The first day of the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 is already behind us. Team Aster remained unopposed, while Gambit managed to take down Alliance.
Day one of the StarLadder Dota 2 Minor gave us almost exactly what we expected.
Group A
In the first group, Team Aster are currently the undisputed champion. Winning with a 2:0 in the opening series against BOOM Esports, the Chinese team continued their streak versus forZe defeating them also with 2:0. We saw a Dazzle mid from forZe and needless to say it didn’t work out at all. As a result, Aster was the first team to make it to the playoffs and take a break until Saturday when the first round will be played.
Others in the group weren’t so lucky as business associates lost to forZe and will battle it out with BOOM Esports for the first team to get eliminated from the event. The Russian forZe will face the winner of the two.
Group B
In group B we’ve had CR4ZY (ex-Fighting PandaS) and NoPing each suffering a loss. Alliance and Gambit Esports were the clear leaders as both of them scored a 2:0 victory in the opening matches against their opponents. When they faced each other not everything went as expected. The two teams are very alike in that they either perform really well or atypically bad.
Gambit’s draft for game one relied on early game pressure thanks to Shadow Fiend and a Riki, while Alliance answered “accordingly” with a Spectre. The European roster failed to make it to the late game and their strategy crumbled. Game two offered more of the same as Alliance put their faith in the late game with a Faceless Void. Gambit picked Axe and Clockwerk making things very difficult for the opposing carry. Slowly increasing their gold advantage the CIS squad was able to close it off in 33 minutes.
There was no epic team fight to seal the deal, just a lack of tools for the side of Alliance. Gambit was the second team to make it to the playoffs and much like Aster they’ll take a break until Saturday. In the meantime, NoPing will face CR4ZY tomorrow and the winner will get to go against Alliance.
Only two more teams will make it to the playoffs and there’s a high chance they’ll be business associates from group A and Alliance from group B. As for the winner it’s still hard to tell as both Gambit and Aster had a stellar performance and it’s only a matter of time until they face one another.
The loser’s matches for both groups are set for tomorrow March 6th when the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 will resume. Don’t miss the live stream on Twitch.
