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Dota 2 Frankfurt Major 2015 results: OG eliminates CDEC and Virtus.pro in stunning day of upsets

Nov 19, 2015, 1:03 PM UTC

James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.

Thursday in Frankfurt was really the hardcore Dota fan’s day. None of the real fan favorite teams in the west were playing outside of N0tail’s OG, but these were fascinating matchups that showed how diverse the pro scene is right now. This is an amazing time for professional Dota, perhaps the best ever.

Here’s everything that happened today at the Frankfurt Major.

OG defeats Virtus.pro (2-1)

This series was everything it was billed to be.

The first game kicked off with two fairly standard lineups. The big twist was N0Tail on Phantom Lancer, which Virtus.pro looked unprepared for. With the support of a Dazzle and Tusk it gave OG a lineup that could split push, team fight and gain outstanding map control. It countered the slow-farm lineup of Virtus.pro that leaned on a Gyrocopter and Lina to do the heavy lifting. After 36 minutes OG was out to an early lead.

Virtus.pro answered back in Game 2 with one of the most stun-heavy lineups we’ve seen in Frankfurt. There were stuns for days as their draft comprised of Viper, Slardar, Earthshaker, Vengeful Spirit and Ancient Apparition. That’s three hard stuns, two initiations, two team-fight ults and multiple slows. It was really cool to see VP understand that they needed to change things up and run such a low-damage lineup. OG answered with some oddities of their own as a carry combo of Tiny and Windranger simply couldn’t burn down Viper fast enough -- especially supported with the stuns. The series was tied.

Game 3 began as a lesson in how to stop a Gyrocopter carry. Illidan from Virtus.pro is a fantastic Gyro player, but he was ceaselessly harassed in the bottom lane and kept farm-deprived thanks to successful ganks from Slardar and Bane from OG. VP went for a fairly standard lineup of Gyrocopter, Lina, Dark Seer and Tusk, but added a Jakiro for some pushing ability -- this proved to be huge.

On paper, OG had the better lineup. A late Anti Mage pick added a hero that Virtus.pro had no answer for. The game was going to come down to which late-carry could be better controlled, the Gyro or AM. The back-and-forth in this game was stellar, quickly vacillating between each team looking in control. N0Tail played on his familiar Viper, but it had much less effect than VP had on the hero in Game 2 thanks to a stronger disable lineup from VP.

While teams traded punches there was one player who seemed to dodge everything: Miracle on Anti Mage was able to leap to an astounding gold lead and set the tempo. It rendered the Gyro useless and those early farm problems for Illidan reared their head as he couldn’t get a Butterfly in time to stop Slardar from removing his armor and stun-locking the hard-carry into oblivion. From there it was academic, and OG took Game 3.

OG are still in the lower bracket, but this really is a team to watch. I’ve been saying it all tournament and I’ll keep saying it: Do not sleep on them. This team is new, but has astounding teamwork and really could cause problems for a lot of teams.

EHOME defeats LGD Gaming (2-1)

No team has experienced a more precipitous drop than LGD Gaming has this year. EHOME’s complete domination in their best-of-three series showed that.

The first game was one of the biggest stomps of the tournament. A disjointed LGD draft resulted in five heroes that had played like individuals, rather than a team. At one point a catapult got Doomed by LGD -- that says it all really. EHOME employed a really interesting tactic of controlling the map with Broodmother and protecting Tiny. This allowed their carry and primary pusher to get very big, very fast. There isn’t much left to say. It felt like LGD wrote off any possibility of victory early on and the rest played like EHOME ensuring their victory was assured.

Game 2 saw LGD Gaming take two strong heroes to open their draft in Winter Wyvern and Ember Spirit, while EHOME secured their initiation and support with Tusk and Nightstalker. Bans boxed in rOtk into playing Earthshaker, which he hasn’t been comfortable with in the past. LGD did a great job early game of harassing the offlane Tusk, but EHOME did a better job controlling mid -- using Bane to harass Ember Spirit. At the macro level it was a much better start for LGD. EHOME was experience starved throughout the early game, which was problematic for heroes like Tusk and Leshrac that need good itemization to come online.

A few good pickoffs helped get Tusk back on track and soon things were at parity. What followed was a wild series of swings back and forth with cty on Leshrac getting a ludicrous amount of farm will full itemization. When he bought his bkb it became time to push, but this was countered by LGD being the better farmed team overall. The graphs showed the game was even, but so much was tied into Leshrac.

Part of EHOME’s problem was terrible item choices on Tiny. Instead of getting an Aghanim’s Scepter he went for an early Shadow Blade, which was a fundamental problem. EHOME simply didn’t have the physical damage needed and LGD cruised to a Game 2 win.

EHOME returned to its signature style in Game 3 -- early pick offs and sensible early-game decision making. LGD kept splitting up to avoid losing early team fights, but this played into EHOME’s strategy of using Bounty Hunter to provide farm through track gold. Initiation after initiation saw Tusk jump in and secure track kill. It was a huge problem that began to snowball, and no -- that Tusk pun was unintentional.

Old Chicken absolutely dominated on Tiny. It was something to behold. His tosses and avalanches were perfect, he paired with Tusk to toss and witness the followup with a Walrus Punch. It was absolute domination and LGD had no answer.This was the biggest thrashing of the Frankfurt Major, and EHOME made it look so easy.

OG defeats CDEC Gaming (2-0)

China’s best team vs. Europe’s biggest surprise. This series was going to be unpredictable purely by virtue of how OG plays. Game 1 saw them take a carry combo of Alchemist and Tiny, while CDEC would lean on Viper and Queen of Pain. It was a curious game that saw some early ganking from OG pay dividends, and slow Viper’s farm. The top lane Tiny and Io combo was predictable after the Io pick, but the brilliance came in an Alchemist pick. Alch became huge, buying Tiny’s Aghanim’s Scepter for Tiny and putting all them emphasis on him. It made sense because of how Io was being used, but it was a risky play -- OG likes risky.

This proved to be the right move as they dominated CDEC and got Tiny up to 400 attack speed. Towers melted, Roshan evaporated and there was nothing CDEC could do to counter.

Game 2 was ... problematic for CDEC. They have been charged with being too predictable and conservative in the past, but this went way too far the other way. Picking a group of barely-used heroes like Lion and Silencer might have shaken a lesser team, but it did nothing to intimidate OG. N0tail got his beloved Meepo, and they surrounded him with Ember Spirit and some really solid supports.

CDEC had no damage. It was an absolutely terrible lineup and that’s can’t be overstated. The team had no options and when Meepo got farm there was so much map control that the idea of Global Silence turning the game. N0tail dominated and it was academic from there.

OG has now won its second series of the day and unseated CDEC. They are fun, they are dynamic and now we can say they’re one of the best teams at Frankfurt.