This article is part of our Dota 2 series.
Evil Geniuses have been eliminated from The International 7 in Seattle.
Yes, you read that right.
In the biggest upset at TI7 so far, Evil Geniuses watched their tournament dreams die on Day 2 of the Main Event as Team Empire laid waste to the juggernauts of Dota 2.
Now, the number of teams still in the running has fallen to just 10.
Empire upset in the lower bracket
The series of the night featured a matchup between Evil Geniuses and Team Empire. The crowd in the KeyArena was clearly in the Evil Geniuses court, with the audience roaring whenever EG picked up a kill. While EG tried to feed off this support, the noise didn't seem to faze Empire one bit.
Despite Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok being the only player on Empire with TI experience, the other four players looked very composed even in the face of adversity. What transpired will surely go down as one of the greatest moments in TI history, as Empire fought through two grueling matches totaling almost 120 minutes of gameplay to eliminate the former champions.
It was a true back-and-forth affair that wasn't decided until the final moments of each game. Empire will now look to topple another stalwart in Team Liquid in the next round of the lower bracket.
Meanwhile, Team Liquid took on Team Secret to keep its tournament hopes alive.
Secret decided to take a page out of Virtus.pro's playbook, fighting hard and fast against Liquid. The star of the show was Clement "Puppey" Ivanov's Spirit Breaker, as the pressure he applied in the early game put Liquid on the back foot almost immediately. Secret never let Liquid recover, coasting to an easy victory in another quick game that came in at just 29 minutes. With its tournament life on the line, Liquid went back to its roots, drafting Lycan and Alchemist, two of its most historically successful heroes, and evened up the series. It's always exciting for the fans when a series goes to all three games, but for the players this was anything but fun. After its massive success in Game 1, Puppey went back for his early Spirit Breaker pick, but this time Liquid's spirits were far from broken. After a massive teamfight win near Roshan, Liquid came roaring back into the game to take the series and keep its TI7 hopes alive.
LGD.Forever Young and Virtus.pro blitz through upper bracket
The upper bracket began with TNC Pro Team vs LGD.Forever Young facing off in the upper bracket. Both teams came prepared with a plan in mind. TNC made a noble effort, but fell short both times; it all started in the drafting phase. A late stage Terrorblade pick in Game 1 left TNC with no room to draft a hero that could deal with him in the late game. Carlo "Kuku" Palad's Alchemist in Game 1 gave TNC a fighting chance, but it couldn't close out the game despite having a large lead. Game 2 was much more straightforward. LFY came online much faster than TNC, and managed to push down the TNC base before Marc Polo "Raven" Luis Fausto was ready to fight on his Naga Siren. TNC now drops to the lower bracket, where it will face off against OG.
In the second upper bracket match, Virtus.pro came exploding out of the gate against LGD. Virtus.pro finished the group stage with some shaky results, ending up tied with iG at 10-6. Despite these results, LGD got way more than it bargained for in Game 1. Virtus.pro rolled over LGD in just 25 minutes, the fastest game of the Main Event so far. Virtus.pro weren't looking to slow down the pace at all in Game 2. Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk surprised everyone with a Chen pick, just the second of the tournament after Fnatic picked it in a loss to LGD earlier in the tournament. Virtus.pro certainly made great use of the aggression that Chen brings to the table, rallying around the Chen and Aghanim's Scepter to knock LGD into the lower bracket where it will face Digital Chaos. Virtus.pro, meanwhile, will take on LGD.Forever Young in the next round of the upper bracket.
