Announced earlier this week, the JoinDOTA Masters is a series of five mini-tournaments, each with their own cash price of €500(~$662). Tournament #1 was fought over the course of two days between 8 high level European teams in a series of Bo1 elimination games with Evil Geniuses taking out NEXT.kz in the Bo3 finals in a convincing manner.

EG fought their way into the finals by defeating Western Wolves on the first day and mousesports in the semi-finals in a 90-minute game that was thrilling to the last minute. NEXT.kz dispatched Team Dignitas in the quarterfinals and Counter Logic Gaming in the semi-finals. NEXT.kz unfortunately had to play the entire tournament under-manned, Vitaliy 'RONIN' Khan being replaced by Roman 'rmN' Paley in the quarterfinals and Daniil 'Dendi' Ishutin of Natus Vincere for the rest of the tourney.

NEXT.kz started the first game of the finals strongly by surprising with a level one Roshan kill and holding onto their advantage with continuous Roshan kills for the first half an hour until EG managed to win a teamfight and claim the 4th Roshan and proceeding to press their way into victory. EG were strong through the entire second game, outpushing and outganking NEXT.kz in the early game and winning mid-game engagements with their teamfight-heavy lineup. Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho held the key position for EG, racking up 10 kills in the first 18 minutes with his solo mid Leshrac.

Also worth noting is that the entire tournament is among the first played with the DotA 6.74 changes implemented into Dota 2 which clearly influenced the drafting trends in the tourney. Morphling continued his recent trending and was picked or banned in every game but one and being victorious in every game he was picked in save for the vicious battle of endurance between EG and Mousesports.

The next tournament in the JoinDOTA Masters series will be played in its entirety as early as this Saturday with 8 teams from U.S. and Europe, including Evil Geniuses, It's Gosu eSports and Complexity Gaming. Check the schedule and teams out at joinDOTA.com. Also stay tuned for the rest of the VODS over at joinDOTA, especially if you missed the clash between Mousesports and Evil Geniuses!

Article by: Topi Kaunisharju

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