OGA Dota PIT Minor 2019 Main Intrigue

OGA Dota PIT Minor 2019 — what to expect?

The fourth Major of the season is coming up — we’ll see some epic meat on April 22-28. Ninjas in Pyjamas and Gambit Esports are the current favorites, but Dota is where everything can go so fucking wrong in one single match. So we have some favorites to cheer for and a couple of teams to have a closer look at. Here are some intriguing details of the upcoming Major.

Ninjas in Pyjamas are on the edge of Tier 2

The DreamLeague Major was a fail for NiP. They tried to get to the pool of the best teams so desperately and failed miserably. Now they are trapped and got put aside by OG and Team Liquid. And now to get to The International 2019 they have to go berserk and fight to the death even on Minors.

If Ninjas in Pyjamas somehow manage to win Dota PIT Minor, they’ll tell their competitors to fuck off and prevent them earning Dota Pro Circuit points on the next Major. And on the Major, the stakes are much higher.
As they got fourth in The Kuala Lumpur Major, NiP now is on place seven of the total rank. Which is a freaking good position? But, and here we go to some wild predictions if on the MDL Disneyland® Paris Major Team Liquid makes to the top-4, and Keen Gamin at least top-6, they can go down, like low. So no, they need to put the skids on Gambit or EHOME coming to the Major. Aren’t you confused yet?

On the last big ass tournaments, Ninjas in Pyjamas just sucked. They obviously lack some strong players who can turn the game upside down all alone. Basically, they need a superman. Or a miracle.

Gambit Esports and the curse of the finals…

The current roster of Gambit Esports was twice in the Major finals and both times they had their asses kicked by Chinese teams. Go China! So now to win their back is a question of principle. And they still have to get some points — let’s hope nobody cracks under such pressure.

Honestly, it’s not impossible for Gambit to win the Minor. They are gonna be in full stack (on the Kiev Minor that had Afoninje replaced to fn). And they have been playing together for three months already and it should be enough to have some team play. They actually got to the finals of three different tournaments. If they don’t fuck updrafts, they have all the chances.

Also, they are gonna be the only CIS team on the Minor. And you those Russians, you can never predict the game flow when they play against each other. But it’s fun to watch. So pity for us, good for Gambit. Their only competitors are Ninjas in Pyjamas, Alliance, EHOME, and Royal Never Give Up.

Dark horses of Dota PIT — EHOME and RNG

Three months ago EHOME’s star rose on The Bucharest Minor, where they won, and The Chongqing Major, where they made to the top-6. And it quickly fell on MDL Macau. Everything went up to the creek when on February 19 Faith_bian got injured. He was replaced in matches on MDL Macau and DreamLeague Season 11. Obviously, it didn’t play into EHOME performance and they came last in both of the tournaments.

They came with a brilliant idea to reshuffle and got their hands on three TI champions — y’, Ferrari_430 and xiao8 who replaced Faith_bian. And on the first glance, the roster seems fucking amazing! But when it came to the actual performance, they only made it to the Mainor.

The other Chinese team to keep an eye on is Royal Never Give Up. It would be a compliment to say they are OK. They keep dragging on the last places and barely scraped through quals and keep somewhere on the level of Newbee. And, out of the blue, they decided to substitute the offline right after they won their place on the Minor.

But again, Dota is a game where everything can change and you never know what to expect. So it’s pretty possible that Chinese teams will show some sick skills and we’ll see them in top-3 as it was on The Bucharest Minor. We’ll see.