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Virtus.Pro sweeps OG 3-0 in TS6 finals

Fans cheer at The International 6, the Dota 2 tournament in Seattle at Key Arena in 2016. Michael Hanson for ESPN

It was grand finals day in Los Angeles, with only three teams in contention for the top prize at The Summit 6. CIS team Virtus.Pro already secured a spot in the finals and would go on to win the series in a clean sweep.

A rematch between two top tier Dota 2 teams would need to be settled to determine VP's opponent. OG and Evil Geniuses had clashed in the semifinals, a series that ended 2-0 in favor of the former. In their second meeting, it looked like Evil Geniuses had done its homework. An unusual Tiny support pick for Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka put EG on its back foot at the outset, but Sumail "Suma1L" Hassan's Alchemist was left free to farm to his heart's content, holding a 1,049 gold-per-minute farm rate, eclipsing the net worth of OG. Johan "n0tail" Sundstein and Anathan "ana" Pham just couldn't keep pace with the Alchemist, and the deficit became insurmountable, leaving EG to take Game 1 at 29 minutes in.

Though Pham and Sundstein struggled, both struck back hard in the second game, especially with Pham on a mid-lane Invoker. Hassan found an early lead on Outworld Devourer, but the rest of EG seemed unable to capitalize on it, and OG took the series to three games. In the final map, it was a reversal of roles: Hassan on the Invoker, and Pham on the Alchemist. The watershed moment was in the Radiant bottom lane, where EG's tri-lane crumbled to Gustav "s4" Magnusson's Batrider and Vainikka's Ogre Magi. The Faceless Void pick for Babaev struggled to find critical ultimates, and the experience-hungry supports of EG took too long to hit their stride. OG took the series 2-1, and advanced to face Virtus.Pro in a Best of 5 grand finals.

The second rematch of the day -- this time in the upper bracket finals -- OG went for a Terrorblade core on Sundstein, which had been a major success for the team in the last series. Virtus.Pro responded with a fast, aggressive draft, picking up a Shadow Demon-Luna combination for their potent illusion siege potential. The standout, however, was Pavel "9pasha" Khvastunov on an offlane Dark Seer, setting up major pickoffs alongside Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk's support Slardar. Game 1 seemed to go VP's way from minute zero, giving Virtus.Pro the advantage in the series.

Game 2 saw OG pick up a more push-oriented Drow composition, with Sundstein taking the Drow Ranger and Pham on Mirana. Despite strong initiation tools, a minute-one conflict turned disastrous, with VP wiping all five members of OG. A massive gap in net worth and inability to deal with the damage put out by Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev's Lifestealer and Vladimir "No[o]ne" Minenko's Juggernaut left OG down, out and on match-point against VP at 2-0.

For the third game, OG needed to turn to something unconventional to break Virtus.Pro's momentum. Drafting a Chaos Knight for Sundstein and Templar Assassin for Pham, two cores able to fight and contest lanes very early on, the tools were there for OG to push back against VP. The mid lane of Virtus.Pro gained a significant lead early though, combining Minenko's Ember Spirit with several rotations from Ilyuk's Enchantress to completely shut down OG's Pham. The aggressive Chaos Knight also struggled, and even in the safe lane, Magnusson couldn't contest Kushnarev's Lifestealer. Fight after fight, OG were beaten back and denied any chance to gain footing in the game, as Virtus.Pro's clean, determined execution of its draft closed out the series. At 24 minutes in, and a kill line of 44-13, Virtus.Pro closed out the grand finals 3-0 and won The Summit 6.