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The International 2018 came to an amazing end today as we saw an end to 10 days of amazing action. With Dota of the highest level being played every single day, we finally found the winners. Orgless Gaming, known popularly as OG defied all odds and expectations and won the coveted Aegis.
Johan "N0tail" Sundstein, Jesse "Jerax" Vainikka, Sebastien "7ckngMad" Debs, Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen and Anathan "ana" Pham won $11.2 million in prize money, which is the highest ever in e-sports history.
This was the very first tournament that OG played with their current line up. In March, Resolution left the team to join VGJ.Storm. Coach Sebastien Debs stood in for him. But in May, Fly and S4 left the team to join Evil Geniuses. This loss for OG almost sealed their fate at TI as they would have just 2 months with the new roster before the tournament began.
They added in Topson and Ana. Ana had previously taken a break from the Dota scene due to personal reasons and he returned to help OG at TI. Topson was relatively new with almost no top level experience. As a result of these changes, Notail moved to Hard Support and 7ckngMad played the Offlane Position. Ana and Topson were the position 1 and 2 while Jerax played tier 4.
In this article, we analyze the final games of The International 2018:
The final matches
Secret faced Liquid for a spot against EG. The winner of the said match would qualify to the Lower Bracket Finals. The winner of the Lower Bracket Finals goes on to the Grand Finals. Meanwhile, OG and PSG.LGD sat comfortably in the Upper Bracket Finals with just one game away from appearing in the Finale.
Lower Bracket Round 4: Team Liquid beat Team Secret (2-0)
Liquid eliminated Secret in two hard-fought games. Puppey's Secret looked to play with a Chen line up in both games but Liquid saw through his drafting both times. Liquid found victory on the back of Matumbaman's Broodmother and Miracle's Invoker in the first and second games respectively. As a result, Secret went home with ~$1,146,000.
Lower Bracket Round 5: Evil Geniuses beat Team Liquid (2-0)
The qualification match to the Lower Bracket finals saw Evil Geniuses beat Liquid 2-0 to qualify. With this victory, EG beat two of the tournament favourites 2-0 in consecutive games.
Virtus Pro and Liquid, both were eliminated by EG. EG won the first game after 64 intense minutes. The second game was much easier as Sumail's Timbersaw managed to get a 34-minute victory. Liquid went home with a cheque of ~$1,783,000.
Upper Bracket Finals: OG beats PSG.LGD(2-1)
The Upper Bracket finals saw OG beat PSG in yet another upset win for the green team. They won the best of three 2-1. OG took the first game off of a Gyro-IO line up. LGD fought back with Somnus' Storm Spirit in game 2 and took it to the final game.
In what turned out to be the best game of the entire tournament, OG mounted an incredible comeback to win the 58-minute game and book their spot in the grand finale.
Lower Bracket Finals: PSG.LGD beats Evil Geniuses(2-0)
Before the tournament began, 3 teams were favourites. PSG.LGD, Virtus Pro and Team Liquid. EG had disposed of VP and Liquid in their last two matches. They faced PSG in their next one.
Many people expected EG to pull it off and make the final clash, one of the greatest finale rematches of all time. But, LGD showed determination as they beat EG's IO-Gyro in game 1 and Somnus' Kunkka took game 2. With the victory, PSG got themselves a rematch with OG in the grand finals and EG went home with ~$2,675,000.
The Grand Finals: OG beat PSG.LGD(3-2)
The biggest E-Sports match of the season saw the series last all 5 games. The two teams went back and forth as OG broke the curse and won TI despite TI8 being in the Year of the Chinese.
OG took game 1 as Ana on Spectre proved to be too strong. PSG bounced back in game 2 with Ame on PL and fy on Earthshaker. They repeated their performance in game 3 with Ame carrying the game on Weaver. As everything seemed lost, OG mounted a comeback in game 4 and won the game after 64 minutes. 7ckngMad's offlane Axe was the crucial part of OG's winning lineup.
The final game of the series saw OG take a step back as they turned back the clock and picked Ember Spirit for Ana and Rubick for Jerax. Topson went for a safe lane, Zeus. This unorthodox line-up was enough to throw PSG off their track and OG took the game after just 36 minutes.
The win secured the Aegis for OG. OG also becomes the first player-made organisation to win TI. PSG won a total of ~$4,077,000 for their second-place finish. OG, on the other hand, won a massive amount of ~$11,213,000. This marks the highest prize in e-sporting history.
OG's victory not only makes them TI Champions but also gives them bragging rights to call themselves the best team in the world. OG came back from the brink of collapsing as a team to winning TI in the span of 3 months. This team went from underdogs to Legends.
