Playoffs kicked off today at the ONE Esports Dota 2
Southeast Asia League, with upper bracket semi-final action between Fnatic,
Neon Esports, Geek Fam and TNC Predator as the teams fought for a guaranteed
top three finish.
Opening things up in the upper bracket semi-finals would be
Neon Esports taking on Fnatic, in what would be an epic best-of-three series.
When the two teams met in the group stage, Neon were the only team that were
able to outright beat Fnatic as they claimed a magnificent 2-0 win and the first
game of the series looked to go the same way. Neon were dominant, pummelling
their opponents into submission in only half an hour and taking the series
lead. The next game in the series lasted nearly a full hour, with both teams
battling back-and-forth but Fnatic managing to always maintain the net worth
lead and eventually tied up the series.
Game three was another back-and-forth brawl between the two
squads, with neither team wanting to give up their upper bracket spot. Some
fancy footwork from Djardel ‘DJ’ Mampusti and brilliant team fight potential
from Fnatic is what ended up securing both the game and series, as well as pushing
them into the upper bracket final. For Neon, they will now have to fight
through the lower bracket if they want a shot at revenge on Fnatic.
For the second series of the day, we would see a magnificent SEA clash between TNC Predator and Geek Fam. After the two teams played to a 1-1 draw in the group stages, this series was set to separate them from one another, pushing the loser into the lower bracket. TNC seemed to be the clear winners in the early and mid-game period, dominating the net worth charts and having the entire map under their control until near 40-minutes when GF seemed to finally find their footing and destroy TNC’s lineup multiple times over. Even so, with the game pushing over the one hour mark, TNC were relentless and managed to find their opportunity, amidst multiple mistakes, to take back their lead and the game.
While things were shaky in the first game, TNC solidified perfectly in the next, managing to utilise their lineup to near perfection, chain stunning and ripping through Geek Fam. Although GF were able to make a very brief window for themselves to have a comeback, it was shutdown by the creeps in their base and TNC at the same time as they marched to a fantastic 2-0 victory. With that, GF drop into the lower bracket, while TNC will secure themselves an upper bracket final spot against Fnatic.
The action from ONE Esports Dota 2 SEA League is over for
today, but returns tomorrow with lower bracket elimination action starting with
BOOM Esports versus Team Adroit and culminating in T1 versus New Esports.
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