After two intense days of non-stop action in the Singapore Major Group Stage, Thunder Predator, PSG.LGD, and Vici Gaming have advanced to the Upper Bracket of the Playoffs.

They will be joined by the top teams from the first DPC season: Team Secret, Invictus Gaming, Fnatic, Virtus.pro, and Evil Genuises.

Thunder Predator proved that they are true contenders, finishing with a dominant 12-2 record. PSG.LGD and Vici Gaming were right behind, with 9-5 and 8-6 records respectively.

Quincy Crew, Team Liquid, Team Aster, and Southeast Asia’s own OB.Esports x Neon with last-second Singaporean stand-in Yang “Deth” Wu Heng have also qualified for the Playoffs, and will be continuing in the Lower Bracket.

Alliance has been eliminated.

Here are the final standings for the Group Stage:

  • (1) Thunder Predator 5-2-0 (12-2)
  • (2) PSG.LGD 3-3-0 (9-3)
  • (3) Vici Gaming 2-4-1 (8-6)
  • (4) Quincy Crew 2-3-2 (7-7)
  • (5) Team Liquid 1-4-2 (6-7)
  • (6) Team Aster 1-3-3 (5-9)
  • (6) OB.Neon 1-3-3 (5-9)
  • (8) Alliance 0-4-3 (4-9)

Here’s a recap of how every game played out today.

Stream A

Alliance 1 — 1 Quincy Crew

Alliance opened the group stage with a solid Game 1 performance against Quincy Crew. Alliance also scored the first win of the tournament for Dragon Knight, who was 0-6 going into Day 3 of the Singapore Major.

However, Quincy Crew rallied in Game 2, utilizing their own superior draft with Yawar “YawaR” Hassan’s Medusa hitting critical mass within the 26-minute mark.

Vici Gaming 1 — 1 PSG.LGD

PSG.LGD won a quick and clean Game 1 against Vici Gaming, thanks to their position 5 Death Prophet that surprisingly contributed so much during team fights.

VG responded using an interesting strategy, with their Alchemist farming Aghanim’s Scepter for his hard carry and midlaner. With these massive power-spikes happening early in the game, PSG.LGD’s Terrorblade pick just couldn’t keep up.

Team Aster 0 — 2 Vici Gaming

Both Chinese teams were out for blood in the first game of the series, as it ended with 67 kills in favor of Vici Gaming. After falling behind in the late game, Team Aster attempted a Divine Rapier comeback but was ultimately unsuccessful against Vici Gaming’s superior Terrorblade hard carry. 

In the following game of the series, Team Aster went with the first Riki pick of the tournament but fell flat against Vici Gaming. Yang “poyoyo” Shaohan’s Monkey King carried his team to victory and secured VG’s spot in the Major playoffs.

Thunder Predator 1 — 1 Vici Gaming

Vici Gaming scored an amazing comeback win when they completely shut down Thunder Predator’s all-in play and lost eight heroes in a single team fight.

After their aggressive strategy failed in the first game, Thunder Predator went back to their bread and butter of calm and calculated play which caused Vici Gaming to play from behind. Thunder Predator did not make any more mistakes and closed the series with a draw.

Thunder Predator 2 — 0 PSG.LGD

While Thunder Predator and PSG.GLD had already secured spots in the upper bracket of the Singapore Major playoffs, both teams still played to the best of their ability. In the first game, Thunder Predator continued to prove that their understanding of the game was still on point by outclassing PSG.LGD all throughout.

In the final game of the group stage, PSG.LGD gave fans the Techies pick — which did not end well for them. Thunder Predator did not mess around and finished PSG.LGD before they could do any of their Remote Mine shenanigans.

Stream B

Thunder Predator 1 — 1 OB.Neon

Without Rappy, fans speculated how the addition of Deth would impact OB.Neon’s playstyle. Though Neon had what most people would consider a wonky draft, things looked good as they controlled the early game by abusing the strength of Lycan and Queen of Pain.

Thunder Predator caught on to this fairly quickly and just burst the Lycan down at the beginning of team fights, effectively halving neon’s damage output. Without the Lycan to provide sustained damage, Neon had to tap out and reset for game two.

This time falling back to Yopaj’s TA and drafting Deth his signature Legion Commander, Neon took it upon themselves to bring the hurt to TP. Skem’s roaming Puck destroyed Thunder Predator’s lanes giving Neon’s cores plenty of time to prep for the mid game, and boy was the mid game painful to watch for TP fans.

Even with two big ultimates in Ravage and Black Hole, the cooldowns were far too long for Thunder Predator. They never got the huge Ravage + Black Hole combo off and were forced to call gg.

Alliance 1 — 1 OB.Neon

Alliance needed Nikobaby’s Alchemist to blow up, but he was unable to pull ahead in net worth whilst Skem actively fought with Juggernaut alongside his team. Alliance had no way to outplay Neon in the late game, and they were forced to take the game one loss.

Game two looked fantastic for Neon who were styling all over Alliance until a massive mistake at the 38-minute Rosh. Alliance baited Neon into the pit then wombo-combo’d them with Limmp’s SF ultimate. With Neon reeling, Alliance went straight for the Throne.

Alliance 0 — 2 PSG.LGD

Alliance needed to hit a small mid game timing with an offlane utility DK and carry Jug. Things looked okay early on but Alliance couldn’t cripple LGD enough to snowball, and against a fat and angry Troll Warlord, LGD easily took the momentum back from Alliance to win game one.

In game two, Alliance put all their eggs in the Nikobaby basket whilst LGD had Spectre to fall back on. Even with a Tidehunter, Alliance could never quite win team fights due to a lack of overall damage. With uncontested farm, Specter grew too big for Alliance to gank effectively and was practically unkillable.

Alliance 1 — 1 Liquid

Alliance needed to win the next two matches to force an elimination tiebreaker. Liquid’s Phoenix pick caused a lot of grief for Alliance who had a team fight-oriented draft and needed to end the game before Phantom Assassin became too overwhelming.

They tried multiple times to grab small pick-offs, but Liquid knew the limitations of Alliance’s draft. It all ended when Alliance botched the Rosh fight and had no buybacks to defend their base. Alliance were eliminated from the Singapore Major after losing Game 1.

Stream C

Team Aster 1 — 1 Team Liquid

Team Liquid started their day with a win against Team Aster. Tommy “Taiga” Le’s insane Tusk mechanics impressed fans after dealing perfectly-timed crowd control abilities that helped his team take advantage during big teamfights.

However, Team Aster managed to make a huge comeback in Game 2 with Du “Monet” Peng’s Terrorblade at the helm. Monet pulled off the first Rampage of the Singapore Major Group Stage, wiping Team Liquid and forcing the gg.

Quincy Crew 2 — 0 Team Aster

Quinn “Quinn” Callahan carried Quincy Crew to the top with his insane Void Spirit plays. Despite some small mistakes committed by their Singaporean stand-in Wilson “Poloson” Koh Chin Wei, Quincy Crew as a whole pretty much dominated the first game of the series against Team Aster.

They carried over their dominant performance on Game 2 and proved that NA Dota is indeed supreme against Chinese Dota, at least in this case.

OB.Neon 2 — 0 Team Liquid

Pinoy pride OB.Neon (previously Neon Esports) looked like a completely different team as they stomped European favorites Team Liquid to keep their Singapore Major dreams alive. Last-minute Singaporean stand-in Yang “Deth” Wu Heng seemed to have boosted the team’s performance overall on both games with his outstanding Leshrac performance.

Rolen Andrei Gabriel “skem” Ong was also instrumental in OB.Neon’s victory, as his Nature’s Prophet completely annihilated anyone who threatened OB.Neon’s slot at the Singapore Major Playoffs — in this case, Team Liquid.

PSG.LGD 2 — 0 Quincy Crew

In a fight for the final Upper Bracket slot, PSG.LGD bested Quincy Crew with a convincing victory in both games of their series. The Chinese squad looked stacked especially during game two, when they made Quincy Crew surrender just 18 minutes into the game.

Game two played out in similar fashion, with y` putting in a phenomenal performance on Elder Titan, setting up big plays for PSG.LGD. In the end, PSG.LGD took the win and secured a spot in the Upper Bracket alongside fellow Chinese Wild Card team, Vici Gaming.

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