posted by Stache,
Starladder Season 12 is well under way. The North American and China qualifiers have already finished, while Europe and SEA are heading into phase 2. Among a ton of great matches this season of StarLadder have featured the longest game in competitive history lasting over three hours! While some of the top teams have underperformed, one old giant seems unstoppable once again.
The LAN location has changed and the format is different from what it once was, but this hasn't stopped the destruction. Almost 20 teams have already been eliminated. Prominent teams such as ua Na'Vi, ru Hellraisers, cn Newbee, cn DK and cn EHOME have failed to attain a spot.

China



The winner's bracket final was fought between cn IG and cn LGD. While IG performed well in game one, LGD outclassed them in the second. The decider was a tough cookie, with LGD almost managing to come back despite having lost their barracks in two lanes. This means IG is the first Chinese team to qualify.

LGD faced off against cn Vici Gaming in the lower bracket final. VG is clearly still looking strong even without de Dominik 'Black^' Reitmeier as they managed to beat LGD 2-1. A bitter defeat for LGD who earlier kicked VG to the lower bracket, but now go home empty handed.



North America



With us EG not participating, ca Void Boys and ca Team Tinker looked like the favourites coming out of the group stages. However, Void Boys were surpisingly the first team knocked out of stage 2. us Wheel made an impressive run through the lower bracket, but in the end fell short a second time in trying to overcome Team Tinker, who secured the only North American spot.



Europe



Europe has just finished stage one. se Alliance and ru ASUS.Polar are the last two to join phase two. While most favourites, such as eu Team Secret, ru Team Empire and world Cloud 9 secured their places in the next round, there are also a few underdogs who managed to pull through. de GOOMBA Gaming, uk London Conspiracy and especially ua ScaryFaceZ managed to beat out teams such as Na'Vi, ru Moscow 5 and Hellraisers. se Ninjas in Pyjamas* also surprisingly didn't manage to make it to phase 2.

There are, however, even more notable things going on in this region. ScaryFaceZ and Cloud 9 faced off in the longest Dota 2 match in history, lasting over 3 hours. In which they broke all kinds of records on individual heroes!

Additionally, after a very long time Alliance seem to be back on top of their game with the fr Sebastien 'Ceb' Debs leading the the Swedish squad. However, the real test is yet to come as all the top contenders are awaiting in the second phase. On the other hand, Hellraisers are having a tougher time, and don't look as strong as they once did.

The next round will see another two groups of four with the top two from each advancing. The first one may very well see one of the tournament favourites going home as Team Empire will no doubt be poised to advance, but with C9 underperforming as of late, ASUS.Polar or London Conspiracy might take one of the other spots. In group B Team Secret and Alliance will be massive favourites but both GOOMBA Gaming and ScaryFaceZ are for sure capable of pull off an underdog story.



South East Asia



SEA is the only group that still has some phase 1 matches left. my EHOME.my and ph Mineski have moved on. The other half is near completion. kr MVP Phoenix and th Signature.Trust have won their first two trials. With only 1 matchup left for each team they're also set to advance to phase 2.




Qualified teams for the LAN Finals



world Team Tinker*
cn Invictus Gaming
cn Vici Gaming
eu ????
eu ????
eu ????
eu ????
world ????


For more info about StarLadder XII and all the upcoming matches check out our COVERAGE PAGE!


This article was written by ca Max Winkelman, joinDOTA Writer.Stache got into Dota since its inception in Warcraft 3. Since it's pretty awesome, he stuck with it.Location: Ottawa, Canada

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