Bali Major playoffs favorites and predictions

The playoffs stage of the Bali Major has begun and Team Liquid have already secured a spot in the top eight by defeating PSG.LGD in the upper bracket. Other strong teams, like Tundra Esports, Gaimin Gladiators, and Quest Esports, are waiting to play their opening matches.

One thing that makes the Bali Major a perilous event is the fact that the upper bracket teams don’t get to skip the first round of the lower bracket unless they win their opening match.

The losers drop to the lower bracket, where they play in round 1. Losing that match results in complete failure because only the top eight teams receive money and qualification points.

Playoffs favorites and matches

Apart from Team Liquid, who are likely to finish the tournament in the top four, BetBoom, Gaimin Gladiators, Quest Esports, and Tundra should also be considered to be considered extremely strong. Their recent results from Tour 3 of Dota Pro Circuit and DreamLeague S20 clearly indicate that they’re capable of winning.

https://t.co/91MS0OyZPc pic.twitter.com/k9frCEIfdA

— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) July 5, 2023

Given that PSG.LGD lost their first match, this Major could lead to a repeat of the first two DPC Majors of the season, in the sense that Liquid and Gladiators are the most likely Grand Finalists. However, this time they will be tested in a harsh way.

Until several months ago, there was no other team in Dota 2 apart these two that could realistically win a tournament. So they both had relatively easy paths to the Grand Final of each tournament. But now there’s BetBoom, PSG.LGD, and even Quest Esports. The last of these three teams achieved a spectacular result in the group stage.

Group B was much tougher than group A and Quest Esports somehow won the race in the face of Gladiators, BetBoom, PSG.LGD, 9Pandas, and Azure Ray. That’s not something that can be achieved with easy. In fact, nobody could have predicted such a result because it’s as surprising as OG’s victory at The International 8.

The opening matches of the Bali Major playoffs look like this:

• Team Liquid vs. PSG.LGD: 2-1
• BetBoom Team vs. Tundra Esports
• Beastcoast vs. Gaimin Gladiators
• Quest Esports vs. Team Aster

In the lower bracket, the situation looks like this:

• LGD vs. Team Spirit
• ? vs. Azure Ray
• ? vs. Shopify Rebellion
• ? vs. 9Pandas

All of the lower bracket matchups will be decided today. Most likely, Tundra Esports, beastcoast, and Team Aster will drop to the lower bracket after the first round of upper bracket matches.

Header: IO Esports, Epulze