Dota 2 Frankfurt Major 2015 results: OG stuns the world by eliminating Evil Geniuses, advances to grand final

Evil Geniuses vs. OG was one of the most fascinating series of the tournament. The former largely regarded as the best in the world, the latter were the plucky upstarts made up of players castoff or unhappy with their former teams to form one of the best teams in the world. This was going to be fun.

The consensus entering this series was “OG had a good run,” such was the confidence in Evil Geniuses to advance to the grand final. There was this sense that OG had an amazing tournament, but had hit their limits. In Game 1 things went exactly to plan.

OG were caught off-guard by the supreme aggressiveness of EG. With carries like Doom and Templar Assassin, you would think the game would be a longer affair until they became itemized. Instead, they surprised OG by harassing their Phantom Lancer and shutting down Shadow Fiend to wrap things up in a tidy 28 minutes.

It felt like the stomp was on -- how wrong we were.

We saw a very unconventional strategy from Evil Geniuses in Game 2 with SumaiL playing Tinker, a hero we rarely see in the current meta and Arteezy on Sven -- a hero we see even less. The draft was maybe a little too cute, as OG punished the selection with a fairly standard lineup of well-regarded heroes.

Farm was a problem for EG in the early game, causing OG to get to a lead. This was paired with an understanding from OG that they needed to push to tempo and get early kills to avoid the possibility of Tinker snowballing and creating a push that couldn’t be stopped. MoonMeander was the catalyst for OG’s Game 2 success. He played Earthshaker to perfection to find multiple pickoffs and isolate the EG supports.

It felt like Evil Geniuses over-estimated the damage output of Sven. Twice they tried to capture Roshan, and twice they were rebuffed by OG and punished for the attempt. It’s rare to see EG uncomfortable, but they looked thoroughly rattled against OG. This lead to a slow decline, and ultimately a Game 2 win to level the series.

Evil Geniuses really shook things up in Game 3. Universe shifted from playing his typical heroes to plan an off-lane Queen of Pain, while SumaiL was put in a less aggressive role following some misplays in Game 2. He took Magnus middle and did a stellar job slowing Miracle’s farm on Alchemist.

This shift really paid off, as OG adjusted to lanes that gave Arteezy free farm on Anti Mage in the top lane, which was a terrifying prospect for OG. The counter needed to be early aggressiveness to slow the AM and stop the QoP, but OG couldn’t manage it outside of a 10-minute pickoff of Anti Mage top.

Evil Geniuses understood their game: They needed to delay. OG had a terrifying early game lineup of Undying, Gyrocopter, Tusk, Earthshaker and Alchemist -- which had the potential to kill the EG squishy carries quickly. Everything would be about Evil Geniuses buy enough time to get items on AM. Arteezy got a 16-minute Battle Fury and suddenly EG were very scary.

Two players were getting very scary: Anti Mage had his Manta Style at 23 minutes, while the OG Alchemist had a Hyperstone and a Solar Crest. OG got their kills, but it wasn’t on the heroes they really needed -- the three cores that had to be shut down were getting too big and were only going to snowball as the game progressed.

Rat Dota was the name of the game for Evil Geniuses and they slowly carved out map control and playing objective-based Dota. OG had a mid-game lead on gold, XP and kills -- but it felt like that would turn. Evil Geniuses were tooled for the late game and that mid-game advantage for OG didn’t slow the heroes they needed to keep in check.

As the game transitioned into the late-game OG did an excellent job slowly countering the split push and had their lanes in check. A farmed Alchemist cut through Anti Mage, and forced a buyback that resulted a team fight win for Evil Geniuses, but it put Arteezy in a tough decision: A single bad play wouldn’t just result in his death, but a loss.

Suddenly it happened.

An Evil Geniuses attempt to engage on Gyrocopter left them vulnerable in the river and Alchemist went wild on an open Anti Mage. He evaporated in a second and Evil Geniuses immediately called GG. There was nothing they could do, and they knew it.

The stage is set for an all-European final with Team Secret and OG. This will be an absolutely stellar series.