This article is part of our Dota 2 Recap series.
The final day of the MarsTV Autumn finals featured a group of teams that displayed an enormous amount of success last season: Evil Geniuses, OG and Newbee. With each team sporting relatively new rosters heading into the event, the MarsTV Autumn finals became a testing ground for what could be the next crop of elite teams this season.
The first match of the day centered around the lower bracket final between Evil Geniuses and OG to decide who would face Newbee in the grand finals. Much like the previous renditions of the Evil Geniuses roster, this edition of opened the series with an incredibly greedy quad-core lineup. Following in Clement "Puppey" Ivanov's footsteps, Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg went for a unique Naga Siren build, opting to use the support hero coupled with Radiance. In addition to that, EG opted to place Artour "Arteezy" Babaev on Anti-Mage against Anathan "Ana" Pham's Morphling. The two decisions played major dividends in the Game 1 win, as Evil Geniuses was able to grind OG down during the 55 minute contest. OG managed to bounce back in Game 2, and went for a Drow Ranger strategy to control the pace of the game. zai was a terror once again, but was unable to gain Radiance until the 26 minute mark, a move that ultimately helped OG claim a Game 2 victory. In Game 3, both teams went back for greedy farming strategies. OG went for an early Naga Siren pick, and EG responded with Alchemist and Shadow Demon plus Luna. A complete team-wipe before creeps even spawned all but doomed OG, however, as EG took the ensuing gold advantage and ran away with the game, putting an end to the series in just 30 minutes and securing its place in the grand finals.
With the MarsTV title and $112,500 on the line, Evil Geniuses squared off against Newbee in an upper bracket finals rematch. Newbee won the first bout thoroughly, beating the EG squad 2-0. It would be up to Andreas "Cr1t" Nielsen and the boys to prove if EG could still pull off the lower bracket miracles that they became known for under the leadership of Peter "ppd" Dager.
In Game 1 EG went for another greedy lineup, once again opting for four heroes farming. This time, however, zai opted to use Warlock instead of his successful Naga Siren. That move turned out to be brilliant, as he was able to get his hands (pun intended) on Hand of Midas early, turning fights into easy wins for EG. Combining with Saahil "Universe" Arora's Chronospheres, Newbee never stood any chance in a full five-on-five engagement. Newbee even went back to the well, using Song "Sccc" Chun's Invoker which whooped EG in the upper bracket finals, but it wasn't enough as EG easily secured the round win. Game 2 was the Syed "SumaiL" Hassan show. The returning superstar was able to give everyone a little reminder of why people wanted Icefrog to give Storm Spirit the nickname 'SumaiL Spirit'. Arteezy was also playing exceptionally well on Ursa, making the game a true nightmare for Newbee's supports. Newbee were able to finally bounce back in Game 3. After trying and failing to lane aggressively with Xu "uuu9" Han in the first two games, Newbee fell back to a traditional lane setup. This worked out much better for them, and uuu9 was able to get off to a good start while both Newbee supports were free to assist other lanes. They did an effective job shutting down EG's Drow Ranger lineup with overwhelming team fight, and managed to take the series to a fourth game. In Game 4 EG managed to close out the series with a very convincing win. A late Medusa pick in combination with Io and Winter Wyvern made EG's lineup almost impossible for Newbee to bring down. This was a very solid all around effort from EG, not only in game but also in the draft.
