posted by Brasozial,
Two top teams from the Western hemisphere, fighting for a spot in the Upper Bracket Finals - a real highlight match for the first Major in 2020. Evil Geniuses and Nigma fought well in a great series.

The unstoppable duo: Miracw33



Phantom Lancer for Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi and Lich Kuro S. 'KuroKy' Takhasomi - it was a typical draft for Nigma. But it still felt like Evil Geniuses weren't prepared for the Minor champions.



Especially, Omar 'w33haa' Aliwi and Amer 'Miracle-' Al-Barkawi, as you can see in the clip above, were unstoppable. Neither Phantom Lancer nor Necrophos died once in this game.

Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev tried his best on Slark to farm, but too many misplays stopped him and his team to get a foot in this first game - even his BKB came too late:



Nigma took game one after 26 minutes and less than six kills for EG.

RTZ's song of victory



Sam 'Bulba' Sosale's draft in the second game was better. They came up with a game plan for RTZ on his Naga Siren. Especially in the early game the Canadian carry had a perfect rate on engagements and fights. Whenever he used his song it ended up in impact kills for his team.

It seemed like Nigma wouldn't find a way to turn this game, but two weak fights by RTZ gave his opponents a small flimmer of hope:



Later on, Nigma tried to find similiar setups to win the team fights and push EG's base, but the Northamericans were prepared for it and baited their opponents into a Rosh fight.



All Nigma players died and Miracle- even twice in a dieback. EG went high ground, destroyed all barracks and forced Nigma to call 'GG'.



The experts weren't sure what to expect from Nigma after an unusual Tinker pick for Omar 'w33haa' Aliwi. Fogged elaborated that this hero is too fragile to make it work. On top of that, OD was a perfect counter for Tinker. Nigma's only hope was to get Slark on a high level that he could carry them to victory, but even here they got countered immediately with a Bloodseeker pick.

Nigma didn't really have a chance throughout the game. In fact, the only good fight for them was this one:



After that Nigma stayed in their base and tried to defend. It wasn't easy for EG to push the highground with Treant and Tinker on the other side. At some point Nigma changed their strategy and wanted to pick one of the EG players off guard, but it didn't work:



EG won the third game and advance to the next round of the Upper Bracket. Nigma, however, need to start another Lower Bracket run to make it into the Grand Finals.

Did Bulba outdraft Nigma or why did EG win in your eyes?



Photo credit: DreamHack - Adela Sznajder

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