This article is part of our Dota 2 Recap series.
The sixth Summit tournament kicked off Wednesday, featuring eight teams that will be attending the Boston Major in December. As a result this tournament is a mini-preview of the upcoming major, since the next balance patch will not be released until December 12, two days after the completion of the major.
The first match of the day was Virtus Pro vs EHOME. Virtus Pro has been looking like a very strong team after they announced their fall roster in August. They recently beat OG to qualify for ESL One Genting, and that form seems to have stuck with them. They took an extremely convincing win with Shadow Demon and Luna in Game 1, forcing EHOME to concede in 26 minutes. EHOME struck back with a Huskar draft in Game 2, and although it faltered early, things worked out for EHOME in the end. They eventually hit the critical mass of items on Huskar to let them steamroll Virtus Pro. In Game 3, Virtus Pro closed it out with a curveball Sniper middle pick. In all three games, Ren "old eleven" Yangwei played exceptionally in the offlane for EHOME. His Dark Seer gave them their only good fight in Game 1, and his Clockwerk arguably carried EHOME in Game 2. If EHOME wants to continue on in the lower bracket, the rest of the team will need to get up to old eleven's level.
The second series of the day was a rematch of the Northern Arena Beat Invitational grand finals, as Team NP took on Wings Gaming. The series actually panned out in a very similar fashion to the NA Beat Invitational finals, as Team NP looked on track to win Game 1, but lost and then put together a much weaker show in Game 2. Game 1 was much closer this time however, with the net worth lead never passing 8,000 for either team until the end. The second game was much more in Wings' control, although NP did manage to mount a small comeback on the back of Jackie "EternaLEnVy" Mao's Alchemist. Unfortunately for NP, Alchemist comebacks are very volatile and a few deaths completely threw his advantage out the window. All things considered, NP looked pretty good in this series against The International 6 champions, Wings. Their next match against EHOME is well within their ability to win, and we could still see another Wings vs. NP grand final.
The final series of the day saw Virtus Pro against Wings. Virtus Pro managed to take the first game on the back of some really exceptional team play. Everyone on Virtus Pro did their part, and there was no one feeding unnecessary deaths to slow down their victory. That was thanks to in part, the fact that Wings picked a very strange lineup, even by their standards. With both a Nyx Assassin and Tuskar support, they were extremely dependent on getting an advantage from early kills. Virtus Pro made sure they never managed to find these kills, and when Virtus Pro came to fight Wings found themselves essentially fighting three-vs-five. In Game 2, Virtus Pro went back for Sniper again, pairing it with Ogre Magi's Bloodlust to great effect. Although Vladimir "No[o]ne" Mineko did finish the game with the most impressive stats, this was once again a true team effort. Without his teammates to save him, No[o]ne would have been food for Wings' Slark and Sand King. Wings' 2-0 loss to Virtus Pro is the first time that Wings have lost a series on LAN since they got second place at the second season of the Nanyang Championships. The lower bracket is unfamiliar territory for Wings, although their next opponent will be either Team NP or EHOME, who Wings have very good records against.
