Bali Major playoffs bracket set, no SEA teams to be found

The last big battle before The International 2023 is held at the Bali Major this week, but unfortunately for the host region, none of their teams made it to the playoffs stage.

After Execration and Blacklist International fell short of a playoff seed from Group A, Bleed Esports were also eliminated out of Group B.

Bleed came into the major as the SEA Regional League Division I champions and ended up having all the pressure on their shoulders after forcing a tiebreaker series with elimination on the line against Azure Ray, one of the most interesting Chinese teams to follow as the season draws closer to the culmination point, TI12.

Azure RayvsBleed Esports

When they started the best-of-three tiebreaker series, Bleed were already the only team left in the fight to save the SEA pride in Bali, and they began on the right foot. They saved their last pick in game 1 for Daryl "iceiceice" Koh, who played a crucial role on an offlane Anti Mage. AR ran a Morphling-Ember Spirit duo core with a mana and HP regen boost from a support Pugna, but the Anti-Mage, along with numerous hard lockdowns coming from the Bleed side, proved all too much for them to survive in the late game stage.

Nonetheless, Somnus and co reset after the game one loss and came ready to clinch the playoffs spot with a Medusa draft in game two and a Slark in game three. The reverse sweep sent Bleed packing and leaves the SEA region with just two teams to cheer for at The International this year.

Talon Esports are already locked in for the TI12 via DPC points and will be joined by one more team coming via regional qualifiers.

In the meantime, the Western Europe region keeps on dominating the pro scene. All four teams from WEU have placed in the top 4 of their respective group in Bali, with the biggest surprise so far being delivered by Quest Esports, who topped Group B.

By securing the top seed in Group B, Quest got to choose who will be their first opponent in the playoffs. They had to pick between Tundra Esports and Team Aster, who finished third and fourth respectively in Group A and they went with Aster. The series will close the first day of the playoffs stage, on July 5 at around 21:00 SGT/15:00 CEST.