On the surface, the competition at the EPICENTER Major 2019 appears to be the usual battle between two Dota 2 teams for a shot at the top prize. However, for Alliance and Gambit Esports, a lot more is at stake than winning. With the announcement that three teams have received direct invites to The International 2019, this leaves one final slot.
Before the EPICENTER Major, eight teams have been invited to Dota 2's biggest competition. These are:
- Team Secret
- Virtus.pro
- Vici Gaming
- Evil Geniuses
- Team Liquid
- PSG.LGD
- Fnantic
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
As the tournament moved forward, the performance of certain teams guaranteed them a spot at TI9. These are TNC Predator, OG, and Keen Gaming.
So how do Alliance and Gambit Esports fare so far?
Alliance
The team's roster is currently composed of Michael "miCKe" Vu, Maximilian "qojqva" Bröcker, Samuel "Boxi" Svahn, Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi, and Tommy "Taiga" Le.
For the current DPC Season, Alliance has not been performing as expected. During the Kuala Lumpur Major, the team was eliminated by TNC leading to a 9th-12th place finish. While the team did qualify for the Chongqing Major, they were eliminated by Chaos Esports Club during the first round of the Playoffs.
The team then failed to qualify for the DreamLeague Season 11 and the MDL Disneyland Paris Major. Looking at their records, their main block appears to be OG. In the lead towards the EPICENTER Major, Alliance was once again initially denied entry by OG. However, Alliance did manage to join the tournament through the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 2.
Gambit Esports
Russian team Gambit is composed of Nikita "Daxak" Kuzmin, Andrey "Afoninje" Afonin, Vasily "AfterLife" Shishkin, Alexander "Immersion" Hmelevskoy, and Artiom "fng" Barshack.
The team managed to qualify to the Kuala Lumpur Major, but was eliminated by Forward Gaming. While the team earned small points in various minor tournaments, they were unable to qualify for the next three major tournaments. During the qualifiers for the EPICENTER Major, the team showed how much they changed by dominating their opponents. Gambit initially displayed good performance at the start, but dropped to the lower bracket after being defeated by VG 0-2. However, the team surprised a number of fans after it swept and eliminated NiP 2-0.
Alliance and Gambit are set to face each other on June 28 at 8:00 a.m. EST.
