Day 5 of The International 7 ended as it began, with a disgusting rout. With the field mostly cleared and the end in sight, Day 5 of the Main Event saw two more teams eliminated as the battle lines for the final day of The International 7 were drawn at Key Arena in Seattle.
LGD Gaming started the day by sweeping Invictus Gaming 2-0 with two games of less than 45 minutes to set up a lower bracket showdown with Team Liquid. Game 1 saw LGD draft a lineup that was capable of simply running at iG and mowing down towers if iG chose not to contest. The second game was more of the same as LGD rapidly pushed down towers and annihilated any heroes that were foolish enough to get in the way. Through both games of the series, Invictus Gaming only secured 11 kills as the former "Champions of China" fell horribly flat against its longtime regional rival.
Meanwhile, in the upper bracket, Newbee has looked as much like 2015 Evil Geniuses as a Chinese team possibly can, with Song "Sccc" Chun invoking memories of Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan's historic run with several mind-blowing performances of his own. In Game 1 of the upper bracket series between Newbee and LGD.Forever Young, Newbee stood its ground in what appeared at first to be an utter stomp by the young, hotshot LFY squad.
Xu "Moogy" Han's Bloodseeker led the way for Newbee's comeback, and Sccc finished off LFY as Sniper, manning up against Xie "Super" Junhao's Medusa and bringing him down to secure the win. Despite being on the receiving end of a savage beatdown for a change, LFY managed to regroup and quickly even the series with a Game 2 victory thanks to Super's Storm Spirit.
In Game 3, the pendulum swung back in Newbee's favor, with Moogy's Bloodseeker taking over the game, ravaging LFY and finishing with a 15/1/16 KDA. Newbee has secured itself a place in the grand finals and a chance at being the first team to bring home a second Aegis of Champions.
After blazing past Invictus Gaming, LGD Gaming was set to throw down against Team Liquid to determine which team would move on to face LFY in the lower bracket finals and which team's tournament life would be snuffed out.
Rekindling memories of the iconic best-of-one from The International 3 against LGD, Team Liquid put on an incredible performance to secure Game 1. Liquid's Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi and his Morphling persevered through a difficult early game. He avoided death at the expense of his teammates but rallied to end the game with nine kills and one death in a spectacular comeback win.
In Game 2, Liquid put the pedal to the floor by picking Huskar for Miracle and Broodmother for Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen. If Miracle wasn't busy slaughtering LFY's players, then MATUMBAMAN was busy turning its structures into rubble. Liquid completely ran away with Game 2 and remains the only Western team with a shot at the Aegis of Champions.
The last day of the Main Event will commence on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET with Team Liquid facing LGD.Forever Young in the lower bracket finals.