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Team Spirit demolished Vici Gaming after a 2 hour pause and knocked VG into the lower bracket.

Game One

Vici Gaming’s special brew for the Shanghai Major seemed to be the Morphling for Burning. But its effectiveness was questionable in their first series. In this game VG drafted heroes with strong team fight such as Tidehunter, Vengeful Spirit, and Ember Spirit. On the other hand, Team Spirit opted for a pushing and global lineup with Furion and Io. The pushing power of Spirit was problematic for VG during the early game, since Morphing was a non-factor.

Spirit decided to pressure Morphling early on with the aggressive triplane accompanied by the Chen in the jungle. While this pressured Morphling slightly, Chen was heavily committed to this lane and barely had any experience due to the Frostbite of Crystal Maiden. VG suffered from the early rotations from Spirit’s Nature’s Prophet but the consequence was iceiceice’s free farm in the lane. As the game progressed, Spirit’s gold advantage leaped ahead due to the pickoffs Io and Chaos Knight were able to pull off.

Although Spirit had the superior mid-game, they were reluctant to fight into the early Mekansm and Ravage of the Tidehunter. As Chaos Knight’s item progressed, VG found themselves to be lacking damage to finish him off. Moreover, VG had no means to deal with the Phantasm illusions due to the lack of farm on the Ember Spirit. VG’s supports got torn apart again and again and Spirit was on their way to take the first game of the series by minute 22 with the first lane of barracks of VG destroyed.

With the farm on Chaos Knight continue to accumulate, VG was completely overwhelmed by the lineup of Spirit. A last strand of hope appeared at minute 30 as Spirit hastily decided to turn the fight around with just the Io and CK. With the kiting ability of VG they were able to take a fight off the seemingly invulnerable Spirit lineup. But this fight was meaningless at the end as Spirit’s farm was too far ahead. After the respawn Spirit marched into the base of VG with Phantasm and demolished all the remaining structures of VG. Spirit pulled ahead taking game one.

Game Two

VG learned from their mistakes in game one and decided to draft a lineup with exceptional mid-game. With heroes such as Faceless Void, Sand King, and Invoker, VG obtained a lot of tools to deter the aggressive nature of Spirit. On the side of Spirit, they opted for their traditional global strategy with Io, Nature’s Prophet and Tiny. Along with Beastmaster and Lich they’ve banked on the potential success of a farmed Tiny. With the power of auras and sustain, Spirit was able to cheese VG and took down a level one Roshan.

With the experience advantage on all of Spirit, they quickly obtain a kill on the Alchemist with an Io Tiny dual lane. Things continue to go south for VG as Spirit was able to obtain so much advantage during the laning phase and then early Roshan. Sand King and Invoker were the only two heroes that were having a reasonable time despite of the severe disadvantage. Only eight minutes in, all tier one towers on the side of VG had been destroyed.

Although VG slightly recovered from the early domination of Spirit, their downfall continued as Tiny continued to accumulate farm. Although VG barely held their grounds with the threat of the Sand King Epicenter and Void’s Chronosphere. 26 minutes in VG had lost two lanes of barracks. Shortly after, VG was forced to exit the game and their journey at the Shanghai Major playoffs will begin in the lower bracket. Team Spirit will move on to face the loser of the upper bracket match between Alliance and Fnatic.