DPC CN 2023 Tour 3: Division I partial results

When Sumail “Sumail” Hassan was signed by Team Aster, everyone knew that despite the language barrier, the team would start playing much better than before.

We had already seen what Aster are capable of when Sumail is mid at the Berlin Major. But few people expected them to win three consecutive matches in China’s Division I without losing a single game.

So far, Aster encountered Piggy Killer, Azure Ray, and Bright. Two of these matches were expected to be easy but the one against Azure Ray should have been very difficult. Judging by the duration of the games (42 and 54 minutes), it clearly was. But it’s still impressive that Aster didn’t lose at least a game.

After all, this is the team of Xu “fy” Linsen and Lu “Somnus” Yao. Both of them are TI finalists, so they probably know a thing or two about Dota.

Other results

At the moment, there are five teams that look capable of finishing in the top four:

• Team Aster: 3 W – 0 L
• Azure Ray: 2 W – 1 L
• Invictus Gaming: 2 W – 1 L
• LGD: 2 W – 0 L
• Xtreme Gaming: 2 W – 1 L

Of these five teams, Invictus Gaming are the weakest. However, you don’t get to see that in their first several matches because they encountered two of the weakest teams in the league. Winning against Piggy Killer and Team Bright means nothing, because both of them are much less experienced than the likes of PSG.LGD.

The strength of Azure Ray was confirmed in the match against Xtreme Gaming. Somnus and his squad lost the first game but were good enough to win the other two. Their picks clearly show incredible versatility, which is the mark of a top team.

Lower-skilled competitors need to rely on rigid drafts to win games. But excellent teams know exactly what works and understand the game in a more mathematical way. This gives them the possibility to easily replace heroes if they’re not available. Because they don’t say “we need Troll Warlord”. They say “we need a carry with fast attack speed, stuns, and good survivability, that can win the lane”.

When you know what you’re doing, whatever suits your strategy is fine. It doesn’t have to be something specific, unless you’re trying to do something very specific.

Header: Valve Corporation