This article is part of our Dota 2 Recap series.
After a tense day of lower bracket action during the second day of the Dota 2 Asia Championships Main Event, three teams were eliminated from competition. The first two teams eliminated today, VG.J and Team Faceless, ended the tournament in 7th-8th place. Team Empire, the final team eliminated, finished in 5th-6th place.
The first match of the day was a battle between VG.J, the old guard of Chinese Dota, and relative newcomers to the scene iG.Vitality. VG.J took an extremely commanding Game 1 win largely thanks to Lu "Fenrir" Chao's excellent Silencer play. VG.J tried to rely on the power of Silencer in all three games, even making it a core hero in Game 2. iG.Vitality were more than prepared for this after Game 1 though. iG.Vitality won Game 2, evening out the series and bringing it all down to a Game 3. Game 3 was incredibly intense. Despite taking a sizable early lead VG.J couldn't close out the game in time, and the young iG.Vitality squad eliminated its elders after a close 57-minute Game 3.
The next game of the day was Evil Geniuses vs Faceless. Going into this match, Evil Geniuses was the clear favorites based on its past performance. Despite this, Faceless showed up in form. After eliminating Liquid on the first day of playoffs, Faceless came prepared to add another upset to its belt. The first game in the series was extremely close, but Evil Geniuses managed to secure mega creeps and the win after almost an hour. After such an intense first game, the end of this series was a complete let down. Evil Geniuses rolled over Faceless in Game 2, securing the fastest win of the playoffs so far at only 27 minutes.
In the final series of the day, iG.Vitality returned to the main stage to take on Team Empire. In the first game of the series, both teams went for classic comfort heroes. Empire took Phantom Assassin and Invoker, while iG.Vitality got the coveted Monkey King and Lina. The star of the game was undoubtedly Rostislav "fn" Lozovoi's Invoker for Empire. Empire were able to rally around his damage to take extremely convincing fight wins on the way to a Game 1 win. Game 2 was all iG.Vitality, all the way. They took control of the game early with their Terrorblade and never let up for the win. In the final game of the series, it was Empire's turn to take control early on with some classic CIS aggression. iG.Vitality were more than prepared for this, though. When it came time to fight five-on-five, iG.Vitality dominated Empire on their way to another victory.
The Dota 2 Asia Championships will continue starting Sunday at 10:00 p.m. EST with more lower bracket action between Evil Geniuses and Newbee.
