Berlin Major day 1 summary: OG are the only 2 W-0 L team

The opening day of ESL One Berlin Major was full of interesting Dota 2 matches. The tournament promises to be an exciting one and we’ve already seen lots of novel strategies being used.

To our surprise, only one team won both matches and that team was OG. Even more shocking is the fact that one of the competitors they defeated was Xtreme Gaming, who are by far the strongest team in China. And they did all this while playing with two stand-ins.

At the last minute, Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin and Evgenii “Chu” Makarov had to be replaced by Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov and Kartik “Kitrak” Rathi.

Day 1 results

In group A, BetBoom Team looked great on day 1, winning against TSM and drawing against Team Aster. Two other competitors achieved an identical result: Evil Geniuses and Gaimin Gladiators.

The worst teams in the group were TSM and Execration. Both of them lost their first two matches.

Liquid played just one match and drew against Aster. 9 Pandas also played one match and won against TSM.

PSG.LGD won versus Execration and lost versus Gladiators.

In group B, both Chinese teams registered losses. Xtreme Gaming lost once while Invictus Gaming lost twice. Clearly, China will not recover any time soon. But Xtreme Gaming and Aster still have a decent chance to qualify for the playoffs and maybe even get a top eight result.

Shopify Rebellion and Tundra Esports finished the day with one victory and one draw. Steam Spirit and beastcoast drew twice. Talon Esports started the tournament with a draw. Team SMG had a draw and a loss.

First impressions

So far, we saw a lot of games that lasted between 20 and 35 minutes. This suggests that despite the map changes, the best teams still know how to gain an advantage and then extend it without giving the opponent an opportunity to make a comeback.

Against competitors of similar strength, we saw around half a dozen 40-60 minute games. These confrontations were the most exciting to watch because the longer the game, the more difficult it becomes to play the map correctly and prioritize the right targets. Sometimes, a simple rune can win you the game. Other times, it’s Roshan.

So far, the strongest heroes of the tournament have been Chen, Bloodseeker, Phantom Lancer, Luna, Dark Seer, Phoenix, Keeper of the Light, and Storm Spirit. Quite surprisingly, nobody picked Zeus on day 1.

Header: ESL