The Dota 2 MDL Chengdu Major is becoming intense as teams battle it out in the Playoffs round. The Group Stage was held over the weekend with many of the well-known teams split between the Upper Bracket and Lower Bracket. In the Upper Bracket, two Dota 2 teams have already moved forward to the semifinals with four teams getting eliminated.
Upper Bracket
In the Upper Bracket, TNC Predator has again showed its dominance. Despite its new roster, the team went on to win the ESL One Hamburg 2019. In this tournament, TNC finished the Group Stage with no losses, ensuring an Upper Bracket placement. In the Upper Bracket, TNC played against Alliance in the first round. The first game was rather grueling and took more than an hour. Eventually it was Alliance that secured the victory on the performance of up and coming superstar Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov. However, the next two games were all TNC with Armel Paul "Armel" Tabios performing well on his Templar Assassin in the second game and Kim "Gabbi" Villafuerte on Phantom Assassin on the third game.
The other game of the Upper Bracket was J.Storm against Team Liquid. Liquid finished the Group Stage at the top of Group C, while J.Storm was second in Group D. In the first game, Liquid dominated the match with J.Storm unable to find an answer to Michael "miCKe" Vu's Faceless Void. J.Storm came back in the second game, however, with a good showing from Braxton "Brax" Paulson on Axe as well as David "Moo" Hull on Timbersaw and Leon "Nine" Kirilin on Templar Assassin. In the third game, Liquid had the initial advantage, only for J.Storm to turn the game around and get the win.
TNC and J.Storm are set to face off against each other in the next round.
The upcoming matches in the Upper Bracket are Vici Gaming going against Fighting Pandas and Invictus Gaming versus Evil Geniuses.
Lower Bracket
The Lower Bracket offered an exciting series of games as well, though it mainly featured the experienced teams, so to speak. In the first match, EHOME did not give Team Spirit a chance and closed out the match in just above 30 minutes. The second match, meanwhile, saw Team Aster dominate Gambit Esports.
The third match was pretty much the same, with Fnatic getting the victory over Team Unknown. What was interesting about this match was that support player Djardel "DJ" Mampusti on TIny was the one with the most kills. In the final match, Androit did what it could to retain the lead, but beastcoast would not be denied the match, and secured the win.
Upcoming matches in the Lower Bracket include Team Liquid against EHOME and Alliance versus Aster. Fnatic, meanwhile, is set to go against the loser of the EV vs iG game and beastcoast will play against whoever loses the VG vs Fighting Pandas match.
Matches for the next round start on November 18 at 9:00 PM EST.
