posted by ReiNNNN,
After months of groupstages and playoffs matches, we finally have our two finalists for the Grand Final of The Defense. Several days ago,
[B]Natus Vincere[/B] overcame 
[B]Evil Geniuses[/B] in the final of the winner bracket and EG will have to play [B]Quantic Gaming[/B] for the spot in the Grand Final.Yesterday night, both the teams battled their hearts out in the loser bracket final. After much e-blood were shed Quantic Gaming emerged as the better of the two and proved that they deserved the spot in the Grand final better than anyone.
Assuming that you have missed out on the games last night, joinDOTA has broken it down for you below.
[B]Game one[/B]
EG picks Broodmother, Queen of Pain and Invoker as their core heroes and they were looking to pick off on Quantic's mistakes early in the game and use it as a pushing strat later in the game.
Quantic responded to their opponents by a push strat with heroes such as Holy Knight, Nature's Prophet, and a controversial Crystal Maiden pick at the end of the drafting phase. Quantic also picked up Tidehunter as its Anchor Smash is one of the more effective counter to Broodmother's swarm of spiderlings.
Despite EG warding up in strategic areas of the map to avoid an early gank, Invoker (Demon) fell to the hands of Quantic as Holy Knight (Mania-) and Crystal Maiden (Ryze) pulled off a successful smoke gank in the middle lane for the First Blood. With the gank being so successful, Quantic pulled another smoke gank on the bottom lane in which they managed to beautifully pick off Vengeful Spirit (Maelk) while he was pulling the creeps.
Quantic started to capitalize on their picks 10 minutes into the game as they gathered in the middle lane for a push. Holy Knight's creeps and Furion's (miGGel) treants managed to hold EG back but as the tower goes down, Invoker came in with a Tornado and managed to deny the dying tower.
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Both the teams began swapping towers after the ten minutes mark. Quantic managed to pull off a successful push on the top tier one tower but at the expense of both their tier one tower in middle and bottom lane to Invoker and Broodmother respectively. However, with strong pushing abilities, Quantic is fast to recover taking down the tier one tower of the Radiant side on the 14 minutes mark.
Realizing the difficulty level to push into the second-tier tower with an Invoker on the other team, Quantic went for Roshan. EG had great vision of their Danish counterparts walking into the Rosh pit, and attempted to defend it with Broodmother's newly acquired Black King Bar. No heads were taken during the skirmish and the battle turns into a stand-off as Roshan had just about 1000 hit points left.
Nature's Prophet teleported into the Rosh pit and started hitting Roshan with the help of Tidehunter (AngeL) and Mirana (Link) in secret. EG soon realized the sneak and fired off Tornado and EMP into the Rosh pit but it was to no avail. Tidehunter managed to kill and pick up the Aegis of Immortal and the battle is lost for EG.
Quantic mount a big push to the bottom lane trading two of their top towers for it and successfully took down the tier-three tower and forced a buyback from Broodmother. Subsequently, Quantic took down the melee barracks and quickly regrouped for a push in the top lane and soon enough the middle lane.
The huge amount of creeps proved too much for EG to handle as they forfeited their top barracks and the "GG" is called after Quantic have mega creeps.
[B][I]Interesting note: An interesting smoke gank was set up for Vengeful Spirit in 18:32 VoD time and 4:57 game time. Quantic had two chances to kill the crow during this skirmish but went for Vengeful Spirit instead. Thoughts?[/I][/B]
[B]Game 2[/B]
The drafting phase for game two started out unorthodox as EG banned Tidehunter in the first banning phase allowing Quantic to first pick fearsome hero, Anti-Mage. If that was not weird enough, the common second pick counter to Anti-Mage, Shadow Shaman, was also ignored by EG and they have decided to go for Vengeful Spirit and Windrunner instead. EG subsequently picked up Shadow Shaman and Enigma which Quantic responded with a Beastmaster as a counter to the Black Hole.
Interestingly enough, Quantic bans Rikimaru which is known as a big counter for Anti-Mage. Quantic picked up Enchantress and Earthshaker as their final two and EG picked up Lich and Faceless Void in hopes to be able to kill off the blinker in Chronosphere.
Smoke ganks popped immediately as the game goes underway. Enchantress (Ryze) and a Ursa Warrior neutral smoked up and went on the solo Windrunner (Lacoste) in the bottom lane with the help of Earthshaker (MaNia-) and Anti-Mage (Link). Two tower dives later, they managed to get the kill on the escaping hero.
At the same time, Vengeful Spirit (Fear) mounted for a smoke gank on Shadow Shaman (miGGel) in the middle lane. Although the first blood has been given out to the Enchantress, this trade off between Shadow Shaman and Windrunner is more fruitful for EG as Faceless Void (MiSeRY) got the last hit to the hero kill.
At the 4:20 mark, Quantic smoked up for another kill on the Windrunner and capitalizing quickly on the kill, they took down the tier-one tower in the bottom lane. Anti-Mage got the tower kill. The reinforcement came in late for the bottom lane as Windrunner was barely escaped a third death but managed just enough to escape while Quantic tookdown another tower. Anti-Mage bought his Vanguard at 5:44.
At the 7th minute, a failed smoke gank by Quantic quickly transitioned into a 4-man push on the top lane quickly took down the tier-one tower in the top lane and Quantic mounted to go for the second. Reinforcement from EG came as the tower goes down to quarter its hit points and despite picking up a double damage prior to his arrival, Faceless Void failed to deny the dying tower as the last hit of the tower goes to Enigma's Eidolons.
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Quantic quickly regenerated and assembled for a massive push into the middle lane. This time round, EG was fully prepared to defend the tower. The overextension of Quantic in the mid lane turned out in favour of EG as excellent plays by the Beastmaster and Windrunner managed to keep the Anti-Mage at bay while a huge Swap by Vengeful saved the life of the Faceless Void. Just as EG was about to clean up the battle, Earthshaker managed to block 3 heroes from advancing forward and Quantic was able to retreat without any casualties.
After a silly mistake by the Beastmaster in which he ran past the tower with haste and wasted his Roar for no reason, Quantic reacted with a relentless push down the middle lane and finally managed to take down the tier-one tower. Soon after, Quantic utilized a smoke gank to pick off the Faceless Void and attempted to push the top tier three tower but is stopped by an excellent Shackleshot from Windrunner and subsequently a Chronosphere to kill off two. The tower hit points was approximately one fifth of its full.
In what considered as a smoke gank goes wrong, EG's support was occupied with killing Earthshaker that they did not noticed Faceless Void was being shut down by the rest of the Quantic heroes. The result of this mistake cost EG the death of Faceless Void, Vengeful, Lich, and the middle tier-two tower.
Although EG tried to come back from the deficit they were having, all is too late as Quantic heroes were already too farmed to allow a tide change. Quantic subsequently took the battle, Roshan, the game and the spot in the Grand Final. Evil Geniuses will have to settle with 1,500€ third prize.
[B][I]Interesting note: In 3:17 game time and 16:25 VoD time, Beastmaster ran past the top tier one tower and tried to pull some mindgame on Enigma. Enigma however, did not fall for it and remained calm during the whole peculiar ordeal.[/I][/B]
Quantic will now proceed into the Grand Final of The Defense with a one game deficit against Na'Vi. This clash will be the first time these two teams play against one another in The Defense. The game is due to be played on the 4th of March at 18:00 CET. The winner of this best-of-five will be crowned for having the best Defense and will walk away with 6,000 € while the other will settle for a 2,500 € runner-up prize.
All the matches will be streamed by your one and only,
Toby [B]'Tobi Wan'[/B] Dawson. The VoDs for the game between EG and Quantic are available in the VoDs section here and on our Youtube channel here. Stay tuned to joinDOTA as we bring you more exclusive content such as "Life is like a box of Dota 2" to you.
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