Similar to yesterday, there were only two games that were played today, and both of them were from the Lower Bracket. Let’s take a look at what happened in both series.

Evil Geniuses vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas

With the series win against @NIPGaming at the #DreamleagueMajor, Evil Geniuses Dota 2 is CONFIRMED for #TI9 in Shanghai, China ??. We'll see you there. #BleedBlue #EGReady pic.twitter.com/X3SipJ0w6J — Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) March 19, 2019

The first series of the days was between EG and NiP, two teams that have a lot in common. After all, The TI 5 Champion’s lineup had ppd as their captain.

Game One

In typical NiP fashion, they went with a pushing based start involving Chen, Shadow Shaman, and Lycan. Probably their most questionable pick was Timbersaw, who was very ineffective for most of the game. On the contrary, EG decided to go with a more fighting lineup, which suits their playstyle.

EG was more active during the early stages of the game mainly due to Cr1t’s Earth Spirit, who was basically all around the map. His rotations helped the NA powerhouse win the top lane, even though Timber’s lane is usually hard to beat.

As the game went on, NiP’s tactic was slowly starting to backfire. Despite pushing some early towers, they just could not take any proper team fights. On top of that, EG’s cores began to slowly gain significantly more advantage over their opponents which made NiP’s task even harder.

Ppd and his teammates tried to do some split pushing, but it was unsuccessful. Game one went in favor of Evil Geniuses.

Game Two

In the second game, Evil Geniuses first picked Earth Spirit for Cr1t after his fantastic performance in game one. On the other hand, NiP completely changed their strategy. Instead of pushing, they focused on a very team-fight based line-up around Huskar.

They did well during the first ten minutes of the game. However, a very messy fight went in favor of EG around the 13th-minute mark that set the pace for the remaining part of the game.

Slowly but steadily, the two cores of the NA powerhouse started to look very scary. They never allowed NiP to have any chance of a comeback because they were just all over the place.

Following their 2-0 victory, Evil Geniuses advance further in the event. What’s more, they have also guaranteed their direct invite for the upcoming The International 2019 because even if they lose the next game, they will still have the needed DPC Points.

So far the directly invited teams are Team Secret, VP and now - EG.

Virtus.Pro vs. Chaos Esports Club

The second series of the day was a battle between David and Goliath, at least on paper. However, the reality was a little bit different. Chaos Esports was looking very motivated after their explosive win against Team Liquid in the previous round.

Game One

The South American team’s draft in game one was very similar to the one against Liquid. It seems like they’ve practiced Omni and Ursa a lot because they needed just 22 minutes to finish off Virtus.Pro.

Chaos gave VP no chance, even though they were pressured from the start. As soon as they grabbed the lead, they just held it until the end. VP’s counter plan was just not working, and they had no other choice but to GG out.

Game Two

Of course, a team of Virtus.Pro’s caliber was not going down without a fight. They picked No[o]ne one of his signature heroes - Morhpling. The Ukranian star just ripped through the South Americans like a knife through butter. Chaos tried to quell the pace in order to make room for their Gyrocopter, but that just did not happen. It just seems like those tempo-based line-ups have no chance if they fail to have a good start.

Game Three

Both teams gave it all in game 3. However, the winner was only one - Virtus.Pro.

Unlike the previous games where one team just stomped the other, here it was a little bit different. Even though VP had the lead nearly through the entire game, it was never big enough to make themselves comfortable.

W33ha’s Razor was the strongest hero for the first 30 minutes, but he was just unable to carry his team to victory. The team fight from the CIS team was just something that Chaos had no answer to.

There was a very back-and-forth fight around Roshan 34 minutes in that, in the end, went in favor of VP after a buyback from Ramzess. This was probably one of the biggest mistakes from Chaos because they just left the aegis to their enemies.

Having the momentum, it was just a matter of time before Solo and Co. were able to win the game.

Conclusion

DreamLeague Season 11 will continue tomorrow with two more games from the Lower Bracket. The Chongqing Major Champions will meet J.storm, but the "spicier" game will be EG against VP.

If you missed any of the action from the previous days, check out our recaps here.