Arlington Major playoffs preview

Tomorrow, PGL Arlington Major 2022 is about to enter the playoffs stage. Only 12 of the original 17 Dota 2 teams are left in the race and all of them have the objective of finishing in the top eight at the very least.

That’s because the top eight teams receive money for their efforts and more importantly, Dota Pro Circuit points. In many cases, finishing 5th-6th or even 7th-8th would grant the participant enough points to guarantee its place in DPC’s top 12. In other words, it would be their ticket to The International 2022.

Qualified teams

The 12 teams that survived the group stage of PGL Arlington Major are these:

• LGD
• Outsiders
• OG
• Fnatic
• Team Aster
• Entity
• Team Spirit
• BOOM Esports
• Royal Never Give Up
• Team Liquid
• Evil Geniuses
• Beastcoast

The first eight of these teams will start in the upper bracket while the bottom four will start in the lower bracket. What’s interesting here is that the lower bracket teams do not play right away. Instead, they wait for the losers of the first round of the upper bracket.

This means that not even the upper bracket teams are guaranteed a place in the top eight. If they lose twice in a row, they will finish 9th-12th and all of the efforts will have been for nothing.

The competitors who desperately need to finish in the top eight at the Arlington Major are Team Liquid (currently ranked 13th), Royal Never Give Up (15th), Outsiders (16th), and Entity (28th).

In Entity’s case, the battle seems hopeless because they currently have just 800 and they would practically need to win the title just to have a chance. But the other three teams have a real chance of securing a direct invite to TI11. All they need to do is get enough points to surpass some of the teams that are currently in the top 12.

The only problem is that most of those teams are here to defend their DPC spot. Here’s what the top 12 of Dota Pro Circuit rankings look like right now:

• Thunder Awaken: 1540 points
• LGD: 1500 points
• TSM: 1380 points
• OG: 1340 points
• Beastcoast: 1295 points
• Tundra Esports: 1212 points
• Gaimin Gladiators: 1130 points
• BOOM Esports: 1122 points
• Evil Geniuses: 1052 points
• Fnatic: 1020 points
• Team Spirit: 990 points
• Team Aster: 940 points

Evil Geniuses and BOOM Esports may not finish in the top eight. But Aster, Spirit, and Fnatic almost certainly will. This means that the competitors who are not in the top 12 at this point will need to finish ahead of them.

Header: PGL