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ViCi Gaming vs. Cloud 9

ViCi Gaming hold a 1-0 lead after day 1.

　　For the second game of the series Cloud 9 busted out the Meepo pick for WehSing 'SingSing' Yuen against a facerush strategy by ViCI Gaming. VG got off to a good start, however once Sing started to get involved in fights, his ability to get up close and personal and deliver the burst damage to heroes such as VG's central Death Prophet, things started to turn around quickly. VG were shown to lack the means to initiate fights effectively, while C9 excelled at it, which eventually became the deciding factor of the game after VG decided they had to commit to a push at mid lane around the 37 minute mark. While VG managed to take the Barracks, C9's ability to chase with Pittner 'bOne7' Armand hooking in and Blink Daggers being up on Doom as well as Meepo meant that VG lost their entire team after having expended the Exorcism. This one faithful loss lead into a C9 push at bottom lane which ended the game, with a detour for a desperate final push from VG which could not hold a candle to the power of the Meepo beating at their throne.

　　For the final game of the series Cloud 9 had a strong Facerush lineup of their own. However they made the faithful call of going for a level 1 Roshan, which VG ended up sniffing out, claiming three kills and causing them to dominate the laning stage. With Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao shut down for the remainder of the game off of his terrible lane against VG's strong offensive trilane, C9 lacked the tools to come back in what was clear would have been a favourable game for them had they not committed to this desperate first play. Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun on the Morphling got completely out of hand, and eventually ended the game at around the 30 minute mark.

　　ViCi Gaming receive EternaLEnVy's mercy and continue on with a 2-1 victory over Cloud 9.

　　Games to watch: Game 2.

　　

Team DK vs. LGD

LGD hold a 1-0 lead after day 1.

　　DK ran an offensive trilane with Razor, Wraith King and Ancient Apparition, getting off to a great start due to an invisibility rune that netted them a tripple kill. This opened things up for DK to rotate around, securing their other lanes and ensure that as they hit the mid game, they had the tools they needed in order to come online first and punish LGD's slower lineup, netting them an early snowball and equalizing the series in 28 minutes on the back of great performances by Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung on the Outworld Devourer as well as Daryl 'iceiceice' Koh on the Tidehunter.

　　DK got off to another strong start, securing virtual free farm for Mushi on the Shadow Fiend as well as Zhi Lei 'BurNIng' Xu on the Weaver. With LGD playing a bit too passive, it was DK who were the first to start applying pressure with an early Mekansm on Mushi and coming out on top of fights with great individual play from Zeng Rong 'MMY' Lei on his signature Lion. LGD were kept in the game by their stand-out player Wang 'Rabbit' Zhang on the Batrider, who was able to find several key pick-offs on Mushi during the early mid game, while BurNIng was still farming away, expanding his gold lead. Eventually DK started to adapt to LGD's initiation, taking control of the game and dictating the engagements again, resulting in LGD losing towers, being constricted and eventually falling too far behind and losing the game by 41 minutes.

　　Team DK come back to defeat LGD 2-1.

　　Games to watch: Game 3 is the better game.

　　

ViCi Gaming vs. Team DK

ViCi Gaming went for an offensive trilane which ended up absolutely shutting down BurNIng's Anti-Mage after he went for a faithful early value point into Mana Break. As a result, VG were well on their way to execute their massive pushing lineup, with all of DK's hopes resting on Mushi's Tinker to stem the tide and allowing DK to recover. This was successful for a while, until Mushi died without buyback at 25 minutes, resulting in VG being able to take their first lane of Barracks and assuming complete control of the game. With the influx of gold, VG got a Pipe of Insight and Xie 'Super' Junhao on the Razor got his double Aghanim's Ultimates as well as Heart of Tarrasque up, becoming literally unkillable, resulting in VG's win at 39 minutes of play.

　　ViCi seemed to get the best of DK in the mindgames surrounding the lanes, setting up a dual lane at mid and an offensive dual lane, which truly took off with Linsen 'Fy' Xu on the Shadow Shaman being able to punish some poor positioning in the jungle from the DK supports, netting the First Blood and starting up the VG snowball. With Sylar once again getting huge on Morphling at mid lane, all of DK's hopes in this game rested on iceiceice to get off the perfect Chronosphere in order to follow it up with an Ice Blast. They were able to pull this off a few times, but it was not enough when Mushi's start on Queen of Pain had been lackluster after a few easy deaths, and when BurNIng on the Razor started to stall as well VG eventually rocketed ahead and into a 44 minute victory.

　　ViCi Gaming send Team DK packing 2-0, eliminating the last former TI finalist in MMY.

　　Games to watch: Both games are ok, but neither stay particularly close for long.

　　

ViCi Gaming vs. Evil Geniuses

The first game of the series was not so much a game as a complete outdraft, with ViCi setting up an offensive trilane and proceeding to dominate all three lanes, effectively winning the game before the lanes were over and breaking EG's base by 12 minutes, forcing a 'GG' call by 16 minutes.

　　VG tried to shut down Ludwig 'Zai' Wåhlberg's Enigma quite heavily early on, however this in turn along with a slightly surprising laning by EG with Mason 'Mason' Venne being thrown to the offlane on the Weaver, ended up allowing EG to get a lot out of the lanes. While VG were moving around better early on, it fell on Saahil 'UNiVeRsE' Arora playing the Faceless Void to keep his team in the game, and not only did he do that buy he teamed up with Zai in order to create the plays that took back control of the pace of the game for EG through back to back teamfight wins. Under cover of Universe big plays Mason was in turn able to farm himself up, overcoming his few early deaths in order to become a true powerhouse and the most farmed person on the map, further bolstering EG's ability to take fights and winning them the game in 45 minutes.

　　VG went for an all in push strategy, with EG picking up a good creep clearing lineup but one that took a while to get online, allowing VG to pick up the early kills and once again snowball out of control. With key heroes such as Zai's Enigma hurting for early farm they were unable to contest towers, resulting in a progressively worsening position to fight from until they eventually were forced to 'GG' out at 15 minutes with their base in shambles.

　　ViCi Gaming eliminate the last Western team, ensuring the first ever all Chinese finals of The International.

　　Games to watch: Game 2.