RTZ steals the show at Lima Major while 3 WEU teams advance to top 6

Three of the four Western European teams qualified for the Lima Major are now in the top 6, while Shopify Rebellion is carrying the flag for the NA region.

At the end of the 18 hours long first day of the Lima Major playoffs, through an abundance of technical issues, delays, and frustration, high quality gameplay prevailed. Despite having to put up with a plethora of issues, from ping, pc crashes, player microphones or cables running wild in the booths, the first eight teams to step onto the Arena 1 stage in Lima, Peru made everything in their power to deliver their best games.

Gaimin GladiatorsvsTeam Aster

Gaimin Gladiators and Team Aster opened the playoffs with their upper bracket quarterfinals series counting for a top six spot. Interestingly enough, this actually marked the first time ever that these two teams have played against each other, and with no record at hand, they looked for comfort picks to start the series.

Both teams had a mix of strong meta picks, while also shifting way outside of what’s deemed to be the winning heroes of this patch. Aster responded to Gaimin’s Nature’s Prophet - Treant Protector openers with a rarely seen nowadays mid lane Death Prophet, while targeting Quinn "Quinn" Callahan with their bans.

With Leshrack, Ember Spirit, Batrider, Puck, and Pangolier, not making it through the first two ban phases, Quinn chose to give it a go to Storm Spirt, despite the unfavorable match-up against the DP. He ended up losing the lane and giving away early kills, but past the 20-minute mark, the entire Gaimin Gladiators draft came online and Aster couldn’t secure a single pick off anymore, let alone win a team fight.

For the second game, Aster took three of Gladiators’ first match heroes, but they underestimated the power of the Lina-Riki combo and got severely punished for allowing the WEU team to have it. On top of exposing themselves to countless pickoffs with Riki’s Sleeping Dart setup, Aster realized around the 15-minute timer that their carry Troll Warlord was completely shut down by a rushed Crimson Guard first item on Marcus "Ace" Christensen’s offlane Underlord.

EntityvsEvil Geniuses

The second series of the day brought a lot of excitement in the arena as Evil Geniuses fought for a semifinals spot against Entity.

Lina and Broodmother, the most contested heroes at the Lima Major, have both made it to the first game picks phase. EG had the first pick and got their hands on the Brood, while the one who brought the Lina carry into the 7.32 meta, Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov, got to showcase why he is the best Lina player of the moment.

Entity had multiple solutions to the offlane Brood, high tempo game from EG, including a mid lane Pugna for Daniel "Stormstormer" Schoetzau, who went 5/0/14 to secure a super dominant first game for his team.

Entity’s domination continued through the second game as well. They had to play fast and corner EG in their half of the map from early on, as the SA team was having early push options with a mid lane Leshrac and a late game option with a carry Naga Siren. The crowd was also helping EG to avoid potential disastrous moments by doing loud whistles every time Entity would smoke, but to no avail. The WEU team was flawless in their map control and team fight executions to take a deserved 2-0 victory.

Unfortunately for the SA Dota fans, EG dropping to the lower bracket means that on the second day, they will lose one of their teams. EG will be playing later today against beastcoast in an elimination derby that no one hoped to see happening so early at the first ever SA major.

Team SpiritvsShopify Rebellion

The day continued with what can be regarded as the most contested series of the playoffs so far. Shopify Rebellion started with a 30-minute first game loss against a fast forward, deathless push tactic from Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov on Lycan.  However, the last standing NA team in the Lima Major playoffs bounced back courtesy of an incredible second game from Abed Yusop on Zeus, who countered Spirit’s Lina-Riki combo.

Abed’s 19/0/14 performance in game two opened the path for the play of the day from RTZ in game three.

Although they had a slight networth lead around the 25-minute mark in game three, Shopify lost a team fight in the Roshan pit, leaving Artour "Arteezy" Babaev alone to save the day.

To exemplify the 2EZ4RTZ meme, Artour went all alone against 5 enemies to steal the Aegis and make a safe exit from the pit. That play alone saved the game for Shopify Rebellion who advanced to the top 6 at Lima Major.

Team LiquidvsTalon Esports

First day in the playoffs finished late in the night with Team Liquid joining the upper bracket semifinals after a 2-0 victory over Talon Esports. Unfortunately, the series got delayed so much that the Arena was emptied and no live audience could be seen or heard for the two teams who had to wait for nearly 16 hours for their turn to play on the stage.

Liquid held the experience and networth advantage in both games to continue their nearly flawless Major run. In the 18 games that they played so far in at the Lima Major, Liquid lost just two, in the group stage, making a clear case for why they are the favorites at the title. Their journey will resume on the 2nd of march, when they will be pitted against Shopify for a spot in the upper bracket finals. But until then the Lima Major playoffs will continue with the first round of matches in the lower bracket.

Talon, who finished the series past 2 a.m local time, will be first to step onto the stage today, at 10.:00 local time to fight for their tournament lives against HellRaisers.

A total of four elimination series are scheduled for day 2 in the playoffs, so, stay tuned and check our tournament HUB for more updates from the first-ever SA Major.