With one of the biggest Dota 2 events of the year finally at an end, it’s time to look back at some key moments with my EPICENTER Major recap! Vici Gaming managed to win their second Major of the season and their third Dota Pro Circuit event overall (for 2018-2019). At the same time, Team Liquid managed to qualify for their second consecutive Major Grand Final, proving that what happened last time wasn’t a fluke. Even more remarkable is the fact that they’ve done it immediately after making a roster change.

In this article, we’ll be doing a quick overview of the tournament followed by my impressions regarding the teams. With The International 2019 just six weeks away, the conclusions you can draw from the results of this final DPC event are more significant than everything we knew prior to the tournament. Because the results were more than surprising.

EPICENTER Major Group Stage

The Group Stage of EPICENTER Major had the following structure and seeding:

Group A

• 1st place: Team Secret
• 2nd place: RNG
• 3rd place: Fnatic
• 4th place: paiN Gaming

Secret easily won this group and it looked as though they were destined to win another Major. However, things were going to go totally wrong for them in the Playoffs.

The 2nd place was won by RNG, after Fnatic repeated their poor performance from the previous Major and lost twice against the Chinese team.

Group B

• 1st place: Team Liquid
• 2nd place: Gambit Esports
• 3rd place: Evil Geniuses
• 4th place: Infamous

This group should have been won by Evil Geniuses followed by Team Liquid, but the NA team was not in great shape at this event at all. At the same time, Liquid proved to be one of the strongest teams at the event.

Group C

• 1st place: Vici Gaming
• 2nd place: Virtus.pro
• 3rd place: Alliance
• 4th place: Forward Gaming

By defeating both Forward Gaming and Alliance, Vici Gaming won this group, even though they had not been confirmed at that point as one of the tournament’s best teams. I think people wanted to see them clash with Virtus.pro and win against the CIS squad before regarding them as a potential champion. However, VP lost in their opening match against Alliance and VG had an easier job in their second match of the group.

Ultimately, Virtus.pro took revenge in their 2nd and 3rd match, winning both of them without losing a single game. However, even by finishing 3rd, Alliance looked very strong and it was easy to see that they might just get enough victories in the Lower Bracket to secure a spot at The International 2019, which they did.

Group D

• 1st place: TNC Predator
• 2nd place: PSG.LGD
• 3rd place: Ninjas in Pyjamas
• 4th place: OG

This was a spectacular group with an unlikely winner. Everyone was expecting PSG.LGD to win, but it was TNC Predator that claimed the 1st position, after consecutive victories against OG and NiP. The TI finalist from last year lost the opening match against NiP and had to fight hard for the 2nd spot in the group. The 3rd and 4th spots were occupied by pdd’s squad alongside 7ckngMad’s. However, both of these teams looked quite strong and the chance for them to get a deep Lower Bracket run was excellent. In OG’s case, that ultimately ended up happening in spite of all the odds.

EPICENTER Major Playoffs Stage

This how the Playoffs down went at EPICENTER Major.

Round 1

The Playoffs Stage of EPICENTER Major began with some unexpected Upper Bracket winners and massive upset in the Lower Bracket. More specifically, Virtus.pro beat Secret, Team Liquid beat PSG.LGD and OG was victorious against Evil Geniuses. Both Secret’s defeat and EG’s elimination came as a shock to people. Both teams were ranked top three in the world at that point and their opponents had had a rough tournament up until that point. And yet, the totally unexpected happened.

Round 2

In the Upper Bracket, Team Liquid continued their triumphant run with a victory against Virtus.pro, while Vici Gaming managed to beat TNC Predator. Both matches were close and needed three games to conclude.

In the Lower Bracket, the second round of matches had two big upsets: OG defeated Team Secret (2 – 0) while playing with a substitute, while Gambit Esports beat NiP (2 – 0) in two quick games. Gambit’s result was somewhat understandable but Secret’s was a massive upset. If this would have been TI, I’m pretty sure that Secret would have disbanded immediately after the match.

People are still asking the obvious question: how? And it’s hard not to speculate. How can the world’s best team lose against a much weaker opponent that’s playing with a substitute? And the match wasn’t even close. Secret got crushed in two games.

There are only two options here: either Secret lost a bit of their prowess after the latest patch came out, or maybe they decided to deliberately get a poor result in order to give other teams the impression that they’re not the real threat at The International 2019. Puppey is known for his tournament philosophy on how if you sneak in and look like an underdog, nobody will take you seriously enough to prepare for your strategies. So the big teams will prepare for each other and analyze other opponents, while you will have your own dark room in which to prepare in complete secrecy.

To be fair, this has happened many times before in Dota, especially at big events, where an underdog just went in and grabbed the title without anyone even noticing. So perhaps that’s why Secret had the worst Major performance of the season (by far!) after playing in three Grand Finals and winning two DPC titles in 2018-2019. Even though it may sound strange, I simply cannot imagine how Secret could have lost otherwise against such a weak opponent. The odds of a 2 – 0 victory in favor of OG must have been somewhere below 3%. And not only because of the skill difference but also because of N0tail’s sickness and inability to compete.

Round 3

In the 3rd Round, Vici Gaming won a close match against Team Liquid in the Upper Bracket while Alliance and PSG.LGD won their matches against Gambit and OG respectively in the Lower Bracket. In spite of losing, OG’s performance at EPICENTER Major secured them a direct invite to TI 9. In the other Lower Bracket match, Alliance achieved what looked impossible before the start of the tournament: a top six result and a direct invite to The International 2019.

Round 4, 5 and 6 (Lower Bracket)

The remaining three Lower Bracket rounds saw Virtus.pro triumph over Alliance and TNC Predator do the same thing against PSG.LGD. Then, VP beat TNC but ended up losing against Liquid, who would go on to play one more time against Vici Gaming in the Grand Final of EPICENTER Major.

Grand Final

In spite of losing the first game, Vici Gaming looked like the stronger team. And throughout the match, they simply made much better decisions overall. It’s actually quite amazing that Liquid won two games out of five and forced the match to go all the way, when their opponent was so precise in everything they did. In Vici Gaming’s case, it was a clear team effort that helped them win their games. In Liquid’s case, the victories had a lot more to do with the individual performances of some of their superstar players.

EPICENTER Major Conclusions

This tournament clearly taught us a few things.

TI 9 Favorites

Based on what happened at EPICENTER Major, it’s hard not to regard Vici Gaming and Team Liquid as two of the biggest TI 9 favorites. And in Liquid’s case, their ability to play so well just two weeks after bringing in w33 and replacing their carry (MATUMBAMAN) was actually impressive. Usually, teams temporarily lose their prowess after a roster change, because they lose much of their cohesion. But Liquid played like w33 had been with them for the entire season. Everything went so smooth that you couldn’t tell that they were practically playing with a substitute.

Apart from Liquid and VG, it’s hard not to imagine Virtus.pro, Team Secret and even Evil Geniuses among the favorites, even though both EG and Secret messed up completely at EPICENTER Major. I already discussed Secret’s case but I’m not sure what went wrong with EG. Unlike Secret, they are known to give it their all at every tournament. So the fact that they got crushed in the groups and then lost to OG is worrying.

Alliance and TNC Predator

Both Alliance and TNC Predator had excellent performances and looked like they could do even better with additional practice. Alliance is now back for real and TNC Predator is quickly becoming one of the world’s best under Heen’s guidance. The former Liquid coach has a high chance of turning TNC into one of the favorites until TI 9.