OG stumble against syndereN's Kaban

posted by Smyke,

The reigning TI8 champions are one step closer to qualify for the upcoming StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor, but the real task awaits OG in the playoffs. Only one team can make it to the Minor in Kiev, while the first two Minors of the season each had two European teams in the tournament. This means the competition in the qualifier will be way tougher this time. Alliance, Vega Squadron (EU), Kaban and OG - they all have high hopes.

syndereN surprises n0tail

The duel of the Danish captains was closer than expected - Troels 'syndereN' Nielsen and his team-mates had a good start in the series. OG wasn't able to cope with Oliver 'Skiter' Lepko's Lifestealer.

The Slovakian player had eleven kills, five assists and zero death by the end of the first game. Topias 'Topson' Taavitsainen was the only OG player that actually had a good game on Morphling.

syndereN drafted a similar lineup for his team in the second game: they picked Pangolier, Chaos Knight and Rubick again, but switched Lifestealer and Batrider with Night Stalker and Phantom Assassin. While the support CK in game one was a surprising factor, OG was prepared for it this time and countered Kaban perfectly.

Topson had an incredible game on Ember Spirit: he killed 14 opponents and just died twice. Both teams beat the Czech squad Dota2Players surrounding Rodion 'MYSmoon' Fomkin afterwards and qualified for the playoffs.

Alliance is unstoppable

Alliance and Vega Squadron (EU) started in the second group against each other, but Alliance proved that they're the favourite to reach the Minor. The Swedish team qualified for the last two Majors, but disappointed in the last Major qualifier. This is the reason why they had to go through the open qualifier to compete now.

Both games ended after less than 35 minutes and the MVP of the series was the German mid laner Max 'Qojqva' Broecker. He killed 21 opponents in both games and died four times.

Strong performance from the team and a beyond Godlike Zeus from @qojqva1 wins us this series 2-0.
GGs to @VegaSquadron

Our next Bo2 will be vs The ReaL DeaL at 17.00 CET.#LongLiveAlliance #Dota2 #SLIMinor pic.twitter.com/Q06LYKR69P
— Alliance (@theAllianceGG) 11. Februar 2019

The third team in the group was Team Singularity including TI3 winner Jerry 'EGM' Lundkvist - and they already beat Alliance in the Major qualifier.

However, Alliance was perfectly prepared for the playstyle of EGM and his team-mates this time - they won their game without any big problems and the same goes for Vega.