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Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, Royal Never Give Up, and Vici Gaming were all in action in the Upper Bracket at Macau. Find out exactly how it all went down on Day Three. Day Three at the Mars Media Dota 2 League: Macau 2019 brought some intense matches in the Upper Bracket as well as some eliminations in the Lower Bracket, but it was Team Liquid that maintained their strong momentum in the tournament.




First Blood, Last Word



The first Upper Bracket match featured Team Liquid squaring off against Royal Never Give Up, and while many consider Liquid to be the stronger team, this series saw them crush RNG in two very efficient games.

Liquid started off Game One in dominant fashion by winning every lane and accruing a 5k net worth lead by 18 minutes. An underwhelming performances by Setsu's Invoker was unable to halt the farm of Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi's safe lane 8-1-4 Phantom Assassin, and the Chinese side was run over at 33 minutes.

In Game Two Miracle decided that the only sensible option was to style all over RNG. Liquid again started the game by winning every lane and started to snowball so strongly that RNG could never stop them. This culminated in a Miracle rampage on his 14-2-7 Troll Warlord that sealed the game and the series.




The Arteezy Show



The series with Evil Geniuses facing Vici Gaming was all about Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev.

Game One was a rather bloody affair, with a total of 66 kills in 42 minutes. EG always seems to thrive in these chaotic situations however, as they managed to maintain a lead throughout the game. Arteezy's Spectre was of particular threat and in every engagement Vici tried to take down the EG core. At 33 minutes they were able to kill Arteezy, but they lost four members of their team in the process allowing EG to break Vici's base and ultimately take the win.

Game Two was the best match of the series. It was a constant back and forth between the two teams with EG's strategy again revolving around Arteezy's Spectre. But it was Zeng 'Ori' Jiaoyang who had enough of the ghost and took it upon himself to dominate the midgame on Tidehunter; his standout performance gave Vici the time they needed to let Zhang 'Eurus' Chengjun's Morphling and Zhou 'Yang' Haiyang's Sven grow in strength and ultimately seal victory.

Game Three was all Evil Geniuses. Arteezy went absolutely berserk on his 11-0-7 Ursa and his team squelched Vici in every aspect of play, limiting them to only six kills and ending the game in a mere 21 minutes.




The Winner's Finals will be one to watch, as it will be a showdown between Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses.


Eliminations



The first round in the Lower Bracket were all Bo1 matches, which meant two teams were elminated after only one game.

Newbee were able to find some stability and beat EHOME in their match, thanks in large part to a strong performance by Xu 'Moogy' Han on his 16-3-3 Morphling. Newbee was in command all game, and while EHOME showed a bit of fight later on, a late team wipe at the hands of Newbee secured their defeat.



Despite a very shaky tournament for Virtus Pro, and a bit of drafting phase drama involving some members of VP playing Apex Legends on stream, they were able to take their match against Invictus Gaming. For most of the 58 minutes Invictus was in the lead, however a series of smart engagements by VP helped them stay in the game. It all culminated in a ridiculous throne rush where VP lost three of their heroes but were still able to narrowly take the ancient and survive the sudden death match.




Can Evil Geniuses stop Team Liquid in the Winner's Final?




Photo Credit - ESL - Adela Sznajder

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