The announcement of the upper bracket of the ESL One Stockholm Dota Major 2022 playoff

The group stage of the ESL One Stockholm Dota Major 2022 is now over. Both groups have determined the strongest teams which made it to the upper bracket. We will watch their confrontation on the first day of the playoff. It is surprising, but all pairs of the first round have equal abilities. They have been qualified as follows. A group A winner chose an opponent between the 3rd and the 4th place of group B. And the second place of group A got the remaining option. The same happened in group B. The big advantage of the system is that the strongest teams choose their opponents themselves. This is the privilege they got for their excellent results at the group stage. Read what will be the first day of the ESL One Stockholm Dota Major 2022 playoff and who are the favorites in the material of Cybersport.Metaratings.ru.

The favorite of this match is Tundra Esports which rose to the occasion during the group stage. The team had five wins and one draw, earning almost as many points as possible, given that it played in the more difficult group. It feels like Tundra Esports is at its height. It succeeds in every move on the map, and the players are very disciplined and act as one team. Moreover, the team's drafts and strategies have been up to the mustard during the tournament. Tundra Esports prepares for its matches but also follows the Major's meta that changes every day. All this makes Tundra Esports one of the main contenders to win the ESL One Stockholm Dota Major 2022.

Team Spirit, on the contrary, demonstrated a rather lackluster performance at the group stage. The team defeated only Fnatic and Thunder Awaken and tied with TSM FTX. During the replays, the "Dragons" were close to falling into the lower bracket: the team lost two matches out of three. Team Spirit was lucky that Team Liquid lost all three matches in the replays and moved to the lower bracket. Frankly speaking, Team Spirit's game leaves much to be desired. Now the team plays not as brilliantly as at The International 10 when it became a champion. However, Team Spirit is still a strong team that needs just to get a feel of the tournament meta. The match against Tundra Esports can give Team Spirit motivation, so you should still consider it a rival. If Team Spirit gathers momentum, it will be extremely hard to stop.

The match between Thunder Awaken and BetBoom Team can be easily called one of the most fascinating confrontations of today, as it will be a fight between outsiders that showed a cool game during the group stage. Contrary to everyone's predictions, Visage and Nature's Prophet were not banned against the BetBoom Team, at least not always. Thanks to that, the team constantly used its best strategies. And if these heroes were banned, BetBoom Team took the strongest heroes of the current meta and won. Thus, Daxak's specific heroes help the team a lot, even if they are banned. If Thunder Awaken wants to win, it needs to ban Visage and Nature's, although OG managed to beat both in the match against BetBoom Team. But they are still too strong in Daxak's hands, so Thunder Awaken shouldn't take the risk too often.

Thunder Awaken started its performance as one of the main underdogs, but it has made it to the playoff upper bracket from the second place. The South American team has gotten to the meta successfully: they take heroes that are considered the strongest and play well on them. But Thunder Awaken has also prepared for this game. It was this team that brought Spectre, who is now a powerful and popular hero, to the major. The players' game is decent. Everything on this team is in its place, and Pakazs is the best carry in the group stage of the major. He plays every series very confidently and always has an incredible KDA. It seems that Thunder Awaken showed excellent results in the group due to his performance. Perhaps, his game on standard carries is even better than that of Daxak.

OG showed a controversial game during the group stage. Some matches were terrible, and the team lost their coveted points. And in other times, the players gathered their strength and crushed their opponents. Take, for example, BetBoom Team. Then OG needed victory come hell or high water and it easily got it, even having given Daxak his signature players. Although OG didn't demonstrate its best game during the group stage, we feel that it will start playing better and more stable in the playoff. Sébastien "Ceb" Debs and Johan "N0tail" Sundstein have returned to OG, and they know what to do in the playoff to win.

TSM FTX had a replacement for most of the group stage but looked quite decent. And after SabeRLighT got back to the roster, it started to play even better. The team can draft and performs well on the chosen heroes, but there is nothing extraordinary in its game. It is an ordinary team that plays at an average level and cannot surpass itself. It is a good team, but it's difficult to imagine it will beat OG during the playoff. Although, given the OG replacements, it is not unlikely to happen.

Gaimin Gladiators as the strongest team from Group B chose its opponent from Group A itself. Apparently, Gaimin Gladiators fears BetBoom Team, as it chose a South Asian team, T1. This opponent can be very comfortable for Gaimin Gladiators, as T1 always invents something and experiments with drafts, making the game more difficult for itself. Gaimin Gladiators, on the contrary, plays with the simplest but efficient drafts. So, we are in for a clash of ideologies: the complexity of the draft versus its simplicity. At the same time, the players of both teams have the same level of play. It will be very interesting to see who will be the winner of this meeting.