Cheers, chants and epic comebacks framed the third day of The International 6 in Seattle. KeyArena frequently erupted into roars, and the games today were some of the best yet, culminating in what might be a defining series for the tournament.
The first series of the day pit Alliance and Fnatic against each other for survival in the lower bracket. Coming off a 2-0 loss to the dominant EHOME, the TI veterans looked to salvage a run at the Aegis against the SEA qualifier Fnatic. A hard-fought Game 1 ended with a different result, though, going Fnatic's way. The European team immediately turned to a full draft of comfort picks, but even that reliability gave way after a series of crucial teamfight losses. Fnatic eliminated the TI3 victors from contention 2-0, and continue on to another day in Seattle.
Team Liquid and Newbee faced off in the second lower bracket match of the day, a matchup most would have expected closer to the end of the tournament. An early lead for Liquid was turned on its head and Newbee found itself up one game in the series. Liquid bounced back, however, with Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen putting up two monstrous performances in a row on Morphling and Anti-Mage. The Newbee team fought hard but couldn't find a foothold against the revitalized Liquid, and fell 2-1. Newbee exits TI6 in a 9th-12th finish.
In the upper bracket, MVP Phoenix and Wings Gaming finally met, two teams with wholly different but equally unique approaches to Dota. "Caveman Dota" ran up against "all random" drafting, but MVP looked dashed against the rocks over the course of its two games. Despite early kill leads in both games, the flexible Wings economy was never broken, and the Korean hopefuls dropped to the lower bracket in a 2-0 series, leaving Wings to continue on to the upper bracket finals and a guaranteed top-three finish.
Meeting them would be the victor of the night's title match, Evil Geniuses vs. EHOME. The Chinese wild card qualifier had made a name for itself, having lost only two games so far. Evil Geniuses came ready to play, though; in a Game 1 that went for over 70 minutes, with mega creeps working against it, EG pushed back against all odds in what might be the best game of the tournament yet. In Game 2, EHOME came back shaken but not broken, pushing back to try to make it to a Game 3. The Chronospheres of Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora were too much though, and in two games, EG secured a top-three finish at TI6, a series against Wings, and a clear line to the grand finals.