March 8 ended the third major of the season Dota Pro Circuit 2019/2020 – StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3

March 8 ended the third major of the season Dota Pro Circuit 2019/2020 – StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3. Gambit esports could not please fans from the CIS and took only third place. Became a champion Team aster, which in the final with a score 3: 1 outplayed Alliance. But the main events of the tournament were two returns – “Prodigal son” in Gambit and “Chinese Miracle-” to the top level. About this and much more – in our material.

GpK was unable to “solo”

Most of all to me, and I think to many viewers from the CIS, it was interesting to see the comeback on the major gpK ~ and how this whole story with the failed transfer to Virtus.pro will reflect on team interactions. According to Fng, after a serious two-hour conversation, they resolved all the issues within the team. What the atmosphere in the team really was, we are unlikely to find out, but gpK joined the game itself without any problems. Moreover, Gambit began to trust her young mid-player even more. It was from the center line that the team played most of the matches. Almost every game XSvamp1Re and Fng (or both at once) came to the rescue of gpK from the first minutes. In the match against BOOM Esports on the second map, Earthshaker literally “registered” in the mid, having performed a full-fledged roamer-four of a sample two years ago. A few Fissure funerals in the first ten minutes, and now the rival’s midad is almost twice behind gpK.

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I even played on Skutin dream ‘, which sometimes turned into a seven-carry, as, for example, on the first map against the Alliance in the playoffs. GpK justified this trust and really squeezed the maximum out of its heroes, showing excellent performance. However, this was not enough to win the tournament – he didn’t manage to win the major “alone”.

In an effort to create the most comfortable conditions for the mid, Gambit sometimes pushed itself into a dead end, especially in the late game. On the first map against the Alliance, all the power of the CIS team was concentrated in Sniper. Closer to the 50th minute, playing according to such a scheme became difficult. All Alliance players had decent artifacts and just jumped into gpK. Neither BKB nor teammates could protect Skutin, and as soon as his hero was killed, the rest of the team already ceased to inflict enough damage.

The problem with Gambit was not only that sometimes it concentrated all resources in one hero. The Fng team sometimes showed excellent understanding of macro, and good communication in battles, but there was always a moment when all this disappeared and errors appeared. Gambit was extremely unstable, even within a single card. For example, Shachlo in a match against Aster at a crucial moment descended from a hill and substituted for Outworld Devourer’s Astral Imprisonment, thereby losing the opportunity to save the allied Storm Spirit.

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Gambit made global mistakes in matches with not-so-experienced opponents – in a duel with BOOM, the team twice initiated battles without a mid, one of these fights cost them a card. Analysts noted rather controversial decisions at the lining stage. On the second map against Aster, a pair of Gambit players on the heavy line farm creeps behind the Chinese tower, letting Alchemist calmly swing. Sccc took advantage of this gift and accelerated so much that very soon almost doubled the nearest pursuer in total value. Gambit clung to this card and fought really beautiful mass battles with the ultimates Naga Siren, Disruptor and Dark Seer, but all this was not enough to make up for the advantage given at the lane stage.

Despite all these errors, the game Gambit left a good impression. She fought on equal terms with Aster and could have quietly defeated the Alliance for the second time in the tournament. Gambit has interesting ideas, the ability to adapt to the difficulties of the game’s campaign, and most importantly, the team again has gpK, which once again demonstrated that at the moment, he is perhaps the strongest leader in the CIS.

Sccc Return

Aster skating rink walked over opponents on StarLadder ImbaTV. During the tournament, the Chinese team lost only one card – in the grand final against Alliance. Aster did not destroy opponents in 20 minutes, but she confidently and the follower acted from the draft stage until the destruction of the throne. The matches against Gambit turned out to be pretty stubborn, but at the same time I had the impression that the Chinese still fully control the course of the meeting. Aster was also mistaken, but she always had enough resources to bring the match to victory.

Aster has made a big contribution to the success Song Sccc Chun. One of the most talented players in China in recent years has shown not the best game. After The international 2017where he is composed Newbee took second place, the results of Sccc declined. In 2019, he was not even able to leave the group in the closed Chinese qualifiers at TI. In Aster, he switched to the role of Kerry. Minor in Kiev showed that Sccc now feels most comfortable in this position. According to the results of the tournament, he became the best in most individual indicators – GPM, XPM, KDA and the least number of deaths. And also, it seemed that Sccc decided to repeat the old challenge alone Virtus.pro on the DOTA Summit 7 – for 12 minor cards, he played on eleven different heroes. Moreover, as statistics show, on each character he was effective. Having a carry with such a wide pool of heroes is a great help in terms of tactical variation for Aster.

On all the minors of this season, the team from China played in the finals and twice it was she who received the slot in the major. Which once again confirms that the average Chinese region is now out of competition. Judging the prospects for Aster in Los Angeles is quite difficult. The resistance level on the major will be completely different. However, if Sccc retains the game form recruited in Kiev, his team has every chance to rise above 9-12 places where she stayed in Leipzig.

Fiasco of North America

There were two teams from North America at StarLadder ImbaTV, the CIS had the same privilege. Command Clinton Fear Loomiz business associates immediately attracted attention with an unusual shape – the players performed in white shirts and black ties. However, the team could not show its style in matches. Here you can recall the competition in CA. In addition to the Fear team and ex-Fighting PandaS, Mexicans from two Team xolotl and stack Zoomies. Against this background, business associates looked cheerful, but a check forZe and Indonesians BOOM did not pass and took the last place.

The second squad from North America also boasted The International champion in the squad. Besides Aui_2000, in CR4ZY play quite experienced Maurice KheZu Gutman and David MoonMeander Tan. Two weeks before the start of the minor, the composition left EternaLEnVy and Sneyking. In their place came Skiter and KheZu. Perhaps the team simply did not have time to play, but, as Fng said after winning the in-person duel, CR4ZY played without a break. The Aui_2000 team in total exceeded the result of business associates and took third place in the group. Although even this result was given to them with great difficulty, the Brazilians from NoPing e-sports there were all chances to beat CR4ZY.

The bad result of the SA in Kiev is not due to the fact that these two teams went, but to the fact that there were essentially no other candidates. Their closed qualifiers would hardly have shown the best result. Now they often blame the CIS, calling it the weakest region, this is partly true – in the new season we did not have a shooting-1 team. However, a number of strong Tier-2 teams have formed in the CIS, but North America cannot boast of this. The region has a flagship in the form of EG, picking up the Chaos move and then a set of stacks. MoonMender himself in an interview admitted that in North America there simply will not be 16 combat-ready teams. In his opinion, all teams except four do not even reach tier-3 level. By the way, he attributed his composition to Tier-2, perhaps with this conclusion he hurried somewhat. The match with Alliance and two cards of 30 minutes each were put in their places – the CR4ZY game is still far from even the levels of minors.

Minors become obsolete

The composition of the participants of the minor left much to be desired. During the tournament, a large gap between Aster, Alliance, Gambit and everyone else became noticeable. Apart from the in-person fights of this trinity, most of the minor cards were of little interest to the audience. On average, 69 thousand people watched StarLadder matches on all streams – this is 30 thousand less than on the previous major.

The peak result in terms of the number of viewers was recorded in the Gambit match against the Alliance – 153 thousand people. The best indicator of Russian-language broadcasting stopped at around 77 thousand. For comparison, IEM Katowice 2023 CS: GO, which ended a week earlier, gathered more than a million viewers on the final day and over 300 thousand in a Russian-language broadcast. Two times ahead of StarLadder and BLAST Premier Spring Series 2023and after all there a team from the CIS played only three days out of nine. Although until recently, the performance on Russian-language streams of CS: GO tournaments was significantly lower than that of Dota 2.

StarLadder did not help with a successful format either – two teams from each group left the championship, so there were no meaningless matches. However, even if BOOM vs. BA is endowed with an important tournament value, it will not become more attractive to the audience. Against this background, Valve’s initiative to completely change the format of the next rating season seems extremely timely.

StarLadder went quite calmly. There were no scandals, incredible discoveries and unexpected defeats. Even the coronavirus did not affect the tournament – after IEM Katowice it was nice to watch the matches again, hearing the reaction of the audience. All teams took about the place that they should have. Perhaps the minor did not have enough excitement and drive, but this, as already mentioned, was influenced by the selection of participants, but Dota itself left a good impression. The current patch really has a different and rather exciting game. So I look forward to seeing what the best teams in the world show ESL One Los Angeles 2023.