Virtus.pro stun OG 2-0 with surprise Techies pick

Virtus.pro (VP) looked dominant against OG, sweeping the reigning TI champions, 2-0, at the ESL One Los Angeles EU-CIS online regional league. The top dogs of the CIS region notably closed out the series with a surprise Techies pick for Bakyt “Zayac” Emilzhanov.

After utterly dominating OG in game one of the series, VP ran with an aggressive lineup of Troll Warlord for stand-in carry player Igor “iLTW” Filatov, Queen of Pain for Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko, Axe for Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok, Techies for Zayac, and Grimstroke for Alexei “Solo” Berezin.

Meanwhile, OG opted for a strong five-man composition to snowball in the midgame with Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan on Monkey King, stand-in mid laner Neta “33” Shapira on Lone Druid, stand-in offlaner Sébastien “Ceb” Debs on Batrider, Martin “Saksa” Sazdov on Phoenix, and Johan “N0tail” Sundstein on Chen.

While most Techies players use the hero defensively, Zayac instead played aggressively by constantly using his hero’s Blast Off! ability to harass enemies in lane and even go around the map to gank. Despite the pressure being applied by Zayac’s Techies, OG still got the ball rolling after the laning phase and were looking to start their midgame snowball.

VP were able to stop OG’s momentum at the 19-minute mark when they picked off Ceb at the top lane, which then allowed them to win a fight at the mid lane where they took down SumaiL, 33, and N0tail.

The CIS squad then took full control of the game after winning back-to-back team fights just outside OG’s base — including one where Zayac notched a Triple Kill with his mines in a chaotic fight — around the 25-minute mark.

OG was hard-pressed to find an opening to strike back at VP due to the ring of mines that Zayac set up around their base. That allowed the CIS squad to cleanly secure the Aegis of the Immortal at the 38-minute mark, which they quickly used to win the deciding clash of the series and end the game after an action-packed 40 minutes.

No[o]ne notched a game-high 12 kills, along with 14 assists against just one death, to lead his team to a dominant victory to sweep one of the favorites to win the tournament. Zayac had the next highest kill tally with nine, as his excellent Techies play enabled his team’s aggressive lineup to shine.

With their win, VP now lead Group A with a clean 5-0 match record. Meanwhile, OG fall to a 3-2 record and are in a three-way tie for second place in their group with Team Nigma and Vikin.gg.

VP and OG will continue their group stage campaigns at the ESL One Los Angeles EU-CIS online regional league on April 14, with VP taking on Nigma and OG going up against HellRaisers.