posted by SUCKER_EMCEE,
The sister organizations of Alliance and Evil Geniuses go to 3 games in this intense series featuring Divine Rapiers and Mega Creeps galore. Find out how the Geniuses prevailed this time around, and what classic pick finally sealed the deal for them.

Game 1





us EG kicked off the series with an aggressive push lineup featuring a core Jakiro and Nature’s Prophet. us Peter 'ppd' Dager started off the draft with some unconventional bans aimed at securing their pushing advantage. se Alliance responded with an Antimage backed up by a control-heavy brawl squad headed up by Brewmaster.

The early game went extremely heavily in EG’s favor. Both teams decided to run duo sidelanes, but EG's 4 ranged heroes fared much better than their opponents in lane. Particularly, Alliance decided to lane Antimage and Ogre Magi in the offlane versus Nature's Prophet and Visage. It took se Jonathan 'Loda' Berg a solid 12 mintues to fully surpass Saahil ‘UNiVeRsE’ Arora's Jakiro.

With their highly-levelled Jakiro and Death Prophet, EG absolutely melted Alliance’s outer towers, as well as dominated the fights. At 13 minutes, Alliance only had 1 kill to EG's 7. The Swedes were also down to their last outer tower. Before long, Alliance was pinned into their base with an underfarmed Antimage. However, EG’s first attempt to break high ground were pushed back, netting Loda a much-needed triple kill.


A glimmer of hope?


The Radiant team continued to throw their bodies at Alliances’ high ground. After several bloody battles, EG managed to take the barracks at top and bottom, but not without throwing a significant amount of gold and experience at the Antimage. EG’s attempts to take the mid barracks were thwarted over and over again, with Loda getting bigger with each fight.

There seemed to be more buybacks on both teams than was strictly possible. Every fight was drawn out, beginning with a push by EG, and ending with Alliance chasing them through the Dire jungle. Despite barely repelling the Americans each time, Alliance lost a more and more of their base.

At 40 minutes, Alliance had only 1 naked set of barracks, while EG had only lost a single ranged barracks. Around that time, the graphs, which had been steadily going in Alliance's favor, reversed once again. Eventually EG finished off the last barracks, and Loda went for a Rapier. Despite fending off their enemies one last time, Alliance succombed to the Mega Creeps just past the 48 minutes mark.



Game 2





Once again EG went for a hard-core pushing line-up. At first it seemed they wanted to run a hard-farming Naga Siren carry, but ppd took the hero and us Clinton 'Fear' Loomis farmed the safe lane with Venomancer. Alliance also stuck to their guns, and went for another split pushing carry, this time opting for the Terrorblade. This marked the first game of the tournament where TB was picked. Loda took the late-game split pusher to the mid lane to face off against Arteezy’s Death prophet.

The DP took a strong lead, staying at the top of the net worth charts for the first 20 minutes of the game. EG capitalized on the advantage by grouping 4 people on bottom lane early on to take the T1 tower there with an exorcism push. Simultaneously, they split pushed top with the venomancer and ended up getting 2 towers in quick succession. They followed it up with a 12-minute Roshan kill, resulting in an Aegis of the Immortal for Arteezy.

Despite maintaining map control and dictating the pace, EG’s pushes were delayed long enough to keep TB solidly in 2nd place for net worth. They executed multiple smoke ganks but were only able to kill Loda once. Despite DP having a Eul’s scepter and Shiva’s Guard at 20 minutes, TB continued to gain on her in gold and experience. Loda completed a Radiance on top of his Manta Style before the 25m mark. Alliance’s confidence in their late game showed through se Joakim 'Akke' Akterhall picking up a Midas on support Silencer, as well as their willingness to let their tier 2 towers go uncontested.


Not what you want to see at 30 minutes.


But EG knew they had to make something happen. After taking mid tier 2, they quickly attempted a high ground push, resulting in them taking the mid tier 3 tower before having to back out. After this, their momentum slowed tremendously. With their unconventional gank squad of Batrider and a Necrophos wielding a Blink/Dagon build, Alliance were able to secure pickoffs which further delayed EG’s pushes.

EG went for another push on the mid barracks, but ended up getting team-wiped after only taking the ranged barracks. This fight marked a major change in the movements of both teams. Alliance now roamed the map confidently, sure they could win a fight on the back of the Terrorblade, as well as control EG’s movements with his split pushing. Alliance seemed to allow EG to take the third Roshan, as it allowed Loda to take EG’s top tier 3 tower down.

With 9k gold in Loda’s bank account, and an Aghs/Refresher on Necrophos, it seemed grim for EG. Alliance refused to push, opting to play it safe and ensure their victory. Loda finally opted for the BKB for his 6th item and took down Roshan for his team. In a long, drawn out fight around the 48-minute mark, EG were actually able to take down Terrorblade and Necrophos at the cost of their Naga Siren and Death Prophet. Despite this victory, they were unable to follow it up with a push and Loda didn’t even bother buying back.

Once the Death Prophet was back up, EG went for a push. They managed to trade their Naga Siren for the Terrorblade, forcing a buyback without even using Black Hole, but they were unable to take any buildings. Once Exorcism was back up, they pushed again. At this point, Arteezy was keeping a refresher orb in his stash to refresh his ultimate between fights. A miss-timed fortify allowed them to finally finish off the mid barracks, as well as take top melee barracks.

Again, the second their Death Prophet was ready to pop Exorcism, EG took action. They smoked straight up middle lane and picked off the Silencer, but no push materialized. As the 60-minute mark approached, Loda switched out his Radiance for an Assault Cuirass. Shortly after Alliance looked for a fight with a Lasso to initiate. In the ensuing chaos, it seemed like TB was going to go down but a clutch sunder allowed him to secure a triple kill. But again, no push materialized.


Alliance staying cool under pressure



The one hour threshold passed, and another fight broke out. Multiple heroes fell, including the TB, who immediately bought back.

66 minutes hit and Loda purchased his 2nd rapier of the series. But a great ultimate from Venomancer and the power of Exorcism forced Loda out of the fight long enough for EG to take both bott.om barracks. Once again, Alliance were left with a lone barracks to defend.

Alliance took a a turn at assaulting high ground. Their first attempt was fought back but on the second try, without Metamorphosis, they nabbed two kills and the bottom melee barracks for free, and walked away using a stolen Song of the Siren. The kill score sat at 33-28 in favour of Alliance going past the 70-minute mark, and each team only held on to a solitary barracks.

On EG’s counter push, Arteezy was picked off with a Batrider Lasso. As Alliance strutted up middle lane to end the game, ppd and zai snuck in to try and back-door Alliance's final barracks. They were cleaned up in short order, and Alliance was finally able to end the game after a whopping 73 minutes.


GG! Finally!



Game 3





EG finally went for a different type of draft in the final game of the series. ppd took a strong fighting lineup based around Arteezy's reknowned Phantom Assassin, with strong backing from an Abbadon. Alliance tried to go for an AoE-based composition with strong control over positioning through Chronosphere and Cogs.

Both teams ran duo lanes, with Alliance duo’ing mid versus Arteezy’s PA as well as their safelane. EG put one support in each sidelane to give the PA as many levels as possible. Loda’s Faceless was able to out-CS PA early on, but a quick level 6 on Arteezy allowed him to start racking up kills early.

It soon became clear that EG’s laning setup was superior. They took 4 uncontested kills in the first 10 minutes, all while Brewmaster free farmed the safelane. Loda was forced to help his team rather than farm, and the Gyrocopter died multiple times, leaving the core heroes of Alliance in a lackluster state.

EG’s momentum continued as Arteezy completed his Battle Fury at 16 minutes, and UNiVeRsE completed his Orchid a minute later. Almost simultaneously, Alliance desperately attempted Roshan to get back in the game. They took the Rosh kill, but in the ensuing fight, they lost 3 heroes as well as the Aegis. In addition, EG found Alliance’s quad-stacked ancient camp and stole all the saved up gold and experience.


It was bound to happen


Going into the 21-minute mark, EG held a 16-4 kill lead, with Arteezy’s PA going 9 kills to 0 deaths. From there, the game was almost a foregone conclusion, but EG played it safe and ensured they had what they needed before pushing Alliance's top barracks. Alliance couldn't do anything to stop Arteezy from rampaging through their lines, and they tapped out after losing their first set of barracks. A somewhat anti-climactic ending to a super tense series, but it was actually satisfying to see one team win convincingly after 2 long games of back-and-forth action.



Congratulations to Evil Geniuses for advancing to the semi-finals of ESL One New York! They play the first semifinal tomorrow against the winner of Cloud 9 and Sneaky Nyx Assassins. Be sure to tune in to the official stream to catch all the action.


Congrats!


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