posted by Smyke,
OG and Ninjas in Pyjamas travelled to The Bucharest Minor as favourites, but after some disappointing results both teams fought against each other for staying alive in the tournament on day two of the Playoff stage.


ppd's squad really made a bad impression in the group stage. Ninjas in Pyjamas lost to Keen Gaming twice and didn't make it into the Upper Bracket. However, they didn't stumble against Demolition Boys in the first round of the Lower Bracket and finished the Peruvians off with a convincing 2-0 victory.



OG, on the other hand, made it into the Upper Bracket by beating BOOM Esports in the deciding game of the group stage. However, they felt AS Monaco Gambit's power like the teams of group A did before.

The reigning TI champion got completely outdrafted in the series against the CIS squad and didn't win a single game. They dropped to the Lower Bracket where they had to face their European rivals.

The perfect RP by Ceb



Although OG didn't hesitate to search for the First Blood in the first seconds of the game, the early stage of the match was pretty calm and not very exciting - until NiP's carries did one big mistake:



The first big team fight of the game went to the favour of OG, because NiP overcommitted and Adrian 'Fata' Trinks and Marcus 'Ace' Hoelgaard ended up with a dieback.

OG maintained the advantage from this fight for the next seven minutes and waited for the opportunity to win the another team fight - and this time it was Sebastien 'Ceb' Debs with an incredible play that destroyed NiP's hope for a victory:



He waited for the perfect moment to stun four NiP players on the same time - the whole squad got team wiped and OG pushed high ground to end this game.

Youngster Igor 'ILTW' Filatov had a great game on Phantom Assassin and was pretty much invincible in the late stage. He rewarded himself with a triple kill before NiP called 'GG'.



Completely outdrafted by ppd



With a relieved smile OG started in the second game of the series - they were only one game away from making it to the top four. However, game two wasn't that easy. The panel agreed overall that ppd finally figured a draft that not only fits his team, but also should be better than OG's draft.

OG couldn't really fight back and lost more and more ground throughout the game. Even without big team fights NiP had a 20k gold advantage after 29 minutes and was only waiting for the one fight to destroy OG.



ILTW tried to set up a build for Divine Rapier, but OG forced the fight around the Rosh Pit too early and lost four heroes and the game - we got ourselves a series!

Vintage Fata in game three



In game three Fata trusted his significant hero Puck to turn the series to the favour of NiP, but OG didn't want to give up easily.




While Ceb and ILTW had a good game and were leading the net worth stats, Topson had a rough start on Rubick in the mid lane. NiP took him out several times and the Finnish player didn't have the impact OG expected.



However, one mistake changed everything and NiP took the advantage for the next minutes. Chen TP'd right in the arms of the enemies and also sacrificed ILTW. In the following minutes all OG players got picked off guard several times and NiP build up a 10k gold and 22k XP lead.



With every team fight the gap between NiP and OG grew - the reigning TI champion was on the edge to get eliminated. They had to find a battle plan, but it was impossible. OG wasn't able to fight against their European rivals and lost the game.

This means that OG's attempt to join the Major teams in Chongqing ends here. N0tail and his team finished on 5th-6th place, while NiP will play against Keen Gaming tonight.

Do you think OG can fight back in the next round of the DPC circuit?



Photo credit: PGL

Comments