For all those aspiring to get a direct invitation to TI7, among the very first important tournaments reasoned with TeamLiquid since the winners. Although 3 from the top 4 clubs in Kiev weren’t current in Shanghai, the competition was fierce from the playoffs where both TNC and Liquid was shown to be deserving of their prized tickets to Seattle. But, those tickets mostly depend on what structure Valve determines to receive the qualifiers, distribution and number of invitations across the areas.
For those groups, direct invitations into TI7 look just a fantasy and these doubts have already claimed a few victims, forcing those groups to take decisions that they expect are the ideal ones before their slaughter that lie ahead in the qualifiers.
The two best teams at the SEA scene have delivered quite intriguing contrasts, particularly since the production of Faceless. TNC appears to be like the elderly and productive brother, but if Faceless crossed in their route, the group headed by iceiceice would mad TNC. In spite of a substantial benefit for Faceless in head-to-head games, TNC was the one which kept delivering persuasive performances on LAN occasions … up until the Kiev Major at least.
At Shanghai, Faceless had the fantastic chance to assert the name of “the finest of the SEA area”; they overlooked it again. At a really bad demonstration, Faceless abandoned the championship with just 1 map won from a decadent Newbee. What’s more, TNC; using 1437 as a fresh inclusion, reached the final after winning all of their matches. They didn’t stop there; the final result was a really close match that revealed that when the invitations were declared today – and when SEA gets one – TNC would undoubtedly be the preferred one.
Since an immediate invitation for Faceless is a unrealistic situation as though of now, their sole option can be found in the long run: it needs a fantastic performance in the Manila Pros and whatever else they could get on. Even though there’s still some time left until the invitations have been shown, both teams understand that this is probably a two horse race.
Chinese Dota reverberates today from the West more because of this ACE/Wings play than because of the operation of the teams. With Wings wiped from this map, both Newbee and iG stay as the sole two flagships by which China attempts to keep its place against the onslaught of different areas.
This time, not just Shanghai did not crown a local winner, it could not possess a Chinese group in the closing. Ultimately, iG and Newbee dropped to Liquid and TNC respectively and even though you can say that their opponents aren’t weak teams, Liquid isn’t number one at the West and TNC comes in a spectacle thought of as less aggressive than China.
For a nation with such Dota convention as China, only competing is insufficient. Chinese Dota is the most likely going to wait to find out whether iG or even Newbee can recuperate and return to a greater degree, or await a group which emerges from the ever-competitive qualifiers to become their new flagship.
The hushed middle-of-the-table
Vega, with some success, handled overcome Newbee with a 2-0 score, which is really quite the accomplishment for a group that needs to deal without being VP.
In the event of Alliance, the group was needing victories for quite a while and even when they were able to conquer VG.J, it wasn’t sufficient for EGM to keep in the group because he was replaced shortly after the championship. Time will tell if that was the ideal choice for this particular team or not, but we could say with some certainty that the future of Alliance is grayer than before — and boy, has it been grey before.
Following a Major which has been fairly neutral results shrewd for Liquid, Starladder arrived as a tempting prospect for Kuroky and business. Since OG, VP and EG were absent in this particular tournament, Liquid loomed among the favorites to shoot it. This ‘favorites’ tag seemingly isn’t something that this Liquid squad really enjoys: after winning a few championships, Liquid unexpectedly abandoned the DAC 2017 in first stage (contrary to Faceless) and then in Kiev they had a hardly acceptable demonstration, losing to iG who was still going through a fantastic moment.
Following a grueling semifinal, the toughest battle was still to come.
It had been similar to the stubbornness gave the motive to Kuroky: following 5 successive Tusk selections, the response for Liquid was yet again in GH’s Pudge and Miracle’s Invoker.
Liquid needed to bring their game to the limitation as a result of terrific TNC functionality, but their attempts definitively repaid. If blessed, the triumph could even make them a direct invitation to TI7 prior to going to their next major halt: Epicenter, a recognizable floor for your 9k gang.
Without forgetting about Dreamleague, we could say still that Liquid’s street to TI7 won’t be simple. Another team using the identical European invite in their own eyesight is Secret, that will most likely be the number one equal to Liquid in the struggle for its number two in Europe.
