Evil Geniuses might just be the team to beat at the MDL Chengdu Major. In its playoffs debut, the North American squad toppled Invictus Gaming with a 2-0 win.
The victory is a massive one for Evil Geniuses, guaranteeing the squad a top-six finish at the event worth 900 Dota Pro Circuit points. Even if the team is eliminated from here, it puts them in a strong position for earning a direct invitation to The International 2020.
Both games were defined by Evil Geniuses’ strong team fighting skills and ability to manufacture comebacks. The first game opened in rocky fashion for EG as the team struggled with an early net worth disadvantage thanks to IG’s fast-farming cores of Timbersaw and Gyrocopter.
Evil Geniuses had an enormously powerful teamfight lineup with big AOE damage potential thanks to its lineup comprised of Faceless Void, Enigma, Lich, Tiny, and Pangolier. Invictus Gaming needed to post a perfect game in order to avoid that many spells, but the big plays eventually came through. A huge Chronosphere from Artour “Arteezy” Babaev set up a big team fight win for Evil Geniuses that swung the lead in their favor. They never let go of that advantage and locked up game one.
Game two saw Invictus Gaming come ready to fight. Skirmishes popped up across the map in the opening minutes and never really stopped. The lead swung back and forth a few times and once both sides started building late game items, it was just a matter of who could force buybacks and score the game-ending wipe.
That team just happened to be Evil Geniuses, which allowed them to seal up the 2-0 win.
Invictus Gaming’s loss to Evil Geniuses was just the start of a rough night for China in the MDL Chengdu Major. Two of the four teams from the region were eliminated from the event with EHOME and Team Aster posting a 9th-12th-place finish.
Facing off with Team Liquid, EHOME absorbed a tough 2-0 loss. After an absolute brawl in game one, Team Liquid was in control in game two and locked up the sweep.
Aster’s loss came at the hands of Alliance, largely thanks to an amazing individual performance by Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov. During the series, the Bulgarian averaged a kill line of 12.3 kills to 2.0 deaths with the series kicking off with a 17-0 effort. Aster took a win, but fell in the series 2-1.
The lone winner on the night for the Chinese region was Vici Gaming, which defeated Fighting PandaS in lopsided 2-0 fashion. They will face Evil Geniuses in the upper bracket on November 20.
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