Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Rank #22 Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le ' underdog run from VCT Americas continued in today's pair of Masters Tokyo matches, with EG pulling off the 2-0 upset over APAC's second seed, DRX DRX Korea Rank #5 Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Athan Na Ha-jun (나하준) freeing No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) . The win guaranteed EG's place among the tournament's top eight playoffs teams.

Christine "potter" Chi, EG's head coach, explained that the team's rise has been fueled by little more than some introspection and hard work.

“We're working hard, we're keeping our heads down, and we're focused on ourselves. So yeah, no distractions,” Potter said. “We've figured out how to be confident in each other and that in turn has built a lot of trust… These guys are insane and we've been working really hard.”

She also mentioned DRX was a team that they had been studying since LOCK//IN, so they were confident heading into the series. In fact, EG takes some inspiration from DRX, Potter said.

“When I see other teams copying our compositions or our strats, I feel like it's not the direction we want to be headed,” termi , DRX's head coach, said. “At the moment I just want to innovate the team in a way where we can play our own game and do what we can do best.”

EG entered the opening map, Fracture, with a commanding record. Prior to their loss to LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #2 dgzin Douglas Silva v1nny Vínicius Gonçalves pANcada Bryan Luna tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira , the team was riding a five-game win streak on the map. That showed as they got off to an 8-4 start and then closed out the map 13-5.

1v4, bonus round? No problem for jawgemo.

Both jawgemo and Boostio looked unstoppable on the Raze and Killjoy respectively. The former had a +11 kill differential as well as six first bloods, while the latter had a +9 kill differential and three 3Ks.

“[Boostio's] calling has been incredible over the last few weeks. He's getting all the reads,” Potter said.

DRX's pick, Ascent, was a much closer affair. The first half ended 7-5 in EG's favor, with DRX relying on a pair of 4Ks from MaKo to keep the half from getting away from them. DRX then brought the score within one round late in the second half, cutting EG's advantage to just 10-9, but EG wouldn't allow them any more rounds. The underdogs took the map 13-9 to sweep the series.

Rising star Max "Demon1" Mazanov lived up to the hype for EG on Ascent. He had seven first kills without a single first death, as well as a massive +12 kill differential.

Demon1 Demon1 is the final boss and so far no one's shut him down. (Photo by Lee Aiksoon/Riot Games)

Now, after sweeping through the group stage, Demon1 wants to take on LOCK//IN champions FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #3 Sayonara Ștefan Mîtcu stand-in Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder .

“I want to take on the best.”

While DRX has a reputation for putting together creative, game-winning strategies, they'll instead head into their elimination match focusing on what to do when the unplanned happens.

“We have great coaching staff who can create new strats any time, but right now we're focusing on being flexible in different situations and how to adapt to our opponents better,” termi said.

They will face off against the winner of FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Rank #7 xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qRaxs Doğukan Balaban and Attacking Soul Esports Attacking Soul Esports Inactive monk Wang Haoyu (王浩宇) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) YHchen Chen Yuhan (陳昱瀚) Zero1 Meng Zhen Ren (任梦真) in a decider elimination match where the winner qualifies for playoffs.