For those who ever doubted if TNC Predator still had it, well, the team just proved the haters wrong. TNC has taken the top spot in the Asia Division of the Dota 2 ESL One Thailand 2020. They get to take home $50,000 after beating BOOM Esports 3-2 in the Grand Finals.
If you’re wondering why they had doubters in the first place, this is actually TNC's first big win for 2020. To be fair, most of the tournaments were not DPC since Valve cancelled those competitions. TNC took first place during the MDL Chengdu Major, but then dropped to the 7–8th place in the DreamLeague Season 13.
The team’s roster is currently composed of Kim “Gabbi” Villafuerte, Armel Paul “Armel” Tabios, Damien “kpii” Chok, Timothy “Tims” Randrup, and Park “March’ Tae-won.
In the Group Stage of the ESL One Thailand 2020, TNC ended with a 4–1 standing, being only beating by Fnatic.
In the first game of the Playoffs, TNC faced Neon Esports. TNC got the win on the first game, but Neon managed to equalize it with the second game. In the third game, however, it was all TNC. Armel and Gabbi both had double digits in terms of kills.
The next match was against BOOM and TNC didn’t flinch. While the first game took more than an hour, TNC grabbed the win on the performance of both Armel and Gabbi. The second game was all Armel, and Boom couldn’t find an answer. This gave TNC a spot in the Grand Finals and a sure second place finish.
Heading into the Grand Finals, TNC had the momentum going for them considering it was again versus BOOM. BOOM, however, surprised TNC as BOOM grabbed the early win. Despite the match reaching around 40 minutes, team kills were low with BOOM at 18 and TNC at 14.
That appeared to be the trigger for TNC as they demolished BOOM in the second game. Armel contributed 11 kills out of TNC’s total of 28. BOOM, meanwhile, was limited to only eight team kills. It was pretty much the same in the third game as this time BOOM only had six team kills against 24 from TNC.
BOOM would not take things sitting down. In the fourth game, BOOM did to TNC what had been done to them in the previous two games. TNC was limited to seven team kills with Armel not recording any kills.
In the fifth and deciding game, it was all TNC and all Armel. BOOM did what they could, but it wasn’t enough as TNC ended it at just above 30 minutes.
So what do you think? What was your favorite moment of this tournament? Is it exciting to see TNC return to form? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
