Vici Gaming sent home by rivals Invictus Gaming!

The penultimate day of TI10 kicked off with a regional showdown between Vici Gaming and Invictus Gaming, with a top 4 placing (and a cool Million dollars) on the line!

Arguably the teams that know each other the best, this would be a matchup of both familiarity and a desire to set their own destinies!

Invictus Gaming would draft a very familiar draft for themselves, with a clear tempo strategy driven by the JT Magnus and Emo Ember Spirit.

A surprise Brewmaster pick at the end for Vici Gaming would quickly turn the direction of their draft. Now putting them in position to have the teamfight, and lategame advantage in the game.

However, this would also make the game very execution heavy for Vici Gaming.

When asked about what he thought about his opponent's drafts, Invictus Gaming coach super would rate his team's chances very highly.

Despite the confidence of their coach, Invictus Gaming would struggle with the early portion of the laning phase.

Recognizing that they would really struggle with a game played from behind, they would wait until they reached their levels timings.

Moving in unison towards the top lane, they would look to wrest some kind of advantage from Vici Gaming.

The fight would go very well for them, and Invictus Gaming would slowly push Vici Gaming's advantage away.

Turning their attention towards Roshan, Invictus Gaming would walk into the pit and take him down without much challenge.

However, they would quickly put themselves into the TI Hall of Mistakes Fame, by completely forgetting to pick up the Aegis itself.

Worse yet, this mistake would not be missed by Vici Gaming. Old Eleven's Doom was sent into the pit to grab the precious item.

In the process also managing to break an Invictus Gaming smoke attempt, and completely stalling this phase of the game.

Vici Gaming would build up their item advantage and wait until they felt strong enough to overrun their opponents.

Taking a dominant fight, it felt like the rest of the game would be smooth sailing for Vici Gaming. They would position and prepare to claim an Aegis and finally play towards taking Invictus Gaming's buildings.

Invictus Gaming would recognize that they would not be able to play under those conditions, and would gear up for a fight to stop them.

Somehow able to stop them due to incredible teamfight execution. Invictus Gaming put themselves straight back into the game, grabbing an Aegis in the process.

Invictus Gaming would use this Aegis to decimate the Vici Gaming base, putting themselves in a very good strategic position.

With Vici Gaming having their back against the wall, the next Roshan would determine if they would come back into the game, or if Invictus Gaming would secure the game.

It turns out that Invictus Gaming would agree with this assessment; preparing for the showdown by grabbing a Divine Rapier for Emo's Ember Spirit before the fight.

After 2 consecutive minutes of fighting, almost every buyback used and yet ANOTHER Aegis snatch; Vici Gaming would finally run out of steam and end up losing everyone.

With no other option, they would call GG and grant Invictus Gaming the Game 1 victory!

The second game saw Invictus Gaming picking 5 comfort heroes yet again. Especially the power of the JT Doom and the Emo Storm Spirit, supported by the Kaka Lion. Their fighting prowess was looking quite dangerous.

VIci Gaming would opt for a much riskier draft, attempting the Morphling Earthshaker combination for the late game; giving Ori his Leshrac to control the midgame with.

Fenrir, coach of Vici Gaming would strike a somber tone when asked about his team's prospects.

The early game would be quite similar to Game 1, with Vici Gaming getting off to a good start from their lanes.

However, unlike that game it would be Vici Gaming attempting to make the early moves, especially onto the Storm Spirit. Unfortunately the Oli Phoenix, reprised from game 1, would make these ganks impossible to pull off.

With all these wasted moves, Invictus Gaming would be bought a whole lot of time to build up items on their core heroes.

However, Vici Gaming would play very cleanly and itemize to protect the Morphling as well as the Leshrac.

Having their own items negated, Invictus Gaming would quickly find themselves falling further and further behind. Forced to play a very defensive style, they would not be able to challenge Vici Gaming as they took total map control.

Vici Gaming would take advantage of this by securing Roshan, and attempting to push the highground at the 25 minute mark. Although unable to take any buildings, they had put themselves into a very commanding position.

Invictus Gaming were aware that the game was getting away from them, and made an extremely risky smoke attempt towards the Vici Gaming part of the map.

Not only would this move succeed, but they managed to kill the important heroes and buy themselves yet more time in the game itself.

Now able to farm back up to a point where their cores were competitive, the game would start to hang by a thread.

Invictus Gaming would also take advantage of the fact that they had access to big Buyback heroes. Baiting with the FlyFly Spectre, they would dare Vici Gaming to fight them for the all crucial Roshan.

Unfortunately, they had no real answer for the Spectre buying back and immediately haunting into the fight, allowing Invictus Gaming to secure the overall fight.

Vici Gaming would still be able to secure the Roshan, not willing to concede any further advantage on the map, would still manage to claim the Aegis; but of course even this would end up being a trap.

Using this moment to take away the Aegis as well as the lives on all the core heroes, all of a sudden Invictus Gaming would be in position where they were finally ahead.

Next taking a very good fight in the midlane during an insane zip in by Emo, they were able to clean up Vici Gaming and move towards trying to end the game.

Unfortunately, a huge weakness of their draft was pushing, so they were delayed in their ability to fully destroy the Vici Gaming base.

Vici Gaming would roll the dice one more time, hoping that they would be able to force themselves back into a good position.

Unfortunately, they would simply be too weak to fight anymore. Losing absolutely everything, they would be forced to call GG and be eliminated from TI10!

Now having secured top 4, this would also represent the best TI result for the Invictus Gaming since their 2012 total triumph!

As from before though, the team would not be arrogant, and regard a big part of their victory to their knowledge of Vici Gaming, as reflected by Oli.

To show just how these are still people at the end of the day, Oli would make no excuses as to why they messed up picking up the Aegis.

Invictus Gaming would not have their day over just yet; as they would be playing a rematch against Team Spirit of the upper bracket showdown later in the day.

Despite having arguably the largest improvement within the tournament, the journey for Vici Gaming would end here.

Beating teams who were favourites for top 3, their road would have a lot within it that the team could look back favourably upon.

Dy, stellar support player, would be disappointed but encouraged by his team's results.

Arguably overperforming at the tournament, Vici Gaming would still fall shy of their former Grand Finals glory, however would have much to build on from this point.

The tournament still continues, with the final 2 days of play promising to raise the bar higher than ever seen at TI!

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