After making their respective way through the playoffs, only two teams remained in The Summit 2014 LAN.
DK soared to the overall final after defeating both 
Fnatic and Vici Gaming 2-0. They now had to go up against 
Evil Geniuses, who convincingly defeated their opposition in the lower bracket. Who would win the grand showdown?This match-up would turn out to be the most interesting of the tournament, with unconventional drafts, turnarounds, great strategies and plays. With EG being on their home turf and getting on top of their game in the playoffs after a somewhat mediocre groupstage and with DK being DK, we were in for an earth-shaking east vs west finale.
The two first games would set the pace for this series and it was obvious neither of the teams were wasting any time. The games were not very long compared to the following ones, but equally thrilling and the high tempo would be the theme for this series. In the first battle, EG looked fairly strong and put high pressure on the Chinese team and the game surely looked to be in EG's hands for a long time, given
Artour "Arteezy"
Babaev wreaked havoc with his Dragon Knight. However, DK amended their
playstyle halfway into the game. EG's greatest advantage was their tanky
lineup and the fact that every hero contributed immensely to teamfights
made it hard for 
Daryl "iceiceice"
Koh to decide who to Doom down. Eventually DK prioritised the Abaddon,
with his Aphotic Shield out of the way and some great positioning DK
began to win back map control and rise up in the graphs. The fact that
the Amercians were unable to budge DK's defenses, even after sieging
their base for a long while indicated that DK had sufficiently turned
the game around. After a hail mary push by EG going disastrously wrong,
the American's wisely GG-ed out. Good coordination in teamfights and
impressive blink-ultimates on Brewmaster by Zhilei "Burning" Xu, allowed 
Chai Yee "Mushi"
Fung to get rolling on his Ember Spirit and become too much for EG to
handle. The next game would end in a similar manner, only this time in
favor of EG. They truly showed how well they can use the dangerous combo
of Mirana and Shadow Demon, along with how dangerous it is to lose a
fight against a team that includes Lycan, as Johan "Notail" Sundstein pointed out, Leshrac's Edict is never a successful counter to the Wolves. |
| EG catches Leshrac, securing an easy first blood |
In game three, it was DK's turn to draft the Lycan who Burning brought to the midlane, facing off with Arteezy's Windranger, a quite unusal pick-up. It worked great for EG in the early stages of the game, as Arteezy made life miserable for Lycan and put his team ahead as they closed in on midgame. But for the third game in a row, the early game did not reflect on the outcome and ironically it was the Lycan -who had served them so well in game two- that spelt EG's demise. Together with Mushi's ridiculously farmed Outworld Devourer (who at one point almost soloed the entire EG line-up with his Refresher Orb), the two carried their team to yet another victory and a 2-1 advantage in the match-up.
Despite being at a disadvantage, EG stayed strong, rid themselves of the pressure and kept their heads cool as they moved on to the fourth game. Even though DK got their hands on some of their comfort heroes, such as Kunkka for
Chai Yee "Mushi" Fung, Clockwerk for Daryl "iceiceice" Koh and Mirana for Zeng Rong "MMY"
Lei, their draft did not pay off. Their carry Silencer, manouvered by
Burning would not live up to his purpose and proved to be fresh meat for
EG's Doom. He was played by Mason "mason" Venne, who stood for a phenomenal performance together with Peter "ppd" Dager's Rubick and was the main reason EG could even out the score in the series.The quite unconventional Phantom Assassin pick from EG that Arteezy brought to the midlane in game four wasn't a game changing hero, but surely filled her purpose. However, the decision to pick her up in game five as well, was a good call. With only the Burrow Strike from Mushi's midlane Sand King and the Avalanche from Tiny to lock her down, she had a great time in what turned out to be a peculiar game. After sitting on a gold lead for the longer portion of the game, thanks to the pushing power of Io and Tiny, DK dropped the ball. When Phantom Assassin and
Mason "mason"
Venne's Weaver got going and could combine their strengths together
with the crowd control from Tidehunter, Bane and Enigma, the game turned
around completely. Their team composition allowed EG to pick off
targets easily, with immense damage output from the two carries,
allowing them to build up a solid lead in kills and gold.  |
| Evil Geniuses kills off iceiceice's Bristleback |
Ludwig "zai"
Wåhlberg's Enigma, EG could've lost the game. This was as close DK
could get to the first place in The Summit, the rest of the game proved
to be a walk in the park for the American team, as four heroes got
caught out and obliterated outside of DK's base, forcing them to forfit
after 45 minutes. In the post game interview PPD gave a shoutout to the
coin-toss, interestingly pointing out that the Radiants won every match
at the lower bracket finals but his decision to go Dire was worthwhile
in Game 5 because the Dires won all the matches in the Grandfinals. The
injured Fear did not make an appearance but he was no doubt proud of his
team's now 100% American LAN winrate.
Evil Geniuses wins the Summit 3-2 against DK
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