A breathtaking series with both teams, delivering some of the craziest plays, closed with Evil Geniuses making an exit in the first lower bracket round at TI12.
Day two of the playoffs stage on the road to The International 2023 is all about elimination matches. Evil Geniuses and Gaimin Gladiators returned to action with fresh ideas, both looking to surprise each other.
Evil Geniuses![]()
vs![]()
Gaimin Gladiators
Gaimin GladiatorsDespite seeing Shopify Rebellion making an early exit in the previous series with a carry Dark Willow, EG were confident in what they prepared with the same hero, and after getting rid of most of the beefy heroes in the first phase of the draft, they showed the Willow with their second pick.
While the laning stage brought a lot of action with EG playing aggressively, especially in the side lanes, Gaimin focused on objectives. However, their draft didn’t shine in the high-ground siege, EG’s Willow, Earthshaker and Treant Protector being all too much for GG and so the game was dragged past the 60-minute mark.
Steady progress with chip damage on each of the tier three towers, and calculated team effort in breaching the base allowed GG to finish the game close to the 70-minute mark, but not before surviving a few scares and recovering from team fights that could have led to disaster.
In game two, it was Gladiators’ turn to come with unconventional picks. They opened the draft with Dazzle and Tiny, which ended up being the offlane duo, with the former going into the hands of Marcus "Ace" Christensen. EG went with a classic Phantom Assassin - Magnus combo, but they never got the chance to put it to use fully as GG ran over them.
While Evil Geniuses bow out of contention at The International 2023, Gaimin Gladiators have just a couple of hours of rest before returning to the stage for another lower bracket round, they will be pitted against 9Pandas in the closing series of day two, at around 19:00 PDT/04:00 CEST.
