EPICENTER XL: against OG
28th of April, 15:00 CEST
The first rival of 
NAVI.GG.BET at the EPICENTER XL Major will be a representative of the European region - team 
OG. The match is scheduled to start on April 28 at 15:00 CEST, the format of the match - best of 3.
Despite the fact that this opponent has already dropped out of the contest for a direct invite to The International 2018, it is clearly not worth expecting that they will play sloppily. The composition of OG (with the exception of the mid position) has remained unchanged for about 2 years: the stand-in of the team, who is their coach 
Sebastian "7ckngMad" Debs is well acquainted with the gameplay of the team and obviously will not be a weak link. By the way, a fun fact: 7ckngMad holds a higher position in the solo rating leaderboard than all of his teammates.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that OG is not in its ideal form. After Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok left the active roster, the team played in two tournaments and the same number of qualifications. While the qualifiers were problem-free for the guys (frankly, there is too big of a level gap between OG and the rivals), then the results of the DreamLeague Season 9 and Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018 tournaments can hardly be called good. In the first championship, the team lost to the first serious rival - 
Newbee and left the second after the group stage.
Sebastian "7ckingMad" Debs (source: epicenter.gg)
As for the game component itself, it's relatively unreasonable to study after such a global recent patch. Nevertheless, the most popular heroes of OG for the last three months at the moment are supports - Witch Doctor and Earth Spirit, who have very good winrates - 75% and 70% respectively. The most popular team bans, in turn, are quite standard: the opponents of NAVI do not like to play against Omniknight and Sand King. As for the appearance of Techies in the Captains' Mode, the support players of OG, 
Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka and 
Tal "Fly" Aizik, reacted very enthusiastically.
Can't ban all my heroes now, hahaa
— Jesse Vainikka (@iamJERAX)
However, despite all the problems, OG still remains a very strong and versatile team, capable of presenting surprises to their rivals. The players of Natus Vincere will obviously not get anything for free: there's an additional pressure coming from the face-to-face encounter stats, where the opponent has quite an advantage. But we believe that our team has been properly prepared for this tournament and will show a lot of victorious strategies. Believe in the guys! #gonavi
Players
NAVI.GG.BET
Crystallize
Dendi
GeneRaL
Lil
LeBron
OG
Fly
N0tail
7ckngMad
JerAx
s4
