posted by Vekus,
NiP and newly former Summoner's Rift - which includes Demon and Brax, were the victims of HR and Vega, who both progressed to the Grand Finals of the joinDOTA Masters. Vega have been on a rampage recently, and the last time they faced HR in the GIGABYTE Challenge they came out on top. This time around the prize for first place will be $10,000.


The way to the finals



ru Vega started the tournament with a bang, as they dismantled by Power.Rangers in the quarter finals after a quick 2-1. With an affinity for tanky lineups featuring both :d2_axe: Axe and :d2_bristle: Bristleback two times, Vega managed to more than weather the storm and in the end emerge victorious towards the semifinals where they would meet se Ninjas in Pyjamas*.

A couple of days ago we managed to conduct an interview with ru Arsenii 'ArsZeeqq' Usov. Although he said that they were ''lucky in their drafts'' and disregarded their recent success against their now opponent ru Hell Raisers and se NiP as ''poorly played'', it didn't stop them from repeating their success.

Luck was no excuse this time, as the Russian squad drafted once more for the midgame, even finding a way to include a rarely seen :d2_tusk: Tuskar. NiP relied too heavily on their farmed carries, and as they failed to weather the storm early, got annihilated in the midgame, according to ArsZeeqq one of the strongest traits of the CIS scene.



It is not only Vega who prove that the CIS teams love the midgame aggression, as HellRaisers have shown that they don't want to drag out games on multiple occasions as well.
Their first opponent, gr London Conspiracy didn't stand much of a chance as Hell Raisers turned up the heat with a teamfight heavy lineup and simply plowed through.

us Summoner's Rift proved to be a more challenging enemy. Strangely enough, Hell Raisers seemed to perform better on US servers, and they managed to overcome Rift's Phantom Lancer in the first game on top of a Chen pick well paying off starting out with a straight Aghanim's Scepter.

The second match saw almost identical picks to the first, however it was Rift's turn to impress on a foreign server, as their Phantom Lancer ultimately was too much to overcome and drove HR back into their well while their base fell apart.

What followed was hopefully a prospect for tonight, as Rift and HR slaughtered each other over and over, with teamwipes happening left and right. Eventually, HR came out on top on the back of a strong Slark and Shadow Fiend performance.

Russian Roulette coming right up



In the finals it will be HR that have to make up for past losses. Ahead of us lies an evening filled with action packed and teamfight heavy CIS Dota.



Today, 18:00 CET - ru Vega Squadron * vs ru HellRaisers Grand Final






This article was written by de Markus Fischer, joinDOTA's Elder Writer. Vekus started to follow Dota rather late, as he joined the community in 2012. From then on he tried to get a job in Esports and found it later at joinDOTA. Reallife is mostly spend at university trying to understand physics and running. Avid wearer of Bandanas.Location: Chemnitz, GermanyFollow him on @VekusDota.

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