The main event of The International 2019 is underway at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai, China from August 20th-25th 2019.
The 2nd day of the main event saw us part ways with Virtus.Pro and TNC Predator.
Today’s schedule involved 2 upper bracket semi-finals and 2 lower bracket elimination games.
Infamous vs Newbee
Well, consider this match as a match of regions, South America vs North America.
The rivalry goes deep and the winner takes it all. Infamous upset Team Newbee with a 2-1 finish eliminating Newbee from The International 9.
Game 1 – Comfortable draft, individual skills. Team Infamous managed to close this game out against Team Newbee, again Newbee allowed Infamous to have a comfortable draft and let Infamous pick Hector’s signature hero, Wraith King. Infamous took this game with a 1-0 lead. Here are some short clips and replays.
Game 2 – With their TI run hanging by a thread, Team Newbee desperately needed to win this game in order to equalize the series and they just did that. With better drafts and call outs, Newbee were able to take this one equalizing the series 1-1.
Game 3 – The decider game, Newbee let Infamous pick Wraith King again and paid heavily. Chris luck’s Slark mid made a lot of space for Wraith King allowing him to farm up a lot and get fat. Infamous closed this series out by upsetting Newbee.
With this loss, Newbee are knocked out of The International 2019 in the 9th-12th place.
Infamous go on to the next round of the lower bracket to face the winner of Mineski vs Secret.
Newbee were the favourites based on group stage results, but previous results don’t matter. This is TI. Also not banning Wraith King proved costly for Newbee.
Team Secret vs Mineski
The 2nd game of the day saw Team Secret take on the last hope for the SEA community, Mineski, who had a lot of pressure on their shoulders. With the recent DPC performances, everyone would favour Team Secret in this match-up but Mineski showed the world that they are not to be taken lightly they put up a huge fight against Team Secret and took it all the way to the third game and make Team Secret sweat.
Game 1 – Epic mega creeps’ comeback by Team Secret. Mineski builds a huge lead and were steamrolling Team Secret and were on the doorstep of victory. Mineski committed hard in the last push of the game, cost them the game. Moon (Mineski’s mid player) on the alchemist died without having a buyback and Team Secret capitalised on this mistake and went all-in with their mid lane push closing out this game with a 1-0 lead over Team Mineski.
Game 2 – With a better draft over Team Secret, Mineski were able to capitalise on their early net worth lead over Team Secret and keep their TI dream run alive. Although Team Secret had the lead at one moment, they made a lot of mistakes and Mineski grabbed their chance and wiped Team Secret, tying the series 1-1.
Game 3 – Game 3 was similar to games 1 and 2, an intense battle for survival.
Mineski got the Wraith King, but Team Secret got the faceless void and tiny and were able to combo them together to finally beat Mineski and win the best of 3.
Team Secret take the win with a 2-1 scoreline, thereby advancing to Lower Bracket Round 3, where they face Team Infamous tomorrow.
With this loss, Team Mineski has been eliminated from The International 2019 in the 9th-12th place.
This was one of the best matches of The International 2019. Both teams played equally well, but Secret managed to triumph over Mineski.
You can see the emotions the casters of the game are going through while casting this game.
With this game, we conclude the Lower Bracket Round 1 games and the TOP 8 of TI9 have been confirmed.
PSG.LGD vs Vici Gaming
Now that the lower bracket games were over, the action shifts to the upper bracket games.
First upper bracket semi-final sees domestic rivals PSG.LGD take on VICI Gaming. Although VICI gaming won 2 majors this season, PSGLGD were slight favourites coming into this matchup and they showed us why.
Game 1-
Vici Gaming drafted a very magic damage heavy lineup and had to finish the game early to stand a chance. But they messed up their timings. PSG.LGD carries took their time to farm up the items they needed, and once they got their BKB’s, there was nothing VG could do to stop the PSG.LGD train. AME’s Terrorblade and Maybe’s Kunkka ran them over. PSG.LGD take a 1-0 lead.
Game 2-
Vici gaming improved on their game 1 draft, but their draft was still on a timer, while PSG.LGD had AME on one of the best late-game heroes Spectre and Maybe was rocking the Dragon Knight. VG messed up their timings again and couldn’t end the game in time due to a few misplayed fights. This enabled Spectre and Dragon Knight to get all the items they needed. VG did not possess the damage to kill the LGD heroes anymore and had to cave in.
PSG.LGD take the series 2-0 in dominating fashion.
With this win, PSG.LGD proceed to the upper bracket final and will play the winner of the EG/OG game, while VG are pushed down to the lower bracket.
Also, this win guarantees a top 3 finish for PSG.LGD and an appearance on the final day of TI9.
OG vs Evil Geniuses
The most awaited match up of the day was finally here. EG contains a lot of EX-OG players, who departed OG to join Evil Geniuses on not-so-cordial terms. There was an air of revenge around this game.
Game 1-
Game one saw Evil Geniuses completely outplay OG from the laning stage onwards. Topson’s invoker and Ana’s PA had no impact on the game, and RTZ on his signature TB was able to farm freely, while Sumail on his Lina owned OG and did not allow them to win a big fight ever. OG tried to kills4 multiple times, but the enchantress was just too hard to kill. They were behind by a huge margin, and could not cope with EG’s draft
Game 2 –
OG in game 2 looked like a completely different team, they destroyed EG in the laning stage with Topson running around the map on his tiny killing Rtz on his TB again and again.
Although OG faced a few hiccups mid-game, they managed to easily close out the game to even the series 1-1.
Game 3-
Game 3 was just a stomp. This time Topson’s invoker made huge plays, while Sumail on his mirana lacked damage to kill ANA since he went for magic damage over physical damage build.RTZ’s AM never got the space to farm and OG just ran over the EG draft to secure an easy win over EG and wrapped up the series 2-1.
With this loss EG are relegated to the Lower Bracket while OG move on to face LGD in the upper bracket final.
This win also guaranteed top 3 for OG at TI9.
This brings us to an end of today’s games.
Today’s standings:
The winner of the ARCANA vote was also announced today.
Tomorrow, we will get to witness 3 lower bracket elimination games. The all-star game will be played tomorrow as well.
The action resumes tomorrow at 7:30 AM IST.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for the latest esports news scoops and more.
