One of the first games of the day at MDL 2016 had marked OG’s debut in the 6.86 patch, facing the Chinese favorites Vici Gaming.
Game One:
OG decided to test the Vengeful Spirit carry option and went for an aura stack - push oriented line up with Chen and Invoker while Vici Gaming relied on a strong team fight draft with Outworld Devourer and the nasty combo - Phoenix Supernova into Witch Doctor Cask.
The entire laning phase went to OG’s favor as they pretty much destroyed both VG’s Bristleback and Phoenix. But all the fun easy times have suddenly ended for them once VG teamed up for five man Dota. Early BKB for OD allowed Xie "Super" Junhao to crush every hero with his right clicks and VG cornered OG in their own base quite early into the game. There was no comeback hope for OG and VG capitalized on their momentum and took the first game of the series in 40 minutes.
Game Two:
The drafting phase of OG for the second game of the series was either a rookie mistake or a bold try to outplay Vici Gaming. N0tail and co chose to pick an Anti-Mage after VG opened with a very efficient ganking support duo; Vengeful Spirit - Night Stalker.
Again the laning phase went quite well for OG but the fact that Lu "Fenrir" Chao - NS was involved in all the early ganks put him a bit ahead in terms of levels and farm which translated into a nightmare for Chao Amer "Miracle-" al-Barqaw’s Anti-Mage who was hunt down by the two supports of VG all over the map. The Swap into Silence combo proved to be super efficient for the early to mid game pickoffs and paired with the aoe Silence from Super’s Death Prophet, again gave VG a superior team fight setup.
27-8 was the final kill score in VG’s favor who took their first series at MDL group stage with a 2-0 victory meaning the first two points have been secured for them.
OG‘s next matchup will be versus Evil Geniuses while Vici Gaming will play Newbee in their next series.
