EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage: Team Liquid and Newbee to the upper bracket playoffs

The first day of the EPICENTER Moscow group stage has concluded. Team Liquid and Newbee have been seeded into the upper brackets for the playoffs. The seeding for will continue with two more teams to find their place in the upper brackets and the other four teams to assume their places in the lower brackets for the playoffs. No teams are eliminated in the group stage which continues for one more day. The action will continue at 09:00 CEST with Lower Brackets Group A match between Alliance and compLexity.

NewBee beat EG 2-0! The games will resume tomorrow at 9-00 CET#epicgg #dota2 #CISmajor #RuHub pic.twitter.com/lEsqAKhX1H

— EPICENTER: Moscow (@epicentergg) May 10, 2016

The first day of the EPICENTER Moscow group stage has come to a close. So far Team Liquid and Newbee have been seeded into the upper brackets for the playoffs. Both teams have displayed remarkable performances, mechanics and team work.

The other six teams – Alliance, OG, compLexity, Team Secret and Virtus.Pro will continue to compete in order to establish their starting point and opponents in the playoffs.

No teams will be eliminated in the group stage and the competition continues for one more day behind closed doors before moving to the epic stage for the main event on May 12th.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results

OG vs Alliance

Alliance and OG’s laning phase started out fairly even, with Alliance taking an early lead. By 15 minutes into the game OG seized the advantage and fought hard to keep it for the next 8 mins until they were able to pull full speed ahead towards the end. Armed with a huskar and Bristle Back-Io combo, it was hard for the Swedish team to fight back. The second game saw a convincing performance and win by OG with their Drow strat being successful. Keeping the batrider and spectre in check OG kept control of the game and took their second win.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results Group A upper brackets:OG 2:0 Alliance. OG continue in the upper brackets, Alliance drop to the lower brackets.

Evil Geniuses vs Virtus.Pro

Evil Geniuses shut down Virtus.Pro in two crushing victories. The first match of the series Evil Geniuses took their win in 27 minutes with a score of 31:9. Perfect games by Syed Sumail “Suma1L” Hassan and Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling were key factors to success. In the second game, Virtus.Pro went with a roaming Bounty Hunter that was quickly shut down by EG. Once again Sumail and Aui had top notch games with Kanishka ‘Sam’ “BuLba” Sosale playing a flawless Dark Seer.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results Group B upper brackets:Evil Geniuses 2:0 Virtus.Pro. Evil Geniuses continue in the upper brackets. Virtus.Pro drop to the lower brackets.

Team Liquid vs compLexity

In a surprising 19 minutes, Team Liquid blew through compLexity Gaming 21:7. compLexity Gaming’s Riki pick and a subdued Dragon Knight was not as successful as planned. Team Liquid was armed with a Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka Earth Spirit and perfect games by Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi and Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen. With their backs against a wall there was not much that they North American based squad could do.

The second game took just over an hour to determine a victor and really showcased compLexity’s resilience. Back and forth action and trades in advantage, leads and control made for an intense match. Zakari “Zfreek” Freedman had an outstanding performance on Axe and Team Liquid was never really able to get their feet fully off the ground or a solid grasp on the game. The North American victory forced a third deciding game.

Team Liquid took third game even though it seemed that compLexity Gaming were always slightly ahead and slightly in the advantage through most of the game. Team Liquid has a tendency to be able to rally up towards the late game and as they did, they clinched the victory of the game and series.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results Group A upper brackets:Team Liquid 2:1 compLexity Gaming. Team Liquid continue in the upper brackets. compLexity Gaming drop to the lower brackets.

Team Secret vs Newbee

Newbee continued their winning streak, extending it another 2 wins. The Chinese stars convincingly took the first match from the Europeans with their incredible Invoker played by Zhang “Mu” Pan and Chen “Hao” Zhihao on gyrocopter. The second match was 71 minutes long with magnificant plays and twists throughout. Team Secret went with the powerful Huskar pick for Jacky “Eternal Envy” Mao, but it wouldn’t be enough to secure them the win.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results Group B upper brackets: Newbee 2:0 Team Secret. Newbee continue in the upper brackets. Team Secret drop to the lower brackets.

OG vs Team Liquid

The first game of the series Team Liquid tried to shut down Amer “Miracle-“ al-Barqawi’s invoker but he still ended up coming out ahead. Adrian “FATA-“ Trinks on Dragon Knight and Jerax on Earth Spirit wasn’t enough to lead the team to victory, giving the first win to OG.

The second match Team Liquid seemed to outdraft OG and the laning stage went poorly for them as well, leading to a 23 minute victory for Team Liquid to tie up the series. The third match went back and forth for the early to mid game with both teams taking the lead and advantage. About 23 minutes in with a farmed Lone Druid and a scary Axe, Team Liquid seized the lead and the momentum to close out the game and series in their favor.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results Group B upper bracket finals:OG 1:2 Team Liquid. Team Liquid will be seeded in the upper brackets. OG will drop to the lower brackets.

Newbee vs EG

Newbee again extended their winning streak, overwhelming EG 33:15 in just around 30 minutes. Hao had another outstanding and flawless performance on Spectre with Mu shining once again, this time on Invoker. Both Aui and Fear were shut down quickly, taking them out of the game early on. The second game became a battle of the radiances with Alchemist and Naga both having one. Damien “kphoenii” Chok was fantastic with Naga and Newbee had a slightly better team fight draft. They easily took the second game of the series and advanced their winning streak to 29 consecutive wins.

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage results Group A upper bracket finals:Newbee 2:0 Evil Geniuses. Newbee will be seeded in the upper brackets of the playoffs. Evil Geniuses drop to the lower brackets.

EPICENTER Moscow main event

EPICENTER Moscow main event teams

• Team Secret
• Alliance
• Team Liquid
• OG
• Evil Geniuses
• Virtus.Pro
• Newbee by WildCard phase
• compLexity by WildCard phase

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage schedule

May, 11th Group Stage

• 09:00 CEST Group A Lower Bracket match – Alliance vs compLexity
• 13:00 CEST Group B Lower Bracket match – Virtus.Pro vs Team Secret
• 17:00 CEST Group A Lower Bracket final – OG vs loser Group A LB match
• 21:00 CEST Group B Lower Bracket final – Evil Geniuses vs loser Group B LB match

EPICENTER Moscow Group Stage format

May 10th-11th – Group Stage

• Eight teams will compete – six invited teams and two coming from the offline qualifiers.
• Top two teams from each group will advance into the Upper Brackets of the main event.
• Bottom two teams from each group will start the main event in the Lower Brackets.
• The group stages will be closed to the public and, just like the offline qualifier, they will be held at a prestigious hotel in Moscow.