Motivate.Trust Gaming vs Neon Esports: Asian re-match after all!

South-East Asia's first DPC league of the 2021/22 season continues on Thursday, January 20. Motivate.Trust Gaming and Neon Esports will meet in the day's only match in the elite division.

DPC SEA 2021/22 Tour 1: Division I is an online Dota 2 tournament from December 01, 2021, to January 22, 2022. The top eight teams from the Southeast Asian region will battle it out for $205,000. On top of the cash prizes, the teams will also fight for three entries to the majors and the crucial DPC points needed to qualify for T11.

With everything in their hands, they can beat Neon today and do a big favour to Philippine team Execration and themselves because only a win will spare these three Asian teams from having to replay for relegation.

In the elite division, MTG, debutants started their new DPC cycle with a 2-0 win over TNC and Execration. These teams are their immediate and close opponents, but the boys have proved that they are ready to jump over their heads here and now. However, after their opening victories, the MTG team could not build on their success, losing four matches in a row and still not securing a place in the elite next season.

Motivate.Trust Gaming is one of the most interesting Asian teams that had a chance to break through to the int, considering their results at the beginning of the last summer of 2021, but failed in the int and the end of the summer BTS tournament in season 7 (6th place). Still, in season 8, they finished in the top 3 of the series.

The main star of the squad is JaCkky, who joined the squad from T1 in March after upping his MMR to 12K. The guy from Laos has shown an unbelievable game, blowing everyone by farming speed and button-pushing on his heroes.

The squad hasn't changed since the summer. The guys are showing up well at Tier-4 tournaments: Moon Studio Asian Tigers and PNX Invitational, which was a great warm-up before the ninth season of BTS and, of course, before the upcoming new DPC season. The BTS boys finished in 3rd place and approached the DPC in as good a shape as possible.

Fans of the Chinese and Asian Dota 2 in the last week of 2021 were watching the Huya Winter Invitational tournament, which has become a tradition. At this event, OB.Neon not only unexpectedly found themselves in the top 3 of the tournament, but they won the event even though no one had originally placed them among the runners-up and the teams with the potential to surprise. The Filipinos beat a revamped Team Aster (2-0) and even beat Royal Never Give Up twice (2-1), which is an extremely cool result given that the guys go 0-3 in DPC SEA and are the main contenders for relegation to the second division. This win was important for the lads, and the bookies had a sharp belief in them, especially after their 2-1 success against T1. But the end of the season did not work out... Defeats in games against SMG (1-2) and, most offensively, against TNC (0-2)...

The Filipinos started the new DPC cycle with a game against BOOM (0-2). One of the favourites, the Neons, could not counter anything, although the second map was close. In the second week was the game Execration (1:2), which was arch-important with the aim in general of survival in the elite division of SEA, but losing the principal match, the opponents sent the team OB.Neon at the bottom of the table, and then was a game with the evil Fnatic... (0:2).

The OB Esports x Neon squad underwent big changes this summer. All the main players moved to BOOM. In the opposite direction, the Asian organization received from the Indonesians only Mikoto, who played briefly for the Neons and moved to Talon Esports after the ninth season of BTS. All in all, the new Neons are something of an experiment that should prove itself by the end of this year, or perhaps even the entire first DPC season. But this is just my guess, and so far, the guys participate in every tournament in a row and do not get much glory.

After TI10, this team was one of the first to play in several parallel Tier-3 tournaments, replacing its carry along the way. The current number one is Filipino Palos, who joined the team from Execration. In addition, before the DPC season, OB.Neon added the Indonesian Mamang Daya to their ranks, who played for Army Geniuses for a long time. A failed BTS also provoked the boys to switch players in the fifth position, with the newcomer being Filipino Abeng, who returns to his home turf after two years.

The Neon Esports team has no margin for error, plus in January started to show a good game, beating T1 and taking the map from SMG. Neon should lose today and fly out in a good way, but it's not that easy in Asia, so I believe in Neon's victory in the match for 1.83.

Without three maps, this battle should not end. The odds on Total Over 2.5 maps are available for 1.93.

The correct score in this match will be 2-1 in favour of Neon Esports; the odds are 3.20.