Gladiators and 9 Pandas are in the upper bracket Final of Berlin Major

The first part of the playoffs of ESL One Berlin Major is over and the eight remaining teams will take a one-day break before the epic part begins. This will be the only part that takes place in front of a huge crowd and the German audience is probably eager to watch some high-quality Dota.

On the third day of the playoffs, Gaimin Gladiators won relatively easily against OG, 9 Pandas struggled to beat the TI champions, Tundra Esports, and Talon survived the first round in the lower bracket by eliminating PSG.LGD.

Gladiators vs. OG: 2-0

Gladiators dominated the two games of this match from start to finish. It was obvious that OG weren’t used to dealing with such a strong opponent because in both cases, Gladiators were ahead after the laning phase and in complete control after the mid portion of the game.

In game two, the battle was practically over at the eight-minute mark because the networth difference was already 5000 and growing quickly. The game ended after less than 25 minutes with a 36.000 gold deficit for OG.

In both games, Gladiators picked Terroblade as their carry hero. Meanwhile, OG tried to make use of Windranger and Phantom Lancer but things did not go as planned.

9 Pandas vs. Tundra: 2-1

9 Pandas lost a game against Tundra but only because they forgot to ban Medusa. Tundra picked her for themselves and ended the game in 22 minutes. In games one and three, however, 9 Pandas proved to be much stronger than their opponents.

Game one was a masterclass in using the meta heroes to slowly but surely gain an advantage until critical mass is achieved. Chen, Pugna, Doom, Alchemist, and Tiny are all commonly played heroes but 9 Pandas utilized them in a way that made it hard for Tundra to counter their tactics.

In game three, 9 Pandas used Tinker, a hero we rarely see these days. But they did it in combination with four vision heroes: Bounty Hunter, Batrider, Enchantress, and Monkey King. The strategy worked well, but only in the late game.

PSG.LGD vs. Talon: 0-2

Talon won the first game with a Terroblade pick that proved to be completely overpowered. But in game two, their Naga Siren needed 73 minutes to end the fight against Sven and Magnus. And they weren’t even the biggest problem.

The audience had the chance to see an almost unkillable Timbersaw in this game and the action was really fun to analyze, despite lasting almost as long as an animated film.

Header: ESL