DreamLeague S20 stage 2 is over and the four winners are not entirely the ones we expected. On top of that, the team that won the race was PSG.LGD. This result would have been hard to predict ahead of the tournament.
Until recently, China had no serious representatives that could win international Dota 2 events. PSG.LGD seem to have come out of the blue. At this point, it’s clear that Li “niu” Kongbo, the player who got signed in May, is very strong.
With their former roster, or rather, their former position 3 player, PSG.LGD finished 9th-12th at both DPC Majors. They did well regionally, finishing 1st in Tour 1 and 2nd in Tour 2. But internationally they struggled.
Now they seem to have found a winning formula that works well against North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and most important of all, Western Europe.
The last full day of the DreamLeague S20 Group Stage 2 has come to an end!
Join us tomorrow for our Tiebreaker series! #ESLProTour pic.twitter.com/mAQJv0OL72
— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) June 22, 2023
Stage 2 results
Stage 2 of DreamLeague S20 featured eight strong teams. Among them, Team Aster proved to be considerably weaker than the rest and lost every single match. Three other teams that did significantly better but still not good enough were 9Pandas (2 W – 5 L), Evil Geniuses (3 W – 4 L), and Team Spirit (3 W – 4 L).
The four teams that advanced to the playoffs are PSG.LGD (6 W – 1 L), BetBoom Team (5 W – 2 L), Gaimin Gladiators (5 W – 2 L), and Talon Esports (4 W – 3 L).
Absolutely everyone expected Gaimin Gladiators to be among the top four. But nobody believed that Talon Esports would prove to be one of the strongest teams in the tournament.
Whatever Talon did after finishing 4th in Tour 3 and failing to qualify for the Bali Major seems to have worked. It’s quite rare to see a team that hasn’t changed its roster going from being a decent regional competitor to being one of the best in the world.
In stage 2 of DreamLeague S20, Talon defeated not only Aster, Spirit, and 9Pandas, who all got eliminated. They also managed to beat BetBoom, who in turn defeated PSG.LGD and everyone else apart from Talon and their regional rivals, 9Pandas.
It will be very exciting to watch Talon competing against the likes of Gaimin Gladiators again in the playoffs. Right now, we don’t yet know who will play against who until the 2nd place tiebreaker concludes. BetBoom will need to beat Gaimin Gladiators again. But no matter who wins, the two teams will likely face each other in the playoffs as well.
Header: ESL