The last major tournament of the 2018-2019 Dota Pro Circuit Season is finally over. Amidst all the rubble, it is Dota 2 team Vici Gaming that stood tall. VG gets to take home $350,000 along with 4,950 DPC Points. The points do not really have that much of an impact as even without them, VG has already been awarded a direct invite to The International 2019. While many of the teams in this tournament were "guaranteed" to get direct invites, the competition remained intense, especially in the Grand Finals.
For VG, the team started out strong, dropping only one game against Forward Gaming during the Group Stage. While VG did not dominate matches during the Playoffs, the team's performance remained extraordinary.
On the opposite end was Team Liquid, who needed to prove that it could move on without Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen. It appeared that way as the team managed to get the top spot in their group during the Group Stage and later fell to VG in the Upper Bracket Finals.
The Grand Finals proved to be a rematch between the two teams. The first game went to Team Liquid thanks to the strong performance of not just Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi, but that of Kuro "KuroKy" Salehi Takhasomi. The next two games tilted towards VG and could be considered relatively short. In both games, Zhang "Paparazi" Chengjun had good performance, backed-up by Zeng "Ori" Jiaoyang.
VG wanted to close out the tournament by game four, and it showed in the performances of Paparazi and Ori. Initially it would appear that way as VG went all in to attack Liquid's base. That attack proved to be rather disastrous for VG, but they forced the issue and used their buybacks. However, VG was almost wiped out, leaving only Zhou "Yang" Haiyang on his Warlock. An excellent play by Aliwi "w33" Omar on Puck took out Yang without any buybacks, VG had no choice but to call GG.
Exciting as game four was, the final game of the tournament appeared to be mere formality as Paparazi and Ori showed no mercy and closed out the game in just above 30 minutes.
With the loss to VG, Liquid took second place and $170,000. The other two top finishers were Virtus.pro in third and a surprising performance from TNC Predator, who reached fourth place.
