For those who doubted Virtus.pro for signing a new roster, all that should be erased. This is because VP brought home the crown in the recently concluded Dota 2 EPIC League Division 1. The team beat out two-time The International champion OG at 3–2 and raked in $200,000 in prize money.
Today, we look at the journey and what it means for the team.
The team’s journey started in November when the organization let go of its old roster and signed those in VP/Prodigy. It ended the team headlined by Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko, who had been with VP since 2016. You can read more about that here.
Right now, the roster includes:
- Egor “epileptick1d” Grigorenko
- Danil “gpk” Skutin
- Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin
- Vitaliy “Save-“ Melnik (Team Captain)
- Illias “illias” Ganeev
Group Stage and Playoffs
This is the first tier 1 tournament that the roster has participated in and clearly, they got what it takes. VP performed strongly in the Group Stage. They landed on top with a standing of 7–2. Their two losses were against Team Liquid and Vikin.gg.
This guaranteed them a spot in the Playoffs. In their journey to the Grand Final, they pretty much dominated and swept their opponents. In the first round against Team Secret, they kept the top tier team to just eight total kills for both games.
Their next game was against Vikin.gg and unlike the Group Stage, VP showed how prepared they are for this tournament. In the first game, VP finished with a 26–10 score and the lead was even greater in the second game with 44 – 16.
All this pointed to the Grand Finals against OG. OG had to go through the Play-in and work their way from the Lower Bracket to the Grand Finals.
Starting Strong
In the first game, VP showed how good they are when they demolished OG. The game lasted for 42 minutes with VP managing to get 47 total team kills, that would be over one kill a minute. Leading the way was epileptick1d on Sven with 15 kills. Note that OG only had 10 team kills.
Back To Form
Despite the devastating loss in the first game, OG continued to trust its line-up. They still picked Morphling for Topias Miikka "Topson" Taavitsainen. With OG’s Yeik "MidOne" Nai Zheng on Chaos Knight, OG returned the favor and tied the series 1–1.
In the third game, OG picked Morphling again for Topson while Earth Spirit for Martin "Saksa" Sazdov for the third time. At this point, OG looked like schooling VP’s new roster. The game was over in less than 20 minutes and gave OG the lead 2–1.
Going for the Win
Obviously, by the fourth game, VP had no choice but to ban Morphling. In a surprising move, OG chose Ancient Apparition for Topson. It’s likely that in any other game this would have worked. With epileptick1d on Ursa though, it became difficult for OG. Add in strong support from Vitalie "Save-" Melnic on Rubick and it was a recipe for a win. VP tied the series 2–2.
In the fifth game, VP managed to get a strong start. OG, however, proved their championship mettle and managed to hold on. But VP eventually overwhelmed OG. They were victorious and grabbed the championship with it.
What's Next?
With the win, the new VP is showing that they are indeed more than ready to go head-to-head with the best. As DPC is expected to return next year, it would be interesting to see how far this new roster can go.
