Dota 2: The Summit 10 Recap

The last event before the biggest tournament in Dota 2 is finally over. There were a lot of exciting and fun games to watch but probably the most entertaining part of the event was the commentary. Let’s take a closer look at what happened during the groups and afterward.

Group Stage

The main stars of the show here Alliance and paiN Gaming. They were able to sweep through their enemies relatively easy and also earned a decent amount of cash while they were doing it. In fact, each game that they won rewarded them with $1K USD.

Alliance was looking very dominant as they only lost once against paiN on day one. Apart from that, no team was able to stand against the European powerhouse. This was expected, after all, they are the only team in The Summit 10 that also qualified for TI 9.

The other team which managed to get the spotlight and a spot straight to the WB’s Final is paiN Gaming.  Unfortunately, the TI 9 qualifiers were not the best for the South American organization. Despite that, their performance so far is a clear sign that they will be a strong foe in the future.

The performance from the other teams was kind of mediocre. Neither J.storm nor compLexity Gaming was able to actually shine, whereas beastcoast finished with a 5/5 W/L ratio. The same applies to Team Serenity, their fans definitely expected more out of them but nothing happened.

Losers’ Round 1

When it comes down to direct eliminations things always get serious. However, The Summit 10 is an exception because, at the end of the day, it is a fun event.

The first series was between Team Serenity and J.storm, both of which had a bad time in the groups. Having said that, the first game of this series was a joy to watch. Both teams did some amazing plays and interesting stuff which made it worthwhile. In the end, the victory went in favor of J.storm as they took the lead in the series. However, they were just out of luck as Team Serenity completely turned the balance of power. In the end, they took down the NA team with a 2-1 score.

J.storm had the potential to be one of the strongest NA teams early this year. Despite that, their performance has been nowhere as good as they wanted it to be. They had an OK run during the TI qualifiers but in the end, they lost to FG.

The second deadly LB game was surely a lot more anticipated compared to the first one. Apart from J.storm, beastcoast was the second team that got eliminated after R1. In fact, compLexity gaming is the only NA team that managed to reach R2. This is just yet another sign that the entire NA scene is currently having a hard time.

Despite their success, Team Serenity quickly shattered the dreams of the NA fans. They had little to no trouble in game one after completely stomping their enemies in the laning stage. This gave them the needed advantage and the game ended just 27 minutes in. Despite the loss, CoL tried to bounce back in the second game of the series. However, their effort was futile as the Chinese were just too strong to deal with.

Winners’ Final

The last game of Day 3 was the Upper Bracket’s Final between Alliance and paiN Gaming. This game was very anticipated because they were the strongest teams in the group and both of them were eager to win over their enemies. Having said that, the series was truly amazing and it went for more than three hours.

Game one went in favor of the European team in under 25 minutes. After a brilliant laning stage, they just give little to no chance to their enemies to bounce back. However, paiN gaming was definitely not giving up. In fact, after doing an amazing comeback and taking game two, they continued their domination in the incredible one-hour long game three.

Alliance vs Team Serenity

After the loss, Michael “miCKe” Vu and Co. had the uneasy task of facing their Chinese enemies. Luckily for them, Team Serenity did not have their best day and lost the series. In Game One, Max “qojqva“ Bröcker was the main star of the show with his Storm Spirit. He gave the Chinese a very hard time because they just lacked the needed disables to stop him. Having the momentum on their side, the dominant performance continued in the second game as well. With no way to deal with the aggression, the options before Team Serenity were slim.

The Grand Final – Revenge time

Third times a charm – Alliance and paiN Gaming had to face each other yet again. However, this time the stakes were a lot higher.

Game one was a quick beatdown from Alliance as they gave their South American enemies little to no chance. PaiN had a very strong line-up including Juggernaut and Magnus. However, they were just unable to utilize their full potential because Alliance was too fast. The good-old Oracle-DP combo proved to be very strong in pushing.

With their backs against the wall, the SA squad’s tactic changed drastically in game two. On the contrary, Alliance stuck with the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Luckily, it worked yet again, even though paiN definitely looked stronger compared to game one.

The third and also last game of the series was different from the first two. Both teams changed their drafts a lot which resulted in a very even game, at least during the first minutes of it. However, as soon as Alliance took control, their advantage started to skyrocket.

The TI 9 participants got a well-deserved victory and will be going to happy to China.