3 Upsets in 3 Grand Finals at DOTA Summit 13 Online

DOTA Summit 13 Online is finally over and the results are spectacular. The tournament took place in 3 separate regions and in each of them, the favorite managed to lose somehow. To be fair, in every case it happened in the Grand Final, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. But given the skill difference between the best team and the runner-up, the expectation was that the best competitor was going to win. But that did not happen. And not only did it not happen. It did not happen in 3 cases out of 3. Let’s have a look.

Europe & CIS

In this region, the top teams were arguably Team Liquid, mudgolems, and Vikin.gg. Each of them entered the race as a high achiever, finishing 1^st, 3^rd, and 5^th – 6^th respectively at the recent ESL One Germany 2020, a tournament that featured the best teams in Europe. In Liquid’s and Vikin.gg’s case, the organizers of DOTA Summit 13 Online decided to offer them a Playoff Invite. In other words, the teams skipped the Group Stage completely. Seeing the end result, we can understand why.

Both Liquid and Vikin.gg won their Quarterfinals and Semifinals against their lower-skilled opponents and then faced each other in the Grand Final. Liquid was the big favorite and even managed to win the first game. But then something happened. It’s hard to say what, but what we can say is that Vikin.gg transformed into a formidable opponent after losing game 1. And they simply won 3 games in a row against the ESL One Germany 2020 champions. This was an absolute shock for everyone, including Vikin.gg.

Americas

The battle in this region looked even more predetermined than in Europe, simply because Quincy Crew had won the previous 7 tournaments and then finished the Group Stage of this one with 8 wins, 1 draw and 0 losses. The draw did come though against Team Zero, the competitor that was going to win the Grand Final.

Team Zero’s start was very unimpressive: 3 wins – 5 draws – 1 loss. Overall, they finished the round-robin in 3^rd place, behind Quincy Crew and 4 Zoomers (4 W – 4 D – 1 L). Then, in the Playoffs, they managed to beat 4 Zoomers but then they lost against Quincy Crew (1 – 2). This defeat did prove, however, that they were fully capable of winning games against Quinn’s squad.

In the Lower Bracket Final, Team Zero defeated Infamous. And then they won the Grand Final against Quincy Crew (3 – 2). The match was truly spectacular and almost had a complete reversal. Team Zero took the first two games. QC took the next two games. And in the 5^th, Team Zero abused an early game combination that’s very hard to fight against: Viper + Sand King + Undying.

Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, Among Us, TNC Predator and Motivate.Trust Gaming were the big favorites. But Among Us was probably ranked 1^st. Instead, Motivate.Trust was the winner. The team had won the Group Stage as well, but its roster is from Thailand and its past results are not spectacular at all. So the expectation was that either TNC or Among Us would win the title. But that wasn’t the case. Once again, the favorite reached the Grand Final. But there, the score was 0 – 3 in favor of their opponent.

 

Photo credit: Valve