North American Dota 2 squad Evil Geniuses (EG) defeated China’s Vici Gaming (VG) in a thrilling Lower Bracket Semifinals elimination match, 2-1. The intense battle was highlighted with a stellar Storm Spirit performance from their Filipino mid lane player Abed “Abed” Yusop.

With the series tied at 1-1, VG chose to forgo their usual Gyrocopter and Io hero picks during the drafting phase with EG opening with an Ancient Apparition on Tal “Fly” Aizik. Instead, they elected to go for heroes that could farm fast with incredible mobility.

Meanwhile, EG decided to go for the Faceless Void for Artour “Arteezy” Babaev as their team fight initiator and the Abaddon on Roman “Ramzes666” Kushnarev as the team’s frontliner and bait.

After an even laning phase from both teams, VG tried to take control of the game by going for a smoke gank in hopes of eliminating one of EG’s cores. They then decided to jump Ramzes’ Abaddon, who took quite a while to take down. This gave EG the opportunity to counterattack with a Chronosphere and Ice Blast combo that caught three VG heroes and gave the North American team control of the game.



Following a disastrous team fight in the middle lane, VG regrouped and initiated on the Faceless Void instead. With all of VG’s spells spent on Arteezy, this gave Abed free reign to zip from target to target and earn himself an impressive Rampage.

Evil Geniuses continued to apply the pressure by sieging the Radiant base. The team even dove the Radiant Fountain to eliminate the enemy Puck.

Abed finished the third game with 14 kills, one death, and 13 assists, helping his team eliminate Vici Gaming from the tournament.

With their 2-1 series victory, EG secure a Top 2 finish at the Leipzig Major and advance to the Grand Finals, where they will face European squad Team Secret.

Meanwhile, Vici Gaming exited the tournament in third place and earned themselves US$110,000 and 2,100 DPC points.

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