Home I eSports I eSports I OG: MDL Macau Minor Champions
OG, the four time DotA 2 Major Champions, have just marked their presence in the MDL Macau Minor. They have lifted the trophy and are back into the running, securing the 8th position in the DotA 2 Pro Circuit. This means that OG will have quite a chance to be directly invited to TI8 if they keep up their current performance and rhythm.
MDL Macau Season 6 was held in Macau University Music Hall from 8 to 12 December. The tournament featured nine teams in which three were directly invited while the rest secured their spot through regional qualifiers. The prize pool was $300,000 and 300 Qualifying Points were up for grabs. The winner took 43% of the prize pool, along with half of the Pro Circuit points.
For quite a well, OG was facing a tough time in the new season of DotA 2 competitive gaming. There were quite a few tournaments in which they qualified but the results were not great. Even with Roman «Resolut1on» Fominok making his way on the team in place of Anathan «ana» Pham, it was not very fruitful for the organization in the start. However, with just the right amount of practice and bootcamping, OG has proved they deserve to be the champions of MDL Macau.
The latest lineup of OG has also brought some changes to their strategy as observed in the DotA 2 minor tournament. In the best-of-three grand finals against TnC Gaming, the team that crushed Virtus.Pro in the semi-finals, OG’s strategy was based on the hero of Resolut1on. The idea was to create enough space for Resolut1on so that he could farm well and carry the team in the later stages of the game.
Having a perfect Morphling game, OG did not miss the chance and grabbed Morphling for Resolut1on. The rest of the team was creating enough space for him and he got his Linken’s Sphere at the 18 minute mark, followed at 23 minutes with a farmed Ethereal Blade. The rest is history as he was taking down all of the players in TnC Gaming’s lineup in pretty much one shot. Jesse «JerAx» Vainikka on his Elder Titan created multiple stacks for Morphling to speed up his farm rate while BigDaddy Johan «NOtail» Sundstein created a lot of space for him by ganking and securing the towers. The game lasted for 30 minutes before TnC Gaming, outplayed with a 10K gold lead, tapped out. GG.
Another day, another game for Resolut1on’s Invoker and like before, OG didn’t waste any time to pick him as it was a perfect Invoker game. This time TnC Gaming did ban out Morphling but they were not expecting such a deadly combo from OG. On the other side, OG picked the Shadow Demon and Tiny combo followed by the Sunstrike by Invoker. This combo made the life of TnC Gaming players miserable. They were not able to farm anywhere on the map safely. On top of that, JerAx’s signature hero, Earth Spirit, was picked and he did what he had to do: create as much space as he could for the cores. The game was finished at the 40-minute mark when TnC Gaming couldn’t do much about the Brewmaster’s ultimate on top of Alacrity.
With this win, OG lifted the trophy and grabbed $130,000 prize money along with 150 DPC.