Things are heating up at the ESL One Mumbai 2019 as the different Dota 2 teams now fight for a spot on the finals. That honor currently belongs to Mineski and Natus Vincere, who will need to go against each other for the first Grand Finals spot.
For Mineski, the team had a strong showing in the Group Stage. During the first round of Playoff matches, the team swept Team Team 2-0. In both games, Mineski dominated with the first game, with the team racking up a total of 43 kills against their opponent's 14.
A surprise result was Na'Vi beating out Chinese team Keen Gaming. KG has been showing impressive performance in recent tournaments and ended the Group Stage on top. In the first game, KG had initial advantage. However, a fight around the 14 to 16 minute mark would turn the favor to Na'Vi, who did not look back and took the win. KG got revenge on this loss with the second game partially thanks to Zhai Jingkai's Ember Spirit scoring 12 kills and zero deaths. The third game would be similar to the first one in that KG took the lead, but Na'Vi again managed to shift the favor to their side and get the victory.
In the Lower Bracket, Indian team Signify was eliminated from the tournament by TNC. Signify had hoped to make some dent in the Dota 2 scene, but this was not their tournament. Signify leaves the tournament with zero wins.
It was a different story for TNC, who had a strong showing during the Group Stage, but was swept by Team Team in the Winner's Match 2-0 and later defeated by Na'Vi 2-1.
TNC has been known to come from behind and so far it has shown that. First it beat out Signify in the first round of the Lower Bracket. In the second round, TNC faced off against Team Team, a rematch of their Group Stage fight. The first game was all TNC as Team Team had trouble dealing with Armel Paul "Armel" Tabios on his Outworld Devourer and Kim "Gabbi" Villafuerte on his Drow Ranger. The biggest story came in the second game with Timothy "Tims" Randrup on Rubick. Despite ending the game with two wins, one death, and 17 assists, Tims was declared the MVP.
MVP worthy steals from @TimsDOTA's Rubick! #PredatorPlayoftheGame#StrongerTogether#SummonYourStrength pic.twitter.com/Ikn3CwdCLm
— TNC Predator ?? (@TNCPredator) April 19, 2019
In particular, Tims made excellent use of Ravage and Black Hole to seal the match for TNC. In a postgame interview, Tims said his opponents were expecting an Enigma and that all you need is patience.
TNC will take on the winner of the match between Keen Gaming and The Pango. The match is scheduled for April 20 at 2:00 a.m. EDT.
