Summary of Events
All the 2018/2019
DPC Events (aside from The
International 2019) are done. Twelve teams
have earned their invite. At Epicenter
TNC, OG, Keen held onto their spots, while EHOME (which failed to
qualify for the event) lost its 12th place spot to
Alliance. First, the
highlights.
Fnatic,
which had earned a top 3 finish two Majors ago, but flopped out in
the first round at the last Major, continued their terrible
performance, losing to Royal Never Give Up twice and Forward Gaming
in a best of one. As
a result they released their carry, MP, moved their pos 5, Jabz to
pos 1, and acquired DuBu.
More
astonishing was the defeat of the unbeatable Secret. They beat Royal
and Pain to top Group A, but lost in the upper bracket to VP and were
eliminated by OG without N0tail.
OG
performed surprisingly well without their captain who suffered
through gastronomic distress. They lost to NiP and TNC in Group D,
but beat EG in a bo1, and Secret 2-0. While N0tail planned to
return, they were eliminated by LGD.
EG
was another top team which suffered losses similar to Fnatic and
Secret. They lost to Liquid and Gambit in Group B, before losing
their bo1 to OG.
TNC,
which had only performed in the first Major, transformed themselves
to beat OG and NiP in Group D, and Royal Never Give Up in the
playoffs, before losing to Vici in the upper bracket. They beat LGD
before losing to VP for a 4th
place finish.
With
an incredible run which included beating VP in Group C, Alliance
secured the last spot at TI9. They had to defeat Infamous, Royal
Never Give Up, and Gambit in the lower bracket before falling in a
rematch to VP.
Liquid
and Vici ended up being the stars of the Epicenter. No team beat
Vici Gaming, and the only team to beat Liquid was Vici, twice. As a
result, Vici jumps four places into 2nd
place for Awkward Mixture's Power Rankings.
Royal
Never Give Up and Gambit came close, but both failed to secure a
direct invite. After beating EG in the Group B decider to secure an
upper bracket spot, Gambit lost to Vici, beating NiP, and losing to
Alliance. Royal beat Fnatic twice in Group A, before losing to TNC
and Alliance to fall out of the playoffs.
Readers
might be wondering why NAVI, EHOME, and Keen Gaming are worth
mentioning. Keen, who had already secured an invite, failed to make
the Minor or Major. They dropped precipitously in the power
rankings. EHOME, who made the Minor, but not the Major, also
dropped, but out of the invites. NAVI, in spite of failing to make
the Major or Minor, looked good in the qualifiers. They will
certainly challenge Gambit for the remaining CIS spot.
In
all, many of the top teams performed poorly. Were Secret, EG, and
Ninjas practicing new techniques since they had already secured their
invites? In Ninja's case, one wonders if they almost wanted to lose,
letting an Alliance vs Gambit match-up happen. That way those two
teams could determine their own fate.
Changes
The
teams who improved the most on the Power Rankings were;
TNC
from sub 20 to 10th.
Gambit,
from sub 20 to 13th.
Alliance,
up 7.
NAVI,
up 6.
Royal
Never Give Up, up 5.
And
Vici, up 4.
On
the other hand, the worst were;
Complexity,
down 4.
EHOME,
down 4.
Mineski,
down 5.
And
Keen, down 8.
The
International 2019 Regional Qualifiers
Now
that the 12 direct invites have been earned, each of the six regions
now has one additional spot to qualify through. For each region here
are my picks.
Europe
– The Final Tribe (42) or new Chaos (?).
China
– Royal Never Give Up (12), Sirius (19), EHOME (20), Aster (23),
Newbee (28), or Royal (29).
SEA
– Mineski (17) or Boom ID (27).
NA
– Forward (15), Complexity (17), J.Storm (21).
CIS
– Gambit (13), NAVI (14), Winstrike (30), Empire (31), Spirit (35),
or new Pango (37).
Valve's
invites nearly
mirror mine,
but I don't include (new) beastcoast, and I do include Newbee and
Royal from China, along with (new) The Pango from CIS.
Awkward
Mixture's Dota Power Rankings
The
number in brackets indicates the change in ranking since the end of
the MDL
Disneyland® Paris Major.
Teams in Red participated in the Major, Blue in the Minor, and Black
failed to qualify for either. An * indicates the team secured a spot
at the International. Readers can compare these Power Rankings to
DPC
points here.
Top
Tier:
1.
Secret* (0)
2.Vici
Gaming* (+4) 1st
Place
3.
Team Liquid* (+1) 2nd
Place
Upper Middle
Tier:
4.
Virtus Pro* (-2) 3rd
Place
5.
LGD* (-2)
6.
Evil Geniuses* (-1)
7. OG* (0)
Middle Tier:
8.
Alliance*
(+7)
9.
Fnatic* (-1)
10.
TNC* (New) 4th
Place
11. Ninjas in
Pyjamas* (-2)
Lower Middle
Tier:
12. Royal Never
Give Up (+5)
13.
Gambit (New)
14. NAVI (+6)
Bottom Tier:
15.
Forward (+3)
16.
Mineski (-5)
17. Complexity
Gaming (-4)
18. Keen
Gaming* (-8)
19.
Sirius (New)
20.
EHOME (-4)
Additional Participants in the Major
or Minor
22. Pain Gaming
24. Infamous
30. Winstrike
Off the top 20:
Aster
Boom ID
Chaos
A
Review of Regional Invites for Majors
Throughout
the 2018/2019 Dota Pro Circuit, fans and personalities argued over
which regions deserved additional invites. Valve mandated that each
Major invite two teams from each of the six regions, with one spot
for the winner of the Minor, and three spots to be awarded however
the tournament organizer decided. Europe and China receiving an
additional invite every event, while North America received an
additional invite for the first four Majors. But at the last Major,
North America only got 2, and the top two Minor winners were both
invited, instead of one.
Should Europe, China, and North America have received these additional spots? Should they have gone to another region? The answer can be determined by looking at what each region achieved relative to their invites. While one could factor in the Minor invites as well, it is possible to understand the relative results without them, so we'll restrict ourselves to the Majors.
Europe
and China received 3 invites at every Major, meaning they averaged 3.
North
America averaged 2.8 Major invites.
CIS,
SEA, and SA averaged 2 invites.
But
each each Major included 16 teams, and there are only twelve direct
invites to the International. A bit of math shows what each region
should have accomplished.
China
and EU should have secured 2.43 spots each. NA should have gotten
2.27. CIS, SEA, and SA each should have earned 1.62. In addition,
each region receives an additional spot at The International 2019.
There are twelve direct invites, but one qualifier for one each of
the regions. So the final tally is
China/EU
– 3.43 expected teams
NA
– 3.27
CIS/SEA/SA
– 2.62
Of
course, the final results don't tally with the expected. The region
which most over-performed was Europe. Instead of their expected 3.43
teams, six teams will attend TI9. China outperformed their 3.43 with
4. South East Asia beat their 2.62 with 3. CIS mildly
underachieved, with 2 for their 2.62 expected. North America, which
had been granted 3 invites for 4 of the Majors, only secured 2 for
their 3.27 expected, a -1.27 failure. But the worst of all, which
I've mentioned in every Dota blog post, was South America, which
failed to earn a single one of the 12 direct invites. Their solo
team at The International 2019 will arrive through their regional
qualifier. They missed out on an expected 1.62 teams.
The
next Dota article will be either before the Group Stage at the
International, or after it, but before the Playoffs. Keep an eye
out.
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