TNC sets date with Team Liquid
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Two Minor and Major tournaments have already passed since Mineski-Dota was able to earn their latest Dota Pro Circuit points. The measly 90-point reward for a fourth-place finish in the SL i-League Invitational Season 4 wasn’t able to stop other teams from kicking the Southeast Asian powerhouse out of the Dota Pro Circuit top eight.
Bound under a tournament dry spell, Mineski-Dota entered their best-of-three match-up against Vici Gaming with hopes to secure at least a third-place finish and, most importantly, the additional 675 Dota Pro Circuit points. It was their best chance to climb back to the Dota Pro Circuit leaderboards, because if they failed against the Chinese hotshots, Mineski-Dota would have been forced to face Virtus.pro in a best-of-one elimination in the lower bracket. (It was a brutal end for Mineski-Dota the last time that happened.)
Congratulations to @MineskiProTeam for making it to the #DAC2018 major Top 3, a first for a SEA team. GG @ViCi_Gaming Coming up on https://t.co/POOblpibRA, the 1v1 tournament! pic.twitter.com/rrV3EXmnAp
— PGL (@pglesports) April 5, 2018
The opportunity almost slipped out of their hands especially when Vici Gaming pulled off another clutch comeback against Mineski-Dota to tie the best-of-three series. The one-hour thriller almost felt like a déjà vu of Vici Gaming’s match against TNC Predator last night, except LaNm and his squad only had to comeback from a game-high 12k gold lead.
Instead of dictating the pace of the game like they did against OpTic Gaming yesterday, it was Mineski-Dota that was forced to adapt to Vici Gaming’s pace of the game.This was the case during the entire series since Fenrir refused to let go of Mineski-Dota’s Chen, Nature’s Prophet, and Pangolier.
The SEA powerhouse, however, came in prepared as they proceeded to pull out the classic Death Prophet and Outworld Devourer combo during the deciding game. Mineski-Dota’s team fight execution was proved to be better against their Chinese counterpart as they proceeded to outlast them in almost every team fight.
After the good game call was forced out of Vici Gaming, Mineski-Dota was automatically guaranteed the seventh spot of the Dota Pro Circuit leaderboards with a guaranteed 1575 points, pushing Evil Geniuses down to top eight, and Natus Vincere to top nine–even if it meant for Jabz to eat his ‘China number one’ statement yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Filipino Dota 2 fans got their hopes renewed as TNC Predator extends its tournament life by eliminating OpTic Gaming, the last North American contender in the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018. Their third best-of-one meeting in the tournament forced the best out of both teams as Pajkatt’s split-pushing Syllabear almost turned the game the other way around.
Picking up from their late game mistakes against Vici Gaming last night, TNC Predator exhibited wiser decision-making abilities against ppd’s squad. During the post-game interview, TNC captain Kuku admitted that they have always felt confident about the situation since OpTic Gaming only had the tower demolisher in the Spirit Bear.
Although TNC Predator was able to pick up a pretty convincing win today, heavier challenges await them as the Filipino Dota 2 powerhouse set themselves in a do-or-die best-of-one date with defending The International champions, Team Liquid.
Mineski-Dota, on the other hand, will be matched against another Chinese powerhouse LGD Gaming for the first slot in the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018 grand finals.
