posted by woodshrew,

Day 2 of the joinDOTA MLG Season 1 Championship was filled with surprises as the groupstage came to a close, featuring two huge games with playoff seeding on the line. With Evil Geniuses losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas* in an upset, we went to overtime in Columbus. A crucial tie-breaker between NiP and Empire for 1st decided who would go directly to the Finals: Team Empire now awaits at the top of the stepladder, ready to fight for the Championship!

Resolution's stellar play has lead Empire to a direct spot to the Grand Finals.

Heading into the final scheduled match of the Round Robin stages, EG was shaken after a shocking upset loss to the 5th placed team,

MVP Phoenix*. Despite pushing themselves to the limit in a 60 minute contest, Evil Geniuses was handed their first loss of the tournament. Many expected Evil Geniuses to dominate the groups, with an undefeated run of 5 games. Suddenly, the team was forced to take the last games of the day very seriously as they risked falling out of the top position, and with it, lose their direct trip to the Grand Finals.

And so, the games played out, and the final match of the groupstages came, with NiP facing EG, both teams entering the game with identical (3-1 records). The winner of the match would face Team Empire in a tie-breaker for first...

Evil Geniuses vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas: What the heck happened?

17 minutes.

17 minutes and the Swedes completely rolled through EG, forcing ppD to call the game before most of us had a chance to settle into our seats. In a stomp like this, there are usually multiple reasons behind one team's success, and most of it had to do with the drafts. These are our (3) main reasons:

ppD sent

Sumail 'SumaiL' Syed Hassan into a suicide lane. IO and Tiny, and wisp lanes in general, often have enormous killing potential, and can very easily crush most solo mid-laners. While some heroes can face the dual lane and do decently, SumaiL's Shadow Fiend was playing with fire, so to speak. Relatively weak at early levels, SF had to play very safe against Tiny's enormous nuke combo...unfortunately for EG, Tiny/Wisp caught him slipping twice, killing him in lane and setting Sumail very far behind.

NiP drafted an Axe/Dazzle offlane dual lane: ppD's early Juggernaut pick wasn't equipped to deal with the massive physical damage Axe spins dish out. As a result, NiP got too much out of the offlane, giving Axe a great start. An Axe with a great start is not a good thing for EG. Example 1: Axe call, into a relocating Tiny with a massive nuke combo. Example 2: Tiny Throw-ing Axe in the air for alley-oop Call/slam Dunks. The demoralizing dunk contest around 15 minutes was too much to bear for EG.
NiP exploited the draft order perfectly, grabbing Lina with the final pick to face Beastmaster in the solo offlane. The matchup heavily favors Lina, who is already one of the strongest solo laners in the game. With a melee Beastmaster,

Saahil 'Universe' Arora was helpless and couldn't contest the lane. While ppD made a nice rotation early on to kill

Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin's Lina, it couldn't slow down the fiery Slayer, and her farm was out of control.
As stated, there were likely many reasons behind Ninjas in Pyjamas' surprising stomp, but these three were the most impactful ones--and all three came from a beautiful draft from

Simon 'Handsken' Haag.

As a result, to kick off the Playoffs tomorrow,

Evil Geniuses will face the team that started the slide:

MVP Phoenix*! They will have to fight their way back to the Grand Finals, and along the way, take down the two teams which handed them their losses.

The NiP victory set up the final match of the day, a tie-breaker with a direct spot in the Grand Finals at stake:

Empire vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas: Tie-Breaker for the Grand Finals!

With both teams tied with (4-1) records, the tie-breaker between Empire and NiP would shape the final Playoff seedings. Going to extended time, both teams jumped right into the game, and with the first pick, NiP jumped right onto Troll Warlord. Empire anticipated the Troll opener, and responded with the Templar Assassin. The TA counter-pick had an enormous impact on the game. TA does well against Troll Warlord 1v1, with the high damage from Refraction taking advantage of Troll's mediocre starting damage.

Roman 'Resolut1on' Fominok played the matchup beautifully and crushed the lane, setting

Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin back heavily.

Part of the reason NiP was unable to help out their struggling mid was their support picks: their greedy Nightstalker support could do nothing but watch as Empire shot ahead in the lanes. Empire executed their early gameplan perfectly, stacking the jungle and investing in a fast Blink Dagger for

Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov's signature Batrider. Quietly,

Airat 'Silent' Gaziev's Juggernaut was also getting ahead, with well-timed Blade Fury's to dodge NiP's desperate gank attempts.

It all came together at once: Empire was one step ahead of NiP, predicting the Troll's attempt to recover in the jungle. Funn1k lead the way with two back-to-back Lassos on the Troll, burying NiP's midlaner in the Net Worth ranks. With their lineup, NiP had no choice but to fight, and took their chances in the bottom lane; they were crushed, losing four heroes for nothing. Silent and Funn1k were out of hand, and with Roshan melting to the TA's Meld armor reduction, Empire snowballed their lead.

It seemed like Funn1k had only one objective in mind: hunting

Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu's Storm Spirit. Over and over he latched onto the Storm when he was low on mana, and brought him into Empire's grasp. Funn1k closed the game with a crucial Lasso, which forced a buyback from the Storm, which ultimately lead to a swift 27 minute gg. The stand-in had a standout performance, sending Empire straight ahead to the Grand Finals.

The Playoff picture is set in stone, and nothing is left to do but close out the joinDOTA MLG Season 1 Championship with the final Day 3!