posted by Smyke,
Week 3 of the DPC promises some absolute highlights with top matchups. Here are teams and matches you should be aware of.

Secret remain undefeated



Team Secret once more did justice to their favourite status in the DPC21: S1 - EU Upper Division. In their series against Vikin.gg captain Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov and his crew took a clean 2-0 victory.

Meanwhile, both Team Liquid and OG were able to prevent their opponents High Coast Esports and Tundra Esports respectively from staging upsets.

However, Tundra, boasting players such as Adrian 'Fata' Trinks and Neta '33' Shapira, posed a threat to the two-time TI winners, taking one map from them. Their Slovakian position 2, Oliver 'Skiter' Lepko, had a flawless game on Ursa on Map 2, obliterating Johan 'BigDaddyN0tail' Sundstein and OG 15/0/8.

With the conclusion of Week 2, only Nigma and Secret remain undefeated in the European Upper Division. The two Dota 2 giants are facing each other on Tuesday to determine who's going to take predominance over the group.



Close run in China



While there are currently two undefeated squads in Europe, there are as many as three in China: Vici Gaming, Team Aster and Invictus Gaming have all prevailed in Week 1 and 2. As expected, VG bulldozed over Team MagMa 2-0 last Tuesday. Aster was triumphant over the super squad of Zhang 'Eurus' Chengjun, Xu 'Fy' Linsen and prodigy Ru 'RedPanda' Zhihao.



Can Neon hold their lead?



In DPC21: S1 - SEA Upper Division, OB Esports x Neon have had quite a run: after overcoming BOOM Esports and 496 Gaming in Week 1, the Filipino squad faced an opponent of a different calibre: TNC Predator.

However, Neon Esports didn't give in to the favourite and took the lead after an almost 50-minute long game. This test of endurance continued on Map 2 which went over almost one hour – this time in favour of the predators. On the deciding map, everything pointed to a favourable start for Kim Villafuerte 'Gabbi' Santos and his team-mates. However, TNC lost a crucial team fight, and this snowballed into a victory for the underdogs.

In Week 3, Neon will try to continue their victory streak. They still haven't played Fnatic, who are also undefeated. The teams will not meet before Week 5, though: enough time to gather points before the true test will come to Neon.



Na'Vi and VP back to CIS top



Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro had difficult months in the past, but for some time, both organisations have been on the way to the top once more. Last week's match against Extremum, Na'Vi lead the Upper Division 3-0 (6-1).

Virtus.pro also won their last match convincingly: Live to Win which entertains notable CIS household names such as Akbar 'SoNNeikO' Butaev and Rostislav 'fn' Lozovoi had to concede a 2-0 loss against the former academy squad.

In Week 3, Na'Vi and VP will meet Team Empire and Team Unique respectively.



Evil Geniuses not invincible – but extremely tough



Evil Geniuses have dominated North America for only-god-knows-for-how-long, however, the scene seems to develop counters to the favourite. Until now, EG have won all their matchups, but they have shown weakness: both S A D B O Y S and 4 Zoomers snatched a map away from Tal 'Fly' Aizik's team.

In Week 3, Undying have to show whether they learned from the series of their co-competitors. The geniuses may not be invincible, but they are an extremely hard opponent to overcome. If Undying doesn't do the trick, all eyes will be on Quincy Crew, as they are the team which is most likely to have a shot against the favourites.



beastcoast set an example



In South America, there is currently no way around beastcoast. The Peruvian squad has prevailed in all three series, without dropping a map. EgoBoys, unknown, Latam Defenders: none of them posed a threat to Steve 'stingeR' Vargas, Hector Antonio 'K1 Hector' Rodriguez Asto and co.

Their next opponents are going to be Thunder Predator who are certainly capable of stopping beastcoast's victory streak. After their loss to Infamous, TP stepped up their game in Week 2 and we may be up for one hell of a series for South America's top spot on the scoreboard.



Photo credit: Adela Sznajder, DreamHack

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