Was there ever any doubt that it would be Team Secret taking the top spot in the Upper Division of Europe for the Dota 2 DPC 2021? After all, they pretty much dominated the esports scene in the region last year. With this, Secret gets that highly coveted Playoffs spot for the Singapore Major.
The Secret Journey
Team Secret's 6–0 record isn’t the only impressive thing. The team lost only two games out of 14 it has played. It beat out Team Liquid, Team Nigma, Vikin.gg, and High Coast Esports at 2–0. While it did lose one game each against Alliance and Tundra Esports, Secret still won the series 2 – 1.
The team still has one game left against OG, however, it really doesn’t matter whether Secret wins. Hopefully, we get to see some exciting drafts from both teams considering it’s also the last game of the season for the region.
Want to know another impressive Team Secret trivia? In their game against High Coast, Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen had a total of 25 kills and 0 deaths in two games.
Who Could the Three Be?
With Secret taking the top spot, that leaves the other teams fighting for three remaining slots. One of these is a spot for the Group Stage and the remaining two as Wild Cards for the Singapore Major.
Let’s start from the bottom. High Coast Esports is guaranteed to go down to the Lower Division. Joining them is going to be the loser from the Tundra versus Vikin.gg match, and that’s still not final.
If Liquid loses its last two games, it could be in danger of being the one going to the Lower Division, which makes Liquid’s remaining games even more interesting. That’s because it’s going against Alliance and OG, two teams fighting for the Group Stage spot.
The way we see it, the Group Stage is likely going to be Alliance or OG. It’s still a bit too close to call but after tomorrow’s matches, things may get a little clearer.
The standings so far for Europe are:
- Team Secret: 6–0
- Alliance: 4–2
- OG : 3–2
- Team Nigma: 3–3
- Team Liquid: 2–3
- Tundra Esports: 2–4
- Vikin.gg: 2–4
- High Coast Esports: 1–5
Lower Division
Under the new format, the top two teams of the Lower Division have the chance to join the Upper Division for Season 2. Creepwave looks to be guaranteed of that with a 6–1 standing. The three teams vying for the remaining slot are Brame, Hellbear Smashers, and No Bounty Hunter.
The Lower Division also faced some issues. Burjui was disqualified from the Lower Division due to a breach of tournament rules. Essentially, they wanted to replace one of their players citing medical reasons. However, upon investigating, it seems the document declaring a player was COVID-19 positive was found out to be forged.
Meanwhile, Meta4Pro decided to withdraw from the league citing that they suspect one of their players to be involved in match-fixing.
