OG, Invictus Gaming eliminated from The International 7 and Team Liquid is west’s last hope

With the elimination of Evil Geniuses earlier yesterday, we came to expect The International 7 to be full of surprises. And indeed, Europe’s favorites OG were cut out of the tournament by none other than the Chinese super power LGD. Here’s the quick summary of The International 7’s 4th day of main competitions.

LGD vs OG

The first game of the series saw LGD getting early lead, as the Chinese team took down OG’s midlaner Anathan “ana” Pham’s Ember Spirit three times prior to the five-minute mark.. The European team was eager to fight, despite the rough early-game situation, and both teams traded kills whenever they clashed. OG were able to secure map control after picking off three straggling LGD heroes within a short time span.  While the game did go back-and-forth for roughly 30 minutes, LGD began picking up a ton of momentum, and proceeded to rampage across the map. Due to the lack of physical damage on OG’s line-up, Lu “Maybe” Yao’s Leshrac completely dismantled OG in engagements. Grabbing the Aegis prior to their first attempt at breaking OG’s base, LGD were successful in bringing down the European super squad’s mid set of barracks.

A great team fight from OG following their defense brought down three LGD players, and forced almost instant buy backs out of Chen “Victoria” Guanhong and Ren “eLeVeN” Yangwei. But almost instantly after the play, LGD charged back into OG and brought down the team’s three cores erasing all of the ground gained by the Europeans.At last, LGD were able to claim the Aegis and proceeded to kill the cores of the European team—which allowed them to push their way to victory in game one.

In contrast to the first game, OG got off to an incredible start, as the European team dismantled and brought down five LGD players incredibly early into the game. LGD took their time and slowly began evening out the amount of kills. With a massive gold and experience lead, LGD exerted complete control of the map and proceeded to pick off multiple OG players. The European favorites were able to put up some resistance against the Chinese juggernaut, but were still falling further and further behind.

Despite OG’s best efforts, LGD were clearly better and forced them to exit The International without a top four finish for a second consecutive year.

Team Liquid vs Team Empire/Virtus.Pro

To keep the western fans’ dreams alive at TI7, Team Liquid had to fight two CIS teams in the lower bracket to make it, as it took down both Team Empire and Virtus.Pro.

Maroun “GH” Merhej served again as Liquid’s real carry in their series against Team Empire. His Keeper of the Light play was completely insane, as he was keeping all of his teammates alive and prolonging teamfights in their favor. Game two was a complete outdraft by Liquid, as they countered Empire’s Anti-Mage pick with the cheesy Huskar-Oracle combo, with Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen’s Lifestealer added in. The game ended in a Liquid victory after just over 30 minutes, with the win hardly ever in doubt thanks to a significant mid-game net worth advantage.

After defeating the CIS-region qualifier winners, Liquid then turned to Virtus Pro. A gruesome 100-minute first game kicked the series off with a heated competition, but as usual, it was GH’s KotL that saved the day. Virtus Pro struck back in the second game with Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko’s insane performance on Viper, coupled with Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev’s Necrophos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvgJUR1ZIGY

The last surviving CIS team was eliminated in the third game. Liquid finished Virtus Pro off after 46 minutes in game three, in spite of No[o]ne’s 16-6 Queen of Pain. The Russians were unable to catch a break in the third game, never leading by a significant amount of gold. Team Liquid now rests assured with a 4th place guarantee, but in order to advance he’ll have a tough match later today.

Invictus Gaming vs LGD Gaming

Third round of lower bracket matches at The International 7 concluded with LGD Gaming yet again storming past Chinese team Invictus Gaming for an easy ticket into the top four. Lu “Maybe” Yao and the rest of LGD simply outclassed their opponents every step of the way. The first game of the series began with a clear plan for both teams, But LGD damage-focused lineup proved to be more effective than Invictus teamfight-oriented draft, hinging their game on initiators like Earthshaker and Faceless Void. Everything went straight into the trash in the early game. Invictus looked nothing like the team that beat Liquid in the first round of the upper bracket.

LGD capitalized on every error that Invictus committed, and snowballed their advantage into a sub-20 minute victory. The second game looked no different, as LGD’s Ancient Apparition/Bounty Hunter support duo shut down Ou “Op” Peng’s Alchemist play extremely hard in the early game. Combined with Maybe on mid Ursa, the Alchemist was never able to get off the ground. From there, LGD never gave Invictus a break. Their net worth lead kept rising as they secured kill after kill, ending the game in 28-and-a-half minutes and an advantage of almost 20,000 gold.

With Invictus out of the competition LGD will now face Liquid later today, and the winner of that series will go up against the loser of LFY versus Newbee for a guaranteed top 3 finish.