Virtus.Pro took home the Bucharest Major title after a thrilling grand final match against VGJ.Thunder at the Polyvalent Hall in Bucharest, Romania. The team was unstoppable throughout the tournament and made the result academic -- with the victory, VP has garnered enough points to qualify for The International 8 in Seattle.
The talented Chinese team, VGJ.Thunder played beautiful DOTA 2 throughout Bucharest and it reflected in the tournament result. Liu "Sylar" Jiajun and Liu "Freeze" Chang played efficiently throughout the tournament and showed off their incredible chemistry together. Sylar showed his ability to be a world-class carry and Freeze, although he saw some holes in the laning phase, was an elite mid laner. The team's smaller hero pool prevented a better finish as the underdogs were outclassed by Virtus.Pro, but the emergence of yet another threat to the DOTA 2 competition proved that the health of the game was well-intact.
Kings of consistency
Virtus.Pro is the best team in the world. The strengths of the team involve drafting high-mobility support heroes that cause chaos during the first 10 minutes of the game, rotate cores after shoving lanes for the number advantages in fights, plant deep vision to mark enemy movement, and execute high-level timing teamfights.
The gameplan excels in the early game and the team's ability to fight regardless of the score secures the comeback factor or the opponent's death rattle. In the grand finals, there was no better representation of Virtus.Pro's skill than the third game when a last-pick Broodmother nearly took down the high ground at six minutes. Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan's Earth Spirit was chaos incarnate. His constant motion and rolling ganks forced VGJ.Thunder's cores to rotate in uncomfortable trades and freed up the off lanes and mid lanes to farm and push at will.
RodjER is the underrated star of the team. His ability to truly create a gank out of seemingly zero resources, force rotations from the opposing team, or just secure space for the team is top-notch. Enough is said about Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev and Vladimir "No[o]ne Minenko's ability to carry a game, but this duo is truly the best at their respective lanes and roles; it took three games in the grand finals for No[o]ne to die once. So, how does a team beat Virtus.Pro? So far, the riddle remains unsolvable.
Disappointing finishes
Evil Geniuses took another step forward with its strong Top 8 showing in Bucharest, but the inconsistencies of the roster reared its ugly head. The boys in blue did take down an elite team in Team Liquid, but fell to the same lineup in the playoffs. The individual skill and reputation of the team is well-documented, but the lane composition and hero drafts were still confusing; the debate of which player should play middle, off or safe was still in debate. Once the team establishes its line of leadership and core roles, this team will soar back to its Top 5 status in the world without any more questions or jokes. But until then, Evil Geniuses will remain a mystery.
Team Secret should be considered an elite team, but it ran into a buzz saw in Newbee and its own midgame shortcomings. Despite its stellar lane phase and secured net worth for the star core players, Marcus "Ace" Hoelgaard and Yeik "MidOne" Zheng, its teamfighting and ability to snowball was lacking. This team is brimming with talent and the adjustment needs to be made. Despite the team's claim to elite status, there are gaping holes in its game plan for success -- Team Secret needs to secure greedy starts and snowball off of its skilled players. The DOTA 2 world is catching up, but there's still plenty of time to improve.