Image courtesy of ESL
The second day of ESL One Birmingham Major produced even more eliminations, as three more teams bid farewell to the event - Team Spirit, Team Liquid, and LFY - making it a total of six teams to drop from the group stage.
The crowded schedule of the ESL One Birmingham Major started its second day of the group stage with both of the Bo3's Decider Matches and the Bo1's First Place Decider Matches. The group stage ended up closing the curtains over the dreams for six teams in total. Four were directly invited teams to play at the Birmingham Major and big names like Evil Genuises who needed to secure some points badly, Vici Gaming, Newbee and shockingly, Team Liquid.
Decider Matches:
The day started with the group 'A' Elimination/Decider match Between Fnatic and Team Spirit, Both teams showed a fighting spirit that thrived to survive the elimination no matter what - playing to the very end without dropping the hope till the very last moment. Yet Abed "Abed" Yasop gave them the pain they didn't wish to taste with his outstanding performance as the Queen of Pain and gifted his
Teammate Jacky "EternalEnvy" Mao the space needed for his Spectre to recover and close the series 2:1 for them.
The real pain wasn't caused by that QoP at all, it all happened in Group 'B' Battle of the survivors. Neither the casters nor the viewers were able to sit on their chairs from the thrills of the series. Pain Gaming defeated Liquid yesterday 1:0. That proved to be just the start, as the Brazilian team seemed to be dialed in on the European opponents and they continued where they left things up showing their fighting spirit by striking Liquid down yet again. After an impressive invoker game for Amer "Miracle" Barqawi that gave Liquid the first game advantage, paiN Gaming tied the series up and came back in game 3 ready to face the team who Paul "Redeye" Chaloner referred to as "The Kings". The TI7 Champions took a heavy jab on the face in an amazing Rosh fight by the whole combo of Clockwerk, Underlord and Disruptor. With that, the crowd's favorite team completely got destroyed at the Roshan Pit and wiped out. Another team wipe after was all that Liquid could handle and tapped out, giving the victory to paiN Gaming.
With all that hype there was still some more great Dota in this day at ESL as Mineski signed the elimination ticket of team LFY who tried to pull off some great plays with a neat Aegis steal in game 1 by the famous Aegis thief since Ti7 Tue Soon "Ah-fu" Chuan. He almost pulled the same thing off in game 2 but instead only took the last hit on Rosh and Mushi was able to take it to crush the last hope of LFY, knocking them out of the event with a 2:0 score.
1st place Deciders Matches :
Image courtesy of ESL
VP proved again that they are a powerful squad with the same way they've been generally in this season, forcing their way through any enemy they face as they dismantled team OG in a 25-minute match, brutally crushing them with a 30-3 score. That alone didn't satisfy the Russian bears at all as they ran into Optic Gaming in the 2nd match which ended by forcing their claws to breach into Optics green walls, breaking it to pieces with a 33-7 score in a 28-minute match. With the two victories, the undefeated team earned a spot in the semifinals.
It was then left to Optic gaming vs OG. Optic gathered up the remaining force and power they had to fight against the European squad over the 2nd semi-finalist spot. The surprising carry Night stalker by Per Olsson "Pajkatt" Lille was too hard on OG to apprehend or control during the game along with the rest of the great objective based aggressive line-up. OG tried to fight and set up, but the North American team proved that they were the better team and secured the second spot in the semi-finals. OG was regulated to the quarterfinals.
The action resumes starting tomorrow 25th May with the playoffs that will take place through the 27th of May.
ESL One Birmingham Playoffs
- The playoffs will be held from May 25th to the 27th in front of a live audience in the Arena Birmingham
- Single Elimination
- All games will be Bo3
- Bo5 Grand Finals
- A 3rd place decider match will be played on the last day of the tournament before the Grand Finals
