NP finished the group stage undefeated in the NA qualifiers while the first ever South American qualifiers for a Valve event keeps on delivering drama, overshadowing the teams that actually are fighting for a ticket to the Kiev Major.
Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao’s team NP plowed through the NA group stage with a perfect 6-0 score that saw them claim top seed in the group and gave them the opportunity to choose their first opponents in the playoffs stage. It’s going to be Team Freedom, who finished fourth in the group, with an overall win-loss score of 3-3. CompLexity Gaming, whose only loss in the group stage was registered against NP, finished second and will face Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho’s team Onyx in the first round of the double elimination playoffs bracket.
Unfortunately there will be only one team qualifying for the Kiev Major from NA and that sole survivor will be decided by today’s and tomorrow’s matches. The NA playoffs will commence today at 11:00 PST/20:00 CET with NP vs Team Freedom, followed by coL vs Onyx.
In the South American qualifiers the drama seems to never end. Despite being the first time Valve have created a separate competition that guarantees a spot for a SA representative at a Major, some of the teams continue to act completely unprofessionally. Leaving aside the roster shuffles that happened after the SA qualifiers were announced, which lead only two squads being eligible for a regional qualifiers invite, once the group stage commenced, the drama continued. Sacola de Lixo, who advanced into the regionals from the first wave of open qualifiers, disbanded at the start of the regional qualifiers group stage and were removed from the competition. Also, eleven minutes into their match yesterday against Infamous, the Unknown players decided to rage quit after a gank as if they were playing some meaningless pub game.
Unknown’s rage quit during a Valve event qualifiers stage triggered many reactions from Dota 2 personalities and beyond. The community were outraged by Unknown’s unprofessional behavior and reddit threads regarding the incident made it to the front page instantly.
After the massive amount of backlash, Unknown made a statement on their facebook page in which they apologized to their sponsors, fans, to the tournament organizers and to the admins promising that the “issue will be solved internally”. Unknown finished the group stage on the sixth place with four wins and five losses and will not advance into the playoffs. The four teams continuing to battle it through the next days are Not Today, SG e-ports, Infamous and Midas Club elite.
