This article is part of our Dota 2 Recap series.
The third day of the Summit 6 started out in the lower brackets, where two teams were eliminated from the event.
The first series of the day started with EHOME against Team NP. Both of these teams had a very difficult opponent on the first day of the event. EHOME managed to take a game against Virtus Pro with a Huskar draft, and NP did almost win their first game against Wings, but otherwise neither team put up much of a fight in their respective series.
EHOME went for several of their favorite heroes in Game 1 like Undying and Spirit Breaker, but NP were having none of it. With Warlock to either initiate or turn around fights, trying to fight into NP was asking for disaster. After NP five-man wiped EHOME in about three seconds around the 21 minute mark, the game was effectively over. The remaining eight minutes were mostly a formality as NP shored up their leads before pushing EHOME's base. The second game was very similar to the first. NP crushed fights with Warlock, and EHOME were totally helpless against it. NP went for a very clever and entertaining triple Linken's Sphere strategy. With three charges of spell block, their Omniknight Repel was impossible for EHOME to purge. Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling's Sven was literally impossible for EHOME to kill at any point in the game. With the series loss EHOME became the first team to be eliminated from the Summit 6, while NP moves on to face Evil Geniuses. NP recently beat Evil Geniuses in a best-of-one at the Northern Arena Beat Invitational, but a best-of-three is an entirely different beast.
The second series of the day was Digital Chaos vs. Faceless. After getting convincingly beaten by OG on Day 2, Digital Chaos were wasting no time going for a win Friday as they busted out the Meepo for Aliwi "w33" Omar in Game 1. This was the most one-sided game of the tournament so far. It only took Digital Chaos 19 minutes to win, and Faceless was only able to get a single kill. Game 2 was much more intense. Faceless got off to a much better start and established a nice lead of around 10,000 for most of the game. Despite their lead, Digital Chaos had the power of Warlock on their side, so fights were pretty close for much of the game. Eventually Faceless was able to win three excellent fights in a row and take the game. In Game 3 Faceless went for the absolute classic Dominik "Black^" Reitmeier Anti-Mage. Digital Chaos responded with a fairly standard draft with Faceless Void, Invoker and Juggernaut as their cores. Digital Chaos played this game extremely well as they won all of the lanes and fought better as a team all game. There were a few moments when Faceless looked like they might mount a comeback on the back of a huge Reverse Polarity, but Digital Chaos never gave them the opportunity. With the loss, Faceless becomes the second team to be eliminated from the Summit. This was their first event outside of Southeast Asia, and Faceless clearly still needs to refine their play before taking on international competition. Digital Chaos advances to face Wings in a rematch of The International 6 Grand Finals, but this time it's in the lower bracket.
The final series of the day was the winner bracket final between OG and Virtus Pro. Both teams had a relatively quick and easy run to this match. Virtus Pro did drop a game to EHOME, but it was to Huskar. They looked extremely strong against Wings later that Wednesday, taking a 2-0 win. OG blazed their way through the competition, taking both series 2-0. OG went for the crowd-pleasing Pudge pick for Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka in Game 1, and he absolutely crushed with it. His early hooks were devastating, and he almost single handedly made sure that OG won their lanes. Winning lanes was all it took, and Virtus Pro conceded the game after 11 minutes. This was the fastest game of the tournament, breaking Digital Chaos' record of 19 minutes. After their Game 1 thrashing, Virtus Pro decided to rest their chances on a Roman "Ramzes" Kushnarev carry Bloodseeker. Everyone on Virtus Pro played much better in Game 2, and while Ramzes did play well, Bloodseeker didn't contribute anything extra special to the game. The true hero for Virtus Pro was Vladimir "No[o]ne" Minenko's Dragon Knight. No[o]ne won his lane and then showed up to every early fight for Virtus Pro, giving them a massive damage advantage even against Drow Ranger. Virtus Pro took a very solid win in Game 2, a huge turnaround from their brutal Game 1 loss. In Game 3 OG went for a solid Sven Dragon Knight mass armor lineup against Virtus Pro's Slardar and Drow Ranger. Virtus Pro also picked Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk's signature Weaver support. The combination of Drow Ranger turned Lil's support Weaver into a fourth core's worth of damage, especially in the early game. OG couldn't react fast enough to the crazy early fights Virtus Pro were able to take. Apart from JerAx's Earth Spirit, none of them had the mobility to keep up. With the win, Virtus Pro secures their spot in the grand final on Sunday while OG drops to the lower bracket final.
