OG need a victory to make it to the playoffs

posted by Smyke,

OG is a favourite to win the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor in Kiev, but a loss against Old But Gold causes huge damage - OG might not make it to the playoffs.

OG needs to fight back tomorrow

One of Igor 'ILTW' Filatov's strongest heroes is Ember Spirit lately. The 19-year-old Russian carry had some solid performances on this hero at ESL One Katowice 2019. However, Old But Gold surrounding Ilya 'Illidan Stormrage' Pivtsaev was prepared for that and knew perfectly how to shut him down.

OG didn't find an opening in the first game of the series and had to call 'GG' after 26 minutes and eight kills on their board.

Game two, on the other hand, was way better for the reigning TI champions - Old But Gold didn't have the gold lead for a single second of the game. Especially Ivan 'Vanskor' Skorokhod on Winter Wyvern had a rough game: he died eleven times in 34 minutes, almost as much as the whole OG squad in that game.

The best player on OG's side was Topias 'Topson' Taavitsainen on Pangolier with incredible stats: 19/2/17. It seemed like OG would recover from that game one loss.

Even the third game was in the favour of OG - at least in the beginning. Jesse 'JerAx' Vainikka proved again that he's one of the best position four players in the world. His performance on Earthshaker was incredible:

However, OG still lost the game. They lost so many team fights during this match that it was impossible for them to keep up with Old But Gold in the net worth difference - the Russians knew exactly what they need to do to stop OG's lineup.

OG will play against Royal Never Give Up in the Lower Brackets of Group A. If the European squad lose to the Chinese team surrounding Du 'Monet' Peng, they would be out of the tournament before the playoffs even start.

EE's team make it into the playoffs

Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao, on the other hand, can relax for a moment. His team beat both their opponents in the group stage. test 123 are the first team to make it to the playoffs of the third Minor.

Especially FP's newest addition, Eric 'Ryoya' Dong, had a great performance during day one of the tournament.

He played four different heroes (Monkey King, Pangolier, Queen of Pain and Outworld Devourer) and had stats of 48/28/74 in all series combined.

Gambit is the favourite

While the remaining three teams in Group A have a break until tomorrow, Group B will start in the tournament today.

The favourite of this group is obviously AS Monaco Gambit after finishing second at ESL One Katowice 2019. However, Vici Gaming could be a threat to the CIS team. By the end of the day we know who'll face EE and his Flying Penguins in the Semifinals.