn’t hold back the tide, which gave Evil Geniuses the 2-1 series win.

EG in good position in DreamLeague Leipzig Major, Dota Pro Circuit

Evil Geniuses are undoubtedly looking to win the DreamLeague Leipzig Major, but getting into top-four position is still very good for the team. With the fourth-place finish from the MDL Chengdu Major, Evil Geniuses is guaranteed to have at least 2,700 Dota Pro Circuit qualifying points by the end of the event.

Though the 2019-2020 Dota Pro Circuit season is likely to shake out very differently, it’s worth noting that it only took 679 to earn a direct invitation to The International 2019.

Odds are that Evil Geniuses will be able to get into an even better position. Evil Geniuses will take on the winner of Alliance vs. Team Liquid in the lower bracket semifinals. Regardless of who comes out on top, Evil Geniuses will likely enter into that series as .