Today marked a momentous day for South America as the Dota Major competition is taking place for the first time in Lima, Peru. Indeed, as with every major Dota competition in the past seasons, the first Lima Major matchday began with a series of unexpected names among the 18 teams who competed for the grand prize of 500.000 USD.
The top spot in Group A appears to be highly competitive from the start. At the moment, there is no gap between Gaimin Gladiator, Talon Esports, and Tundra. All of them have scored three victories and one defeat in two games.
When it comes to Lima Major, everyone assumed that SEA is one of the lowest level regions in terms of competitiveness. And facing huge European name such as Gaimin Gladiator in the opening game was certainly not an easy task. But in the end, Talon prevailed impressively as they managed to hold the runner-up of the WEU 2023 DPC to a draw.
Although losing badly in the first round, Talon showed that they were determined to shake things off. And their perseverance paid well. They switched to more aggressive attack on Gaimin in the second half, forcing their opponent to play more defensively. Mikoto’s tactical awareness helped them to gain control and finished the second round with a score of 73-40 in 65 minutes.
Their good form continued in the second match, when they played against Execration, the champion of the DPC SEA Winter 2023. Execration, which had defeated Talon previously in January, went down without a fight. Although Talon always trailed in the early minutes from each round, they were able to capitalise on the late game and pushed Execration against the wall. The game ended 2-0, with Mikoto being named MVP for the second time.
Similar story in Group A as Gaimin Gladiator played their second game against Team Spirit, the DPC Eastern Europe giant and the champions of The International 10. Dyrachyo and friends steamrolled Team Spirit and finished 2-0.
In the Group B, Entity, the WEU Winter Tour 2023 DPC champion, started their first day at the job with a perfect score of 2 victories out of 2 games. Meanwhile, Shopify Rebellion, the new kids from DPC NA, has earned the same points as Team Liquid, with one win and one draw.
Tobi and Kataomi from Entity became the key players in the two games of day 1. They defeated Geek Slate and Knights convincingly. On the other side, Shopify impressed the audience with a strong debut against the big boys. They held Team Aster to a draw in the first game and beat the EEU Winter Tour 2023 DPC champion, BetBoom, in the second.
Day 2 of the competition will begin tonight at 11 PM SGT.
A cold day for CIS
In an unexpected turn of events, none of the CIS representatives managed to win a single game in their opening day. If that doesn’t sound bad enough, most of them were defeated by teams which are perceived to be lower than their league.
So far, Ehome and the emperor of CIS, PSG.LGD, are at the bottom of group A. Ehome was defeated by Tundra in their first game while Whitemon – Timado combo stole the show as TSM ran rampant against PSG.LGD 2-0.
Other two CIS regional teams in Group B, Knights and Team Aster, were having a rough start as well. Knights seemed clueless against Entity and suffered a crushing defeat, while Team Aster is the only CIS representative who managed to get out with two draws. However, the uncharacteristic error that cost them the second round against newbie like Shopify Rebellion should serve as a wake-up call to find a better solution.
The CIS regional teams have continued their downline trend in international competition. Both PSG.LGD and Team Aster had dismal performances at the TI 11 tournament in October of 2022. At that time, they were both eliminated in the early round and dropped to the lower bracket. Neither of these two Chinese powerhouses make it to the final game.
