1win Series Dota 2 Summer is the prelude for Riyadh Masters for quite a few teams.
The tournament runs until Sunday and gives to the teams fighting for a share of the $100,000 prize pool a precious opportunity to quickly check their ideas for the 7.36c patch, which dropped earlier this week.
Six out of the eight teams participating in 1win Series Dota 2 Summer are heading to Saudi Arabia next week to compete in the $5,000,000,000 Riyadh Masters 2024, part of the Esports World Cup. However, for two of those the Summer season at 1win ended abruptly.
The tournament has a straight forward format. Eight teams split into two groups of four duel in a modified GSL group stage format for a spot in the playoffs. The group play also gives a lot of room for surprises as all series, except for the decider one, are a best-of-one affair.
Gaimin Gladiators, for instance, understood that perfectly and opened the tourney with a 14-minute victory over PSG.Quest. They ran a carry Broodmother with Monkey King in the mid lane and imposed a fast and furious pace that made the game last about the same as the drafting stage.
Unfortunately for PSG.Quest, who are going to Riyadh Masters as one of just two MEANA representatives, the day went from bad to worse. Their next match was against Virtus.pro, who gave them another Broodmother treatment, while also drafting a couple more annoying heroes. Pudge and Techies also made it through the drafting stage to send Quest to the drawing board extremely fast.
Group A came to an end with 1win and Virtus.pro fighting for survival in the best-of-three decider series. The former, although delivered the surprise in The International 2024 qualifiers, claiming the sole spot in the Eastern European region, won’t be at EWC. Virtus.pro, on the other hand, will take the trip to Riyadh next week, so for them the tournament could have served as a perfect practice ground.
However, they got to play only five games, as 1win took VP down 2-0. Both games featured pushing and heavy team fight line-ups from 1win. Lycan was their offender in game one, while game two had VP cornered in their base by Chaos Knight, Keeper of the Light and Enigma.
