It was a long day two in the US open qualifiers in which two particular teams shined as the bracket was progressing. One was the casters stack, Vegetable eSports and the other one was the mysterious GGnet team that no one really took seriously until they reached the semifinals.
As we stated in the yesterday’s progress news about day one, someone in the US open qualifiers found the time to prank GosuGmaers.net and signed up with a GGnet team nickname consisting of players using nicknames similar to the official team we had for Dota back in 2010. We didn’t investigate the situation and instead we chose to thank them for the choice and wished them good luck in the tournament.
As US bracket provided well-known teams in the scene to follow, no one really looked after GGnet progress through the tournament but once the best-of-three semifinals slowly approached everyone turned their attention on the team as they were about to play Merlini's team for a spot into the finals.
During the first game of the series versus Vegetable eSports the FaceIT admins figure out who is playing under the GGnet tag and it was revealed that former unknown.xiu players are hiding behind it.
We managed to reach last night Infamous's (ex unknow.xiu) manager, Joe Ccasani who told us that Alonso "Kotaro" Lion is a real fan of the old GGnet team since Dota 1 times and the team in general is following the website.
With that sorted out, the team was renamed as Infamous, their actual name after the recent roster shuffle lockdown and the night continued with an intense semifinal between the Peruvians and VEG. All three games were played and a Dota 2 patch hit in between game two and three to spice up the night.
Watching Merlini playing against a pro team was truly exciting and we must say VEG put a tremendous effort to continue their Shanghai Major road but despite awesome plays coming from all the team members, a true stand out being Monib "Monib" Baray, Infamous took the third game and the spot into the finals.
On the other side of the bracket another Peruvian team raised above all others and the finals were set to be Elite Wolves versus Infamous with Elite Wolves emerging victorious at the end of another full three games played. They will join US regional qualifiers group A and in their first series will have to face the group favorites, Digital Chaos.
The Shanghai Major regional qualifiers are scheduled to take place from January 7th to 10th with top team from each group advancing into the main event that will take place in Shanghai, China between March 2-6.
