posted by SmittyW.,
ESL One Birmingham 2019 culminated in an epic finale between Team Secret and Evil Geniuses. In the end, Team Secret emerged victorious once again and took their sixth LAN trophy this season home. The Grand Finals of ESL One Birmingham surely did not disappoint. On the one hand, we had Evil Geniuses. They boasted an impressive run in the Upper Bracket eliminating TNC Predator and PSG.LGD. Team Secret, on the other hand, had to fight all the way through the Lower Bracket after finishing only third in their group.



It seemed as if Team Secret had adjusted to the new patch after the group stage. They removed any obstacle in their way to take on Evil Geniuses once more. In the group stage, EG beat Team Secret 0-2, so fans and experts were more than curious to see the rematch.

EG and Team Secret on par



Both teams were pretty much on par over the series. The first map was quite exemplary for the whole Grand Finals: both teams scored kills left and right. It was only after 20 minutes that Team Secret managed to tip the scale by wiping out all of EG. Thanks to this, the game began slowly but surely to go into Secret's favour.

Although they maintained a commanding lead for about 20 minutes, they did not manage to end the game. EG fought valiantly and almost turned the tide, however eventually Yeik Nai 'MidOne' Zheng' Storm Spirit and Michał 'Nisha' Jankowski's Sven proved to be too much to handle. Secret secured a well-earned victory.



Evil Geniuses thirsts for revenge



After this exhausting match, Evil Geniuses was all but defeated. On the second map, Sumail 'SumaiL' Syed Hassan's Leshrac dominated Team Secret and almost made it look easy. Thanks to his dominance, EG was able to edge out a comfortable advantage that Secret could not contest.



Team Secret returned the favour in the third game. Although it was quite balanced at first, Team Secret edged out an advantage after 20 minutes when killing almost the entire enemy team twice within 5 minutes. TS took a 2-1 lead.

Defeating them seemed to trigger EG's enrage mode. On the fourth map, EG took an early lead and won fight after fight after fight. The game was an extremely one-sided affair, with EG completely outclassing Team Secret. When the geniuses razed Secret's Ancient, the scoreboard was at 32-6 kills in their favour; thanks to SumaiL and Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev who eliminated 11 opponents each.

The Final Game we all wanted to see



The deciding match was truly worthy of being the finale of the Grand Finals. Team Secret asserted their dominance right at the beginning by ganking Gustav 's4' Magnusson's top-lane Doom with three heroes, killing him twice in the first minute. Yazied 'YapzOr' Jaradat, Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov, and Ludwig 'zai' Wåhlberg simply ignored the power of the tower, dove in, and rofl-stomped the poor demon.



Neither s4, nor Tal 'Fly' Aizik and his Warlock had a great early game, being killed of multiple times. After 20 minutes, Team Secret almost gave their advantage away when they overcommitted at a team fight on the top lane. EG eliminated the entire team but was not able to translate this skirmish victory into a decisive advantage.

Team Secret recovered from this backlash, gained map control, and set up smart traps with thanks an excellent utilization of both YapzOr's Nyx Assassin and MidOne's Monkey King. Despite EG’s valiant efforts to beat the unbeatable, Team Secret came out on top in the end, thanks to their magnificent team play.



Team Secret's Birmingham championship is their fourth ESL One title and the sixth title in this DPC season. Although they showed some weaknesses against the best teams in the world, Team Secret have prevailed and shown once again, that they are the strongest team in the world right now.

What do you think about the Grand Finals?



Photo Credit: ESL, Twitter

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