Esports / Dota Pro Circuit

ESL One Birmingham

Virtus Pro shows their strength yet again

VP was undefeated throughout the entire ESL One Birmingham tournament. In no surprise, the top DPC team made quick work of OpTic Gaming, with a clean 3-0 sweep in the grand finals. No[o]ne was awarded the MVP, getting a second Mercedes-Benz for the team.

Photo Credit: ESL

Criticism on Tournament Format

ESL faced heavy criticism yet again with their choice of format for ESL One Birmingham – with Three groups of 4 teams each, where the bottom 2 of each group is eliminated. The issue lied in the opening matches, which were a BO1. In which EG lost due to a base race against a Morphling+IO combo to take both T4 towers AND the throne under backdoor protection.

Evil Geniuses then proceeded to bow out of the tournament after losing 0-2 to Team Spirit, who replaced Na’Vi in the tournament. Personally I do agree that these formats are not ideal – teams make their way down only to be eliminated in Day 1, without a chance to recover. While I understand this is because of cost reasons, I’m sure there’s a middle ground in formats and number of days needed to run the group stage.

Upsets – Pain Gaming

The surging Brazilian team had an extremely surprising showing, beating reigning TI Champions Team Liquid twice – 1-0 in the opening match, and 2-0 in the decider match.

After which, they beat Mineski to move on to the semi-finals. securing at least 4th place for ESL One Birmingham. While they have no chance to actually qualify for TI via points, it’s a great showing for the up and coming team, who have recently added w33 to their roster.

Fear’s Newborn Baby

And no it’s not Arteezy.

Finally got some time to see my newly born son, Logan! He's so boss 😎

A post shared by Clinton Loomis (@feardota51) on

 

EG Roster Changes and Copy Pasta

EG has just announced the departure of Misery and Fear, giving up their DPC standings in a play to strengthen their roster for a TI run instead.

Posted by Evil Geniuses on Sunday, May 27, 2018

Misery has expressed a strong relief in leaving the roster, for reasons currently undisclosed:

While Fear has expressed exhaustion and disappointment. We assume that his retirement has been long coming, and with a newborn coming, he’s likely to spend more time with his family now.

With the early exit of Evil Geniuses, fans were very disappointed and upset as expected. Thus we have a new copy pasta.

 The current EG roster is the largest waste of potential in the history of dota.

The entire team looking like bunch of mmo characters that got voided because they put points in wrong stats.

Sumail is straight up not an offlane player.

Rtz was known for his flash farm, but then they let him play space creating pos1 for like half a year, now he doesn’t even know what he plays anymore.

Fear should be coaching instead of playing solo mid for a serious professional team.

Crit was one of the best pos 4 in the world but they put him on pos 5 for months, how do you expect him to be at the same level he was after 30 winter wyvern games?

Misery is the only player that’s truly versatile in the team, but he’s just a ward bitch now. Like come the fuck on man.

coL Roster Changes

MoonMeander and Adam Shah now complete the coL roster, with Chessie being released. Both MoonMeander and Adam have been part of compLexity in different times, MoonMeander as a player and Adam as a coach, and now round up their TI roster.

Upcoming Tournament: China Supermajor

The Supermajor is coming in hot right after ESL One Birmingham, starting this Saturday, 2nd June. Read up more on the tournament here.

Participating teams are:

  1. Virtus Pro
  2. Team Liquid
  3. Team Secret
  4. Newbee
  5. Vici Gaming
  6. VGJ.Thunder
  7. Evil Geniuses*
  8. Natus Vincere*
  9. Mineski
  10. OG
  11. PSG.LGD
  12. TNC Pro Team
  13. VGJ.Storm
  14. Infamous
  15. The Final Tribe
  16. Team Spirit

*EG and Na’Vi may be replaced due to roster changes made in the past week.

Gameplay Changes: 7.16

This week’s patch came in early, presumably to give pro teams a chance to adjust before the upcoming Supermajor. They mention that these balance changes are also tweaks in preparation for The International. Check out the patch notes here.

 

Fluff: Where does IO keep his items?

A fan,  /u/BP_goldilox went ahead and asked Gaben a quick question, and he delivers.

Which /u/aggibridges decided to capitalize on and create this really cute drawing of our favorite disco ball: