EPICENTER Major 2019: results of the first game days

Group stage without knockouts

Again organizers of a major tournament decided that after the group stage the teams should not leave. Nevertheless, they are still motivated to win. Those who took the first places in their groups started participating with the upper bracket. The teams who performed worse got to the lower bracket. This decision was not supported by some spectators while the other were OK with this turn of events.

Failure of favorites

The main shock for all the viewers was the fact that many teams that positioned themselves as favourites of the competition have already finished participating in the tournament. However, it could be explained by the fact that the teams have already provided themselves with invitations to The International, and EPICENTER Major 2019 is a kind of prestige tournament and a good bonus for the salary. The teams are tired and they want to have rest. If it is not true, how could we explain Team Secret and Ninjas in Pyjamas taking the 9-12 place in the tournament getting far from OG with a substitute and Gambit Esports?

Evil Geniuses, who stably got to Three Best at all championships of the Dota Pro Circuit serie, took the 13-16 place.

Alliance and Gambit Esports are still in play

Lately Alliance and Gambit Esports have been demonstrating not the best Dota. At this championship they have outdone several favorites as Team Secret, NiP, Evil Geniuses and others. At one of the upcoming matches Alliance and Gambit Esports will face each other. This meeting will define who of these two teams will become the last invited participant in The International 2019. The teams play at approximately the same level, so the battle is going to be interesting.

OG and Sockshka

The true furor was made by the European team. On the first game day we got to know that n0tail felt bad and the coach Sockshka had to play instead of him. The team performed at the group stage rather badly, having the fourth position there. Thanks to the fact that the participants who played badly get to the lower bracket, OG got the second chance which they used successfully. The first opponent OG met at the lower bracket was the team EG, who, as we have already mentioned, got to Three Best stably. By this reason many fans thought that Evil Geniuses were favourites of the competition. The Europeans asked to reschedule the match because of n0tail's health problems and the organizers let that happen due to the fact that this battle wasn't a knockout one but a game at the group stage. Johan Sundstein were not able to recover and Sockshka played instead of him. The meeting lasted for 51 minutes, and the performance of the coach of the team surprised everybody including the opponents and Sockshka himself. After such an interesting match, OG made it to the second round and they had to fight with Team Secret, who lost against Virtus.pro. «Then OG just got lucky — thought many viewers — at the Bo3 battle everything will be different». They were wrong. The Europeans with the coach instead of n0tail managed to surprise everyone again. Puppey played their brain games and tried to outsmart their opponents and even skipped talking to their teammates at the draft stage but as Sockshka claimed, the European seemed to make a convenient pick orienting on the team work, but not macro game. The easiest approach to the game helped OG make it to Top-8 of the best participants in EPICENTER Major 2019. Will it help the Europeans to win the upcoming battle against PSG.LGD, the Chinese, who are in a good game shape? We are going to get to know soon

As for the rest, the championship is going as it was expected, however what we saw was enough to call the fifth Major tournament spectacular. We are going to see that main matches, do it will be even more interesting to observe the tournament. Don't miss the events of the championship, on our site you will find all the matches and their broadcasts and also all the information about the tournament and other Dota 2 events.

Provisional results итоги

At the moment we know names of the teams who left the championship. The list is the following:

• 9-12 place — Forward Gaming
• 9-12 place — Team Secret
• 9-12 place — Royal Never Give Up
• 9-12 place — Ninjas in Pyjamas
• 13-16 place — Fnatic
• 13-16 place — Evil Geniuses
• 13-16 place — Infamous
• 13-16 place — paiN Gaming