Liquid are one win away from a rematch with Gladiators

The final day of ESL One Berlin Major is about to start and the three teams that are left in the race are Gaimin Gladiators, Team Liquid, and 9 Pandas.

Few people expected 9 Pandas to make it this far but everyone expected Gladiators and Liquid to finish in the top three, simply based on their previous results.

Liquid’s lower bracket run

Liquid ended up playing in the lower bracket after their unexpected defeat against OG, in the quarterfinals of the upper bracket. They had to win four consecutive matches to reach the lower bracket Final and their opponents were some of the strongest teams in the world: Xtreme Gaming, Team Aster, Tundra Esports, and Evil Geniuses.

The only team that managed to win a game against them was Xtreme. This puts Liquid in a very good position for the next confrontation, against 9 Pandas. If they qualify for the Grand Final, this will be the third consecutive Grand Final that’s played between the same two teams, which is something we’ve probably never seen before in Dota 2.

Usually, we see one team being very dominant but playing against different opponents each time. Now we have two teams that are dominating the circuit and Gladiators are always winning. Liquid could put an end to their spectacular run today, if they qualify for the Grand Final.

9 Pandas’ prowess

9 Pandas, despite not having their captain Alexey “Solo” Berezin with them, have demonstrated a very high level of skill and determination. With the exception of Gladiators, nobody was able to beat them at this tournament. And they played 11 matches in total!

It will be interesting to see how 9 Pandas approaches the games against Team Liquid. The two teams were in the same group during the group stage and the result of their match was a draw. Pandas won game 1 with an Alchemist draft, while Liquid won game 2 with a Sven draft. Surprisingly enough, Liquid managed to win against Medusa!

Gaimin Gladiators will be hard to beat

No matter who wins the lower bracket Final, Gaimin Gladiators will almost certainly win the tournament. If Liquid get the chance to face them again, the match will be close. But if 9 Pandas win, it will likely be a quick 3-0 based on what we saw in the upper bracket Final.

Header: ESL