In yesterday’s StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational games, North American team OpTic Gaming scored their very first Dota 2 Pro Circuit points—and in extremely convincing fashion, no less.
Peter “ppd” Dager and his boys knocked Team Kinguin down to their group’s elimination match in three games, and required no effort whatsoever in defeating Vici Gaming J Thunder in just two.
They completed the latter match in a grand total of just 48 minutes and 41 seconds of in-game time. OpTic used Ancient Apparition—seemingly NA’s favorite hero at the moment—to great effect against VGJ’s insistence on picking Death Prophet in each game. Ppd averaged 14 assists on the hero throughout the series, effectively shutting down Liu “Sylar” Jiajun on Death Prophet and a few other VGJ picks that are checked by Ice Blast.
This means that VGJ Thunder will fight for tournament survival against the winner of FlyToMoon vs Kinguin, which will take place tomorrow at 2am CT.
OpTic now find themselves with at least 30 Pro Circuit points for the first time since the season began in October last year. Though they have a long way to go in terms of qualifying for the International 8, this is a good sign going forward. If they can somehow win this event and carry the momentum forward, they might find it easier to get into ESL One Birmingham or the China Supermajor at the end of the season.
Unfortunately they will still have to pull off a miracle in one of the two Majors they can take part in, in order to break into the top eight spots in the Pro Circuit standings. Given their overall performance this season, and the strength of their would-be rivals should they make it far in the Majors, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that a direct invite to TI8 may already be out of reach.
