Teams for WePlay! Bukovel Minor decided
Following this week's DreamLeague S13 qualifiers DreamLeague S13 qualifiers, the Dota 2 teams which did not make it to the Major directly were given a lifeline in the form of WePlay! Bukovel Minor qualification.
It's certainly the long way around, but as Invictus Gaming showed with their third place finish last Major, it is possible. And Minors of course yield a $300,000 prize and 660 DPC points of their own as well. As such, the games promised to be exciting. Here is how they played out.
China
China's Minor campaign started with a decider between Newbee and Royal Never Give Up. RNG would win this one, but promptly be delegated to the lower bracket by EHOME in the next round. The team managed to collect themselves, however, and would qualify without losing a further map.
CIS
CIS continued its eye-for-an-eye trend, although Gambit Esports wasn't really interested in playing. The second-place team from October's ESL One Hamburg 2-0'ed both HellRaisers and Team Spirit for a quick qualification.
In contrast, the lower bracket saw a duo of two-hour slugfest, in which it would be Team Spirit which ended on top.
Europe
In Europe the favorites were Nigma. So far, the two-time TI finalists had not looked their greatest, appearing to still be struggling with the new meta. This time around, they showed us some questionable play as well, suffering a 1-2 defeat at the hands of Viking.gg. While they got their revenge in the finals match, question marks around the team’s form remain.
North America
In North America, Swedish organization Ninjas in Pyjamas' move to the region has not really borne fruit yet. Qualifying for their second Minor of the season by disposing of Team Xolotl 2-0 and J.Storm 2-1, they'll be hoping to turn it around in Ukraine.
J.Storm's loss meant that the squad had to face off against Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao's Fighting PandaS, who they'd defeated 2-1 in the semifinals. This time around the Pandas were stronger, taking North America's second spot.
South America
In South America, Major-qualifiers contender EgoBoys fell twice to FURIA Esports' Abaddon-Titan-Terrorblade line up and was then demolished by Gorillaz-Pride. The meeting between FURIA and Gorillaz ended up in favor of the first, who we'll thus see at the Minor.
Southeast Asia
Lastly, if we learned anything from SEA hopefuls Cignal Ultra, it's that hurricanes suck and sometimes courier sniping is just not worth it. Sadly for the Phillipine squad, matching up with favorites Geek Fam twice didn’t help either. The latter team would qualify, not dropping a game in the process.
TL;DR
The following teams will be competing in ski resort Bukovel January 9th through 12th 2020:
● Gambit Esports
● Team Spirit
● Ninjas in Pyjamas
● Fighting PandaS
● Nigma
● Royal Never Give Up
● Geek Fam
● FURIA Esports
The Minor can be followed here.
After qualifiers were done, Valve released Update 7.23c to deal with some of the imbalances which have become apparent in the last week. We're looking at you Magnus.
Image credit: WePlay!