Aurora force the first Game 3 at Esports World Cup 2025, but PARIVISION advance to semifinals

PARIVISION came onto the playoffs stage focused on their own strategies and what they know they can execute to perfection, rather than thinking about what their opponents could pull out, coach Filipe "Astini" Ribeiro said in his interview on stage before the series began.

One of the strategies that they relied on in the first game of the quarterfinals against Aurora Gaming was built around a high-tempo draft meant to snowball out of control from early stages. A first pick Dazzle that ended up in the hands of Dmitry "DM" Dorokhin in the offlane was followed by Marci and Chen in the support lines. The game started with Aurora being able to apply some pressure on PARIVISIONS’ safe lane, but overall, the latter came on top in all three lanes.

Around the 17-minute mark, PARIVISION forced a team fight for the tier 2 mid lane tower, which opened the game wide open for them. The more PVISION was taking control of the map, the more Aurora felt the need to keep the lanes pushed, but by doing so, they ended up getting picked off and feeding more kills to their adversaries. PARIVISION breached the high ground by the 25-minute mark and forced the GG call soon after that in what seemed an unwinnable game for Aurora.

Phantom Lancer becomes a “meme hero”

However, heading into the second game, PVISION decided to go for a last pick Phantom Lancer, which made Aurora’s coach, Sergei "G" Bragin say that he strongly believed in Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko carry Abaddon and Gleb "kiyotaka" Zyryanov’s mid lane Shadow Fiend against “this meme hero.”

On top of that, Aurora also went for a last pick Rubick, whose mission was to steal the Bloodlust from DM’s Ogre Magi to empower his cores even more. At the end of a nearly 40-minute game, another loss was added to the already abysmal 1-6 win/loss record for this hero at Esports World Cup 2025.

But although they forced the first decisive game at EWC, Aurora found themselves playing once again against Chen, which has become a PARIVISION speciality by now. They tried to salvage the draft with a Gyrocopter pick to also counter PVISION’s Beastmaster, and forced a full lane swap, as DM went to the safe lane to avoid Gyro. None of these tricks helped Aurora to extend their stay in Riyadh, and unfortunately for them, their Esports World Cup 2025 road came to an end in the quarterfinals.

Esports World Cup 2025 Playoffs Day 2 Schedule

Day 2 in the playoffs stage will bring two more quarterfinal matches. BetBoom Team and Tundra Esports will open the day at 11:00 CET with their direct confrontation, followed by Team Falcons taking on Team Liquid. The entire playoffs stage is played in a single-elimination bracket, which leaves no room for hesitation.