Dota 2: EG sweep Quincy Crew to force tiebreakers for NA's Arlington Major spots
Quincy Crew and Evil Geniuses (EG) faced off in the most important match of the 2021-2022 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Summer Tour regional league for North America on Thursday (14 July).
Quincy Crew needed to win to secure their ticket to the Arlington Major, while a victory for EG meant there would be a three-way tie between the two teams and Nouns for the two NA tickets at the Major.
After an intense two-game series, it was EG that came out on top, meaning the league will end with a three-way tiebreaker between EG, Quincy Crew, and Nouns Esports for the two spots in the Arlington Major.
Here is how EG took down Quincy Crew to force the tiebreakers.
Game one featured only 21 kills in 28 minutes
The focus for EG's draft in game one was clear and it was on bringing down enemy structures.
To that end, the North American squad picked Luna for Artour "Arteezy" Babaev, Lycan for Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko, and Shadow Shaman for Andreas Franck "Cr1t-" Nielsen.
Abed "Abed" Yusop was responsible for hunting enemy heroes on Ember Spirit while team captain Tal "Fly" Aizik, focused on keeping his allies alive on Dazzle.
Quincy Crew's draft was a little harder to execute, as their lineup focused on reducing the enemy's damage output as much as possible.
A support Sven was picked for Adrian "Fata" Trinks. Sven's new Aghanim's Shard upgrade provides all allies with seven bonus armor and makes Warcry undispellable.
Offlaner Rodrigo "LESLÃO" Santos would also reduce the enemy's damage output with Razor.
Yawar "YawaR" Hassan on Troll Warlord provided another layer of defense thanks to the hero's Whirling Axes.
Similar to Abed, Quinn "Quinn" Callahan's job was to hunt enemy heroes with Puck while Arif "MSS" Anwar rounded up the draft with Dawnbreaker.
It's hard to describe game one as anything but slow, as both teams played their drafts carefully.
With so much on the line, neither squad wanted to take risks and that resulted in only six kills in the first 20 minutes of the game.
Luckily for EG, all the kills went to their side. The heavy push lineup ran by EG proved to be effective, as Quincy Crew's map kept getting smaller and smaller, giving them fewer camps to farm safely.
When EG went high ground 26 minutes in the game, they forced 3 buybacks from Quincy and still won the fight, forcing their opponents to tap out two minutes later.
EG mount insane comeback in game two
While the first game of the series was one-sided in favor of EG, game two was a back-and-forth slugfest. Quincy Crew went for a playmaking offlane hero for LESLÃO and picked Tiny.
Quinn's job was to deal damage with Zeus. Fata and MSS had some surprising support picks, with the hard support Razor and roaming Enchantress respectively.
EG had some unusual hero picks as well. While Mars is a staple hero in the competitive meta, he is usually played in the offlane, yet EG decided to play him mid.
Nightfall brought back Death Prophet, a hero who has disappeared from the meta since her nerfs. Fly played Dazzle again, while Arteezy provided global presence with Nature's Prophet.
It was an even game at the end of the laning stage.
EG managed to dominate the side lanes but Quinn proved to be a monster in the midlane, giving Quincy Crew a small net worth advantage.
Quinn was in fine form as he secured a Triple Kill for himself 13 minutes into the game, with two of his victims already teleporting back to base.
It was anyone's game to win, and while EG managed to hold a small lead after the 20-minute mark, Quincy Crew took a huge teamfight victory 44 minutes into the game and looked set to even the series.
Unfortunately for the Crew, EG timed their buybacks perfectly and managed to bring down Quinn and both supports.
Without Quinn to defend the base and with Fata out for over 100 seconds, all EG had to do was march to the enemy's Throne with all five heroes and take it down.
After an impressive comeback in game two, EG won the series 2-0 and will face Nouns and Quincy Crew in tiebreakers for the coveted two spots to the Arlington Major.
It was an unfortunate loss for Quincy Crew though, as they entered the match with a score of 12-0.
Despite being first in the Tour since it started, Quincy Crew still need to defeat either EG or Nouns to guarantee their spot at the next Major.
Evil Genuises roster
Artour "Arteezy" Babaev
Abed "Abed" Yusop
Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko
Andreas Franck "Cr1t-" Nielsen
Tal "Fly" Aizik
Quincy Crew roster
Yawar "YawaR" Hassan
Quinn "Quinn" Callahan
Rodrigo "LESLÃO" Santos
Arif "MSS" Anwar
Adrian "Fata" Trinks
Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.
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