No champion has been crowned yet at the trouble-plagued two-day Pinoy Gaming Festival (PGF) - Dota 2 Tournament held last 26-27 October at World Trade Center, Pasay City, Philippines. All other matches are already finished except for the Grand finals, which has been scheduled to be played this coming 9-10 November and will be one of the highlights of the GMPGL SEA Finals.
The supposedly short, single-elimination finals of the Gigabyte Mineski Pro Gaming League (GMPGL) Philippines had experienced a lot of technical difficulties. The relatively new local play feature of Dota 2 did not do much help, as the venue experienced severe internet connection problems particularly on the first day. In fact, only one out of the four scheduled matches on the that day was finished on the venue. The problem persisted not only for Dota 2, but also for the other game titles being contested on the Pinoy Gaming Festival.
Nevertheless, the tournament continued despite the difficulties and delays. The top four teams from the league standing proved why they were seeded on their respective positions, as all of them won their first round matches. Local favorites in MSIEvoGT and Pacific were among the four teams who were eliminated on their preliminary matches, as they bowed against Arcanys and Execration respectively, both in 2-1 series scores.
Mineski struggled at the semifinals, but they found their groove before it was too late and they defeated Execration in straight games. Meanwhile, Dreamz looked dominating as they handily stomped over Arcanys. The Cebu-based team in Arcanys had no answer for the seemingly favorable pushing strategy and mass Necrons of this version that Dreamz is utilizing, on which the latter team infused heroes such as Undying and Lycanthrope on their line-up. The championship between Mineski and Dreamz will be held on the GMPGL SEA Finals as a separate event, happening two weeks from now.
The winner of the GNE.Dreamz and AMD.Mineski championship match-up will be the Philippines' representative on The Asia, which is set to happen this coming December on Singapore. The winner will also take home PHP 35,000 (812~ USD), while the runner-up will receive PHP 20,000 (464~ USD). Arcanys have earned themselves PHP 10,000 (232~ USD) for their modest third-place finish, after they defeated the game Execration by the score of 2-0.
Here are some of our pictures from the event:
Local version of the Secret Shop (different from Valve's)
Bracket of the many game titles being contested
Stage being set up
Mineski answering questions and dishing out autographs on their press conference
Dreamz looking compsed on their matches
Arcanys showing some emotion as they clinch a win
The teams who won their respective first round matches also qualified the $10,000 GMPGL SEA Grand Finals. They will be joined by four other Southeast Asians teams: Titan, First Departure, Impervious and Joenet. This grand event will be held this coming 9-10 November on SM North Edsa's Skydome, Quezon City, Philippines.
