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ViCi Gaming vs. NewBee

NewBee drafted a strong facerush strategy in the first game of this series, and when ViCi lacked early counter-push they were cornered into having to win the lanes in order to stay in the game. With NewBee getting the better of the early game as well, it all fell apart for ViCi, who ended up losing their base tower by around 12 minutes in and calling the 'GG' two minutes later.

　　Both teams tried to play an active early game with the kills ending up favouring NewBee. The downside of this was that while NewBee were picking up the kills they weren't farming or slowing down the farm of Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun's Nature's Prophet or Bai 'rOtk' Fan's Doom significantly. This meant that ViCi had the tools they needed to turn things around with a few good Ancient Apparition ultimates from Linsen 'Fy' Xu. As the game began to turn the squishyness of NewBee's cores was exposed, and from that point onwards it was ViCi riding the momentum to a 32 minute victory.

　　NewBee drafted themselves a fairly difficult lineup to execute, having to apply early pressure in order to hold off ViCi from getting their ultimates online before NewBee was ready to fight agains them. Even though both teams played a bit passively during the early lanes, Zhang 'xiao8' Ning was the silent hero of the match messing with the early game of ViCi's Sandking, and when rOtk also had a poor start this game NewBee got the advantage they needed to dominate once both teams grouped up. ViCi managed to fight back once or twice when NewBee overextended, but betwen Lifestealer's Rage and the myriad of Black King Bars completing, ViCi had missed their opening and were ultimately defeated by 36 minutes in.

　　NewBee defeat ViCi Gaming 2-1, continuing their impressive winstreak, reaching back to the tiebreakers.

　　Games to watch: Game 2 and game 3 are the more balanced games of this series, but none of the games is a must see.

　　

Evil Geniuses vs. Team DK

Evil Geniuses threw DK a curve ball with their surprise jungler Ursa and managed to open up a fairly decent early experience lead between their dominance over Roshan and their wins in various skirmishes to start off game one. The downside though for EG was their inability to hold down any of DK's three cores, who slowly were able to become a split-pushing nightmare for the North Americans. This netted the Chinese team first the lead in terms of map control and then the first barracks of the game, looking strong to take the game as a whole, only to realize they had played into EG's hands. Between two Scythe of Vyse, two Ravages and some great Sacred Arrows coming out of Mason 'Mason' Venne on the Mirana, EG not only stalled the game but turned it, eventually leading into one of the most hilarious base pushes in Dota history for a solid victory by EG.

　　For the second game EG got a massively tanky lineup which took a while to get online, but once the North American juggernaut started rolling the skies quickly darkened above Seattle, as Team DK looked completely without answers even with their early kill lead. Between amazing positioning from Ludwig 'Zai' Wåhlberg on the Silencer and superb saves coming out of Peter 'ppd' Dager on the Abaddon, the EG supports aided their tanky frontline in delivering a crushing blow to Team DK in 35 minutes.

　　Evil Geniuses post a convincing 2-0 victory over Team DK.

　　Games to watch: Game 1 is a must see.

　　

Evil Geniuses vs. NewBee

NewBee put their backs against the wall for the first game of the series by picking a lineup that needed to end it early against Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev's Naga Siren. In order to accomplish this NewBee invested heavily into finding kills on Arteezy and did a great job of it, delaying him heavily while Zhang 'Mu' Pan on the Death Prophet built up a massive farm lead. NewBee were able to leverage this into a barracks lead and looked good to close out the game when Arteezy finally came online. But even with a scary Naga EG's lineup simply lacked the staying power to challenge, and a few uncharacteristic poor choices from EG ended up costing them the game as NewBee were able to simply force down the Dire throne.

　　NewBee got onto a strong early lead with their Spectre lineup centered around carry player Chen 'Hao' Zhihao, who got the first blood and then proceeded to dominate his farm, standing atop the farm tables by the time of the transition into the early mid game. While EG were farming well enough, they kept on getting picked off and falling behind on experience, resulting in NewBee being simply too strong by the time EG needed to try and group up in order to push down towers. With Hao getting completely out of control the win was nearly inevitable. In the end NewBee took only 35 minutes before forcing the 'GG' for the second time in a row.

　　NewBee make their way into the finals of The International with their 2-0 win over Evil Geniuses.

　　Games to watch: Game 1, with some reservations.