*Cover Image source: Liquepedia
Evil Geniuses won their first DPC event for the the season, walking away as champions from the GESC: Indonesia Minor. VGJ.Thunder found themselves in another finals but just like Bucharest they were swept aside by the eventual winners. This is the 6th DPC event where the VG organisation has placed second, with VG placing second in four events and VGJ.Thunder in two.
The final day turned out to be a walk in the park for NA org Evil Geniuses, as they completed a comfortable 2-0 over Na’Vi in the semifinals. Both games saw, Na’Vi come up short as their drafts were a bit too ambitious to actually get things done. The usually solid Crystallize was not given any room to shine, as Arteezy and Sumail walked circles around them across the series.
VGJ.Thunder meanwhile had to go up against Infamous, who were a much tougher cookie to crack. The first game saw Sylar defending against mega creeps with double Rapier on Medusa but Infamous baited them outside and used double Song of the Siren to hold them in place while their DP and TA took down the throne.
VGJ.Thunder managed to take the series, however, putting up wins in the next two games to win the semifinals, 2-1. All three cores of the Chinese team stepped up to show that indeed the team was much superior in comparison to Infamous.
The grand finals was a quick affair as EG completed the 2-0 in less than 50 minutes as Thunder were left baffled by the storm that hit them. EG’s strat of helping out both side lanes and leaving Fear on the midlane with a tanky core had worked throughout the tournament and was used in the finals as well as EG decimated Thunder. The NA org came online way too quickly in both the games and VGJ.Thunder were is no position to deal with them at the time. In game 1, Sumail’s Pugna simply blasted towers down, while Arteezy zoned out the entire enemy team with his Lifestealer. In the second game, Arteezy performed a similar role on his PL while both Fear and Sumail brought down towers. It was more or less perfectly executed by EG and all VGJ.Thunder could do was watch.
EG pick up 110,000$ and a crucial 150 DPC points for their win. VGJ.Thunder meanwhile will get 90 DPC points and 65,000$ to show for their efforts. The event in itself was praised by fans and community members and many appreciated the fact that despite it being their first event, GESC had pulled it off quite well. The Indonesian crowd was absolutely electric and extremely vocal and teams were very appreciative of them. The tournament had some absolutely fantastic Dota and while some of the bigger teams were missing, the tournament won everyone’s hearts. With GESC running another event later in the season, all eyes will be on them to see how they raise the bar.