DPC 2023 Tour 2 favorites (Southeast Asia)

Tour 2 of Dota Pro Circuit 2023 has begun and Southeast Asia will be one of the most interesting regions to focus on as a viewer. At the recent Lima Major, Talon Esports finished third, an amazing performance that is easily in the top 3 of all time for SEA.

Now we need to find out if Talon can dominate their own region. In Tour 1, they only managed to finish third. Both Execration and Geek Slate finished ahead of them and they did it convincingly. Will this third place at the Lima Major give Talon the confidence boost they need to win Tour 2? It should.

SEA Favorites for Tour 2

Execration, Geek Slate, and Talon Esports. It’s hard to think of any other three teams that could realistically secure the three available qualification spots for the Berlin Major. The problem is that Blacklist International and Team SMG, despite looking phenomenal on paper at the start of the year, proved to be completely overrated.

In Blacklist’s case, they got a surprising win against Talon in Tour 1, but then lost the tiebreaker against them. Knowing what we now know, it’s understandable why. Talon were ready to almost conquer the world.

Blacklist did not make any roster changes between Tour 1 and Tour 2. This is a sign that they’re confident in their abilities. It’s not hard to guess where that confidence comes from.

Players like Marc “Raven” Fausto and Carlo “Kuku” Palad obtained a lot of important results over the course of their professional careers. So why not succeed again, especially when the entire roster is strong?

But, as we’ve seen many times in Dota 2, a roster that is full of star players is not necessarily a functional one. So far, Blacklist seems destined to teach us this lesson again. In Tour 1 they finished fourth and in Tour 2 they already started with a loss against SMG.

If they lost against the fifth strongest team in the division, what can they do against the top three? Probably not much. One more loss and Blacklist will be out of the picture until Tour 3. But what about the other teams?

SMG started well but it’s doubtful that they can continue to win. As for Bleed Esports, they have strong players like Daryl “iceiceice” Koh and Djardel “DJ” Mampusti. But they already lost their first match and their odds of finishing in the top 3 are small.

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