PSG.LGD won the latest Major, EPICENTER XL. After disappointing their own crowd in Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018, the Chinese players disappointed the foreign crowd by beating the defending champions Team Liquid.
PSG.LGD was convincing throughout the tournament, losing only one series in the group stage. The loss was against Team Liquid, but they took their sweet revenge twice, once in the upper bracket finals and the other one in the grand finals, winning five out of six games in the process.
Perhaps the bigger surprise is FlyToMoon taking third place after defeating Virtus.pro, the leading team in Dota Pro Circuit. Coming from the Madness Qualifier, they were not even expected to make it to the main stage.
Other Chinese teams beware
With 4071 Qualifying Points, PSG.LGD have good chance of getting a direct invite to The International 2018. Even if it turned out to be not enough, their performance suggests that they can get more Qualifying Points.
Sadly, other teams in their region can’t feel as safe as them. Newbee, Vici Gaming and VGJ.Thunder are ranked sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively, but they are in bad shape and don’t feel like championship contenders.
Those three teams currently have around 2000 Qualifying Points each. In comparison, a DPC event with one million US Dollars price pool gives a total of 2250 usable points to the winner of the event, thus their spots can be taken over quickly, and many teams have started showing their fangs, including FlyToMoon.
Did you enjoy EPICENTER XL? Which teams do you think will receive direct invites? Scroll down and join the discussion!