Thrilling Finale in the DPC Chinese Upper Division

The Chinese Upper Division of Dota Pro Circuit 2021 Season 1 has gone totally unexpected so far. Elephant and PSG.LGD, the two big favorites ahead of the race, are struggling and one of them will 100% miss the Singapore Major. There’s an 80% probability that PSG.LGD will be the unlucky one. On the other hand, Invictus Gaming has a perfect score and will meet the 2^nd place team, Aster, in the final week of the tournament. The matches ahead look exciting and I’m going to have a closer look at them.

China Upper Division Current Standings

The current standings are quite shocking. But they simply reflect the massive differences between the teams that managed to quickly adapt to the new meta and the teams that completely lost their way in patch 7.28.

• 1^st place: Invictus Gaming: 6 W – 0 L
• 2^nd place: Team Aster: 5 W – 1 L
• 3^rd place: Vici Gaming: 5 W – 1 L
• 4^th place: Elephant: 3 W – 3 L
• 5^th place: PSG.LGD: 2 W – 3 L
• 6^th place: EHOME: 1 W – 4 L
• 7^th place: Team MagMa: 1 W – 5 L
• 8^th place: LBZS: 0 W – 6 L

The Top 3 Teams

The only team that was partly expected to do well and it did is Vici Gaming. The team does have some big names such as old eLeVeN and Dy in its roster, but for me the most important member is their coach Fenrir. This man played in the Grand Final of The International 2014 with VG and although he lost, he’s a legend in the Chinese region. He also finished 4^th at TI 5 and overall, he’s had plenty of top-tier accomplishments.

The other competitors are hard to recognize, both in a good as well as in a bad way. Invictus Gaming’s results prove that Kaka truly was the superstar that made it possible for Newbee to finish 2^nd at TI 7. And Aster is also doing spectacularly well at the moment, largely thanks to Monet and LaNm. Both teams, along with Vici Gaming, still have a real chance to win the tournament. If the stars perfectly align, meaning that Aster beats iG and Vici Gaming beats PSG.LGD in the last competitive week of Season 1 China Upper Division, we will have a thrilling tiebreaker featuring all 3 of them.

The Bottom 3 Teams

At the bottom of the table, LBZS is doomed and Team MagMa is in a similar situation. To be fair, both competitors were destined to relegate even before the tournament began, simply because they were light-years behind the other teams. In the final week of the tournament, LBZS will encounter EHOME while MagMa will meet Elephant. It’s hard to imagine EHOME losing to LBZS, even in their current form. And it’s even harder to imagine Elephant losing to MagMa.

That being said, the most likely outcome of week 6 will be this:

• EHOME – LBZS: 2 – 1
• LGD: Vici Gaming: 1 – 2
• Elephant – MagMa: 2 – 0
• Aster – Invictus Gaming: 1 – 2

We still have one more match for week 5: EHOME – PSG.LGD. The favorite is PSG.LGD.

Who Will Go to ONE Esports Singapore Major

The answer here is quite obvious: Invictus Gaming, Team Aster, Vici Gaming, and Elephant. In order for this to change, Elephant needs to lose the last match against MagMa and PSG.LGD needs to win their next two matches. Or at least one of them and then win the tiebreaker. All of the outcomes that favor them have a very low probability.

The big mystery is who will win the tournament. Based on everything we’ve seen so far, I think there’s a high chance that iG will defeat Aster in the final match and finish with a perfect score. However, as I’ve said before, there’s a small chance that we will see an amazing tiebreaker.

 

Photo credit: Valve