Dota 2 Berlin Major: Aster, Liquid, EG survive first round of lower bracket
Meanwhile, Team Spirit, Xtreme Gaming, and Shopify Rebellion were the first to fall out of the Berlin Major Playoffs.
The competition is heating up in the ESL One Berlin Major 2023 Playoffs as the first round of the lower bracket has already seen big names bow out of the competition.
The International 10 (TI10) champions Team Spirit, China's Xtreme Gaming, and North American powerhouse Shopify Rebellion have been eliminated while Team Aster, Team Liquid, and Evil Geniuses (EG) advance to the second round of the lower bracket.
Read on for a breakdown of all the action in the second day of the Berlin Major Playoffs:
Team Aster 2-0 Team Spirit
The day began with China's Team Aster, featuring Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan as a stand-in, taking on TI10 champions Team Spirit, who were knocked down to the lower bracket by Lima Major champions Gaimin Gladiators in the opening day of the Playoffs.
SumaiL put on one of the best performances of the Major so far in game one, notching a clean 17 kills and 17 assists on Windranger to lead Aster to a 42-11, 37-minute rout over Spirit.
SumaiL had another great showing on Windranger in game two, combining with Du "Monet" Peng's Alchemist to be the one-two punch that knocked Spirit out of the Major. The pair combined for 24 kills and 37 assists against seven deaths to secure the 2-0 series sweep in 44 minutes of action.
Team Liquid 2-1 Xtreme Gaming
The second series of the day saw a shaky Team Liquid take on the second of three Chinese teams in the lower bracket: Xtreme Gaming. While Xtreme put up a good fight, Liquid still emerged victorious in three games and are slowly regaining their once-dominant form.
Xtreme came out swinging to start the series and outlasted Liquid in a 53-minute slugfest in game one behind Daniel "Ghost" Chan's Drow Ranger, who finished with 15 kills against two deaths.
Liquid struck back hard in game two, utterly dominating Xtreme to the tune of a very lopsided 28-4 kill lead in just 26 minutes. The Western European juggernauts kept the ball rolling in the decider, ousting their Chinese opponents from the Major after a 28-11, 41-minute rout.
Evil Geniuses 2-0 Shopify Rebellion
The last series of the day was an all-American affair between North America's Shopify Rebellion and South America's EG. The last time these two met in a Major Playoff was during the lower bracket quarterfinals of the Lima Major, where Shopify Rebellion knocked EG out in front of their home crowd.
EG got their revenge in the most one-sided match of the Berlin Major so far, as it only took them a combined 56 minutes of game time to sweep Shopify Rebellion and send them packing.
EG one-upped Liquid's dominant 28-4 game two win over Xtreme to open their match against Shopify Rebellion, as they racked up 28 kills while only conceding three deaths in 29 minutes.
Crhistian "Pakazs" Savina then put on a show on Alchemist to close things out, finishing with a clean 10 kills and 26,800 gold in net worth as EG ended Shopify Rebellion's time in Berlin after a 27-minute beatdown.
With today's results, Aster, Liquid, and EG have all secured at least a Top 8 finish as well as US$12,500 and 200 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points in winnings. They now advance to the next round of the lower bracket, where they will all face off.
Aster will be taking on Liquid while EG will be facing the winner of the last lower bracket round 1 match between China's PSG.LGD and Southeast Asia's Talon Esports, which will open day three of the Playoffs.
The Berlin Major Playoffs follows a double-elimination format where all matches are a best-of-three except for the Grand Finals, which will be a full best-of-five series.
The Berlin Major will take place from 26 April to 7 May and will feature 18 of the best teams in the DPC battling for their share of the US$500,000 prize pool and 2,700 DPC point pool. Those DPC points will go towards securing all-important direct invites to this year's iteration of The International, Dota 2's annual multimillion dollar world championship tournament.
For everything you need to know about the Berlin Major, check here.
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