MDL Winners: EG Spotlight

The first Premier tournament of the season has just ended and it offered its fair share of exciting Dota action. Fans were able to cherish both one-sided romps and highly contested games on the MDL stage.

Evil Geniuses finished above everyone else, overcoming fierce competition to claim the trophy. Invited directly into the tournament and the only team from the Americas, EG won a total of five matches, losing just once, and playing 18 games overall on their way to victory. They also beat all of the other strong teams in the tournament, namely OG, Newbee and Team Secret.

 

Road to the Grand Finals

EG were drawn in Group B alongside OG, iG Vitality and Vici Gaming and managed to top the pool with two 2-1 wins over OG and Vici. It was not all easy for EG though, especially in the very first game in the tournament against VG, which they lost.

The next challenge was their semifinal clash against Team Secret, who EG beat 2-1 using some of their most popular hero choices in the tournament – Axe, Oracle, Beastmaster and Kunkka.

During the Winners’ Bracket Finals, they faced the home team Newbee in a match in which they were heavily outplayed, losing 2-0. In the second game, Sccc’s Invoker was a pest that they could not handle, and they were humiliated by his devastating spell combinations and elusiveness.

Falling into the Losers’ Bracket, EG had to outplay OG once more to earn their spot in the Grand Finals. It was a highly-contested clash in which the best OG could do was to get one game off their rivals as EG secured the deciding game to win 2-1.

 

The Grand Finals

In the Grand Finals, EG got revenge with a dominant display over a Newbee team which had outplayed them convincingly in the Winners’ Bracket Finals.

 

Game 1

EG had to wash away the shame from the previous encounter and they did so by winning what was one of the most contested games in the tournament. They had a good drafting stage in which they countered the enemy Oracle with a niche Lina. Newbee went for the popular Shadow Demon and Luna combination for the late game illusion spam siege combo.

Newbee played a psychological card by picking the Invoker once more, as they did in game two of the Winners’ Bracket Finals, but his impact on this game was not as strong as in their previous clash.

As the game progressed, EG relied heavily on UNiVeRsE’s ability to land favourable Chronospheres in the team fights. One of these proved key to victory when he managed to catch uuu9 unprepared while farming on the top lane and win the game.

 

Game 2

For the second game EG went for an orthodox combo with Omniknight + Ursa + Storm Spirt. With four melee heroes, EG again depended on UNiVeRsE’s ability to initiate successfully for his team.

Newbee tried to win the game in the laning stage and also resorted to a niche strategy by going for a trilane, trying hard to prevent rtz’s Ursa from farming while attempting to take down early towers with Terrorblade, Witchdoctor and Oracle.

zai’s performance for EG was crucial in the first six minutes of the game. The Swedish support secured a first blood and helped Suma1L to gain an early advantage in the mid lane. This proved successful because as the game proceeded, Newbee’s failure to get the upper hand with map objectives and most importantly their inability to control Suma1L’s Storm Spirit cost them the game.

 

Game 3

Newbee opened with a draft similar to the first game, going for the illusion spam with Shadow Demon and Luna, while EG tried to go for an early game pushing strategy featuring one of the best heroes suited for that, Drow Ranger.

The game started much better for Newbee though as Kaka managed to get an early courier snipe and helped his team get a first blood on UNiVeRsE’s Batrider.

A game depending on execution and who would first initiate, Newbee bested their opponents thanks to kpii’s great blink Tidehunter initiations. Newbee started winning mid game team fights and never lost control.

 

Game 4

The final game in the series saw EG banning Newbee’s favoured Shadow Demon, which prompted the Chinese outfit to go for a Slardar + Lifestealer combination. Meanwhile, EG managed to secure a better late game with a Medusa pick and were prepared to wait.

Nevertheless, having the better early game line-up did not result in the game developing according to Newbee’s plans as the Slardar rotations did nothing, with EG being alert to the enemy and playing it safe. Also Axe got the Blink Dagger way before the Slardar, which gave the upper hand to EG in opening team fights and enabled them to get easier pickoffs.

Although Newbee managed to win a big team fight around the 16^th minute, EG gained control of the game soon after and secured a series victory with a convincing 3-1 scoreline.

 

EG numbers:

Top hero picks:

 

Top hero bans:

 

48 heroes picked in 18 matches

 

 

Final thoughts

The new EG team seems to be working very well together despite initial concerns that it would not. Some doubts had been expressed regarding individual roles and team chemistry, but EG’s new line-up was hardly expected to fail.

While the prodigal son rtz’s second return was a fit never in doubt, the major question was whether Cr1t- would make a good captain. He showed that he is adjusting well into his new role and was even more successful as a drafter. He is bringing his own hero preferences and pushing them into the meta. Apart from picking a wide hero pool (48 different heroes in 18 matches) he most notably made use of the Omniknight. Prior to this tournament, the Omniknight was obsolete in high level pro play, but it was EG’s fifth most picked hero (4 times) with a win rate of 75.00%. The Storm Spirit and Repel combo was delightful to watch and completely rendered Newbee helpless in game two of the Grand Finals.

The team is also relying heavily on UNiVeRsE in his quality as a play maker – two of their most popular heroes, Beastmaster and Axe, are played by him.

It should also be noted that EG did look complacent at times, most noticeably against Newbee in game three of the Grand Finals, where some individual misplays and lack of concentration saw them perform below their usual standard. A lack of coordination between the team was also apparent when some of the players were going in for a fight while the team was generally retreating.

While there were some doubts whether this line-up will make a good EG roster, the MDL stage proved that not only it does, but that the team is coming together faster than expected. If they can iron out their remaining issues, they could dominate the forthcoming season.