At the end of the first day of group stage at the Frankfurt Major the Playoffs upper and lower bracket seeds of group A and B have been decided.
Due to the delayed flights for CDEC Gaming and LGD Gaming, the group stage schedule for the Frankfurt Major has suffered minor changes and instead of having games from all four groups in the first day, the group A and B have played all their games. This is why at the end of twelve hours of exciting DotA we now know the first four teams that will start the main event Playoffs from comfortable upper bracket seats and who will have to play the survival best-of-one first lower bracket games.
GROUP A
The day debuted in a very good manner for Fnatic, who had to face The International 5 champions, Evil Geniuses in their very first series of the Fall Major. Mushi’s team managed to take the first game from EG which put a lot of hope in their fans hearts. Fnatic looked like they had put aside the recent Nanyang experience, but as they chose to go with the old mid lane duo Tiny - Io for the second game of the series EG brought back to life a forgotten hero in both 6.84 and 6.85 metas: Tide Hunter. Having also secured the signature heroes for both Arteezy and SumaiL (Shadow Fiend and Ember Spirit respectively), Evil Geniuses pushed the series into a decisive game three, where they surprised everyone with a Timbersaw pick for SumaiL. The wunderkind of the Boys in Blue delivered once again, despite playing a totally uncommon hero for him and EG took the first series of the day with ease.
Repeating the 2-1 score versus Virtus.Pro, EG was the first team to secure the upper bracket spot for the main event. Unfortunately for Fnatic the day didn’t go any better, and also lost the series versus NewBee, which placed them at the bottom of group A and in the lower bracket of main event.
As Virtus.Pro took a 2-0 victory in the first matchup versus NewBee while the TI4 champions took the 2-0 series versus Fnatic, a decider seeding match was played between VP and NB. The stakes were quite high, neither of the teams willing to give up on their possible upper bracket spot. Although the draft of the first game completely ignored the usual suspects for this patch, with Illidan playing the Gyrocopter and Hao bringing back his Luna, VP demolished the TI4 champions on the back of a Broothmother last pick. It was for sure the most dominant game of day one, Virtus.Pro securing the victory in only 18 minutes. Game two brought once again unexpected picks but VP were decided to end the day fast. Only 32 minutes after the starting horn it was decided that NewBee will join Fnatic in the lower bracket while the Russian squad secured the upper brackets main event start.
GROUP B
First series in the group B saw the Peruvian surprise, Unknown.xiu facing the Chinese favorites, Vici Gaming. The 94% value bet in favor of VG says everything about the difference between these teams. We are all well accommodated by now with the Cinderella story potential of the up and coming teams, but this this time it wasn't the case. Unfortunately for the Peruvians they’ve lost both of their series from group stage day and finished at the bottom of group B.
Although Vici Gaming had an overall good performance that yielded an upper bracket placement for themselves, the Chinese team didn't have an easy run throughout the day. Vega Squadron almost put them in danger as they were extremely close to taking a 2-0 victory from Burning’s new team, but VG was able to make the biggest comeback of day one and despite getting wiped out in a Roshan fight that was supposed to propel Vega in the upper bracket, VG pushed the series into a game three which they also won.
Arguably the MVP of the day one is Vega Squadron’s 'Mag' Andrey Chipenko, who made a lot of sensational plays and the difference with his perfectly landed Vacuum - Wall combos on Darkseer. Mag got to play Darkseer five times in day one and he didn’t miss the combo a single time. No matter how hard Vega’s opponents fought and nor how well OG executed the teamfights in their decider last game versus the Russians, Mag was always in the perfect position to turn the tides in favor of his team.
Mag’s last Darkseer of the day was beautifully played despite the late hours at which the series was played and put Vega Squadron in the upper bracket for main even at the Festhalle Messe, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, while OG will have to fight for their survival at the first-ever DotA 2 Major from the lower bracket.
The Fall Major group stage day two will feature all the game series from group C and D. It will be Team Secret, CDEC, LGD, Alliance, EHOME, Cloud 9, NewBee Young and Mineski’s turn to start the long brawl gauntlet for the upper and lower bracket spots.
