TNC Predator vs OB.Neon: TNC's historic day of failure

The first DPC league of the 2021/22 season in Southeast Asia will continue on Wednesday, January 12. TNC Predator and OB.Neon will meet in the first match of the day for 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 SEA 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.

Today, TNC Predator can officially leave the elite DPC division in South East Asia. It is surprising to see TNC Predator at the bottom of their home Asian region standings. 0-5 is exactly the scoreline the boys have. They need to start winning, for they are just one defeat away from relegation.

The first week of the DPC league gave us two matches at once with the once-great TNC Predator. Now that time has passed, a renewed young squad is trying to build something sane in their game. Everything is bad so far. The team lost to their opponents from Motivate.Trust Gaming (0:2) and T1 (0:2), but the loss to a TI10 playoff participant is still forgivable, but MTG is far from the top.

Before the New Year, TNC also lost their third and fourth matches, and the boys lost to Fnatic (0-2) and Execration (0-2), which makes their fight for elite survival even worse. In January, the team played a game against BOOM (0:2). It gave their best series, miraculously giving their opponents the first map and giving an unrealistically tight fight in the second map as well. Still, unfortunately, they could not even pick up a map, although they were worthy and for the whole series.

The failure of the legendary TNC Predator to qualify for this past TI10 was a tragedy for the organization, which decided to disband the entire past squad and recruit new players, who would enter the server under this brand for the first time just at the DPC league. Team TNC won the last pre-covid major in 2019, but that success did not count towards qualifying for TI10, and the play over the past two DPC leagues by this squad left a lot to be desired. The underestimation of the online era and the increased, within-region competition was fatal, but that is now in the past. The new lineup, not new and most importantly high goals and the first DPC league of the new season will be a real test of strength for these guys, for I am sure they have a couple of aces up their sleeve, not for nothing they have not played various online tournaments in their region. Now to the new lineup.

YoungGod is TNC's new carry. A Filipino player who can't boast the practice of playing in strong teams, much less the results.

Yowe is a Filipino mid who has proven himself in Execration. His previous team was the bronze medalist in the second DPC league in SEA and prevented TNC from reaching the majors. Notably, Yowe missed out on the majors, having been kicked out of the Philippine team in the summer.

X1aOyU is a Malaysian three who has been trying his hand at China for a long time. He played in the IG and Vici systems, mostly in youth squads, occasionally joining the base. Before signing with TNC himself, he tried his hand at another Filipino team, Neon.

PlayHard is a Filipino four who worked wonders in Asia for Neon during the first DPC league and Singapore majors.

Febby is a Korean player who is no stranger to TNC. Firstly he has played for this team, and secondly, he has been coaching them recently. Now he's sat in position five and will oversee the formation of his new team from the game.

Team OB.Neon decided to go into the new year 2022 with two legs! The team's first game ended with a bang - they beat their T1 opponents 2-1, the only success so far in the DPC league, but they still have three more games to go, and the team's coach is dead serious about it.

Fans of Chinese and Asian Dota 2 in the last week of 2021 watched the tournament Huya Winter Invitational, 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 that would surprise them. The Filipinos beat a rejuvenated Team Aster (2-0) and even beat Royal Never Give Up twice (2-1), which is an extremely cool result given that the guys were 0-3 in the SEA DPC at the time, being the main contenders for relegation to the second division. That win was an important one for the boys. The bookmakers dramatically believed in these guys and changed their odds in their favour, especially after their success against T1 back in January.

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 briefly played 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 to their ranks an Indonesian two, Mamang Daya, who played for Army Geniuses for a long time. A failed BTS also provoked the lads to swap players in the fifth position, the newcomer being Filipino Abeng, who returns to his home turf after two years.

OB.Neon is not ready to drop out of the elite. The more so, they're determined to win all their remaining matches and even fight for a re-match in the majors. T1 has been passed, and TNC is the right opponent for them to prove to themselves once again that they can. I think OB.Neon's mindset is better, and they can close out their opponent with a  handicap (-1.5) on the maps for 1.75.

The first map will have Total Over 48.5 kills; the odds are 1.63.

The second map will be longer than 36.5 minutes; the odds are 1.90.