Gaimin Gladiators won’t be able to score a three-peat at DreamLeague tournaments this year after being eliminated in the first round of the lower bracket.
DreamLeague Season 21 lower bracket rounds kicked off this Friday with the two-time champions Gaimin Gladiators being knocked out of the competition by Entity. GG came to this season of DreamLeague after a yearlong of utter domination. The three-time, back-to-back-toback Major champions have also taken home DreamLeague trophies in 2023 and just before entering Season 21, they made a pit stop in Armenia to add the BetBoom Dacha title under their belt as well.
However, after staying at the top of the competitive scene for the entire season, and with mere weeks before The International 2023, fatigue seems to be catching up with Gamin Gladiators. Entering DreamLeague season 21 right after BetBoom Dacha had GG struggling to stay alive in the group stage matches. The playoffs came with a brutal exit in the first lower bracket match at the hands of Entity, who for this series had to use two stand-ins.
Entity entered the competition at DreamLeague with Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf in the offlane, while Kim "Gabbi" Santos is at home in the Philippines to sort out his VISA for TI12. Additionally, for the series against GG, they also had Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak standing in for Daniel "Stormstormer" Schoetzau.
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Gaimin Gladiators
Gaimin GladiatorsThrough all three series, Entity managed to translate a dominant laning stage into a successful mid game. However, in game one, they got outmanoeuvred and outplayed by GG, who needed one mistake from their adversaries to turn the game around and run away with the victory while being led 37 to 15 in the kill score and trailing around 5k gold behind.
Moving into game two, Entity evened the series with a clean 11/0/10 Sven performance from Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov and sealed the deal with the same Watson coming in clutch on a carry Pudge.
Gaimin Gladiators’ all-yearlong rivals, Team Liquid have also made an early exit from DreamLeague Season 21, finishing just bottom 4 after not being able to make it out of the groups. More so, Southeast Asia’s best team in 2023, and third-place finishers at the recently concluded Riyadh Masters, Talon Esports have also been eliminated in the group stage.
Meanwhile, the upper bracket final features Shopify Rebellion going up against Team Spirit on Saturday, September 23 at 15:30 CEST.
