TNC Predator vs Team SMG: TNC says goodbye to the elite

The first DPC league of the 2021/22 season in South-East Asia will continue on Thursday, January 13. TNC Predator and Team SMG 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 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.

TNC Predator says goodbye to the elite division, sad to see such a high-profile tag forced to relegate to the second tier of Asia they might not be able to climb without major decision-making.

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, 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.

It is a tough calendar for Team SMG as they have already played all the formidable teams, leaving them to face the clear-cut elite runners-up in 2022. It's worth realizing that SMG is 2-2 now, and if the team wants to qualify for the majors, they have no margin for error, then a theoretical chance of making it to the Wild Card stage is realistic.

Team SMG's first match in the elite was extremely successful. Destroying Fnatic (2-0) on two maps in less than 30 minutes was a real sensation. Next up was a game against the main red-boss T1 (0-2), but the TI10 participant could not be beaten. Next up was a 2-0 victory over Motivate.Trust Gaming, with the SMG guys picking not exactly reliable drafts, but that didn't stop them from rolling over two MTG maps. The win was followed again by a defeat, this time by BOOM (0-2), who is now playing extremely well, but SMG strained the leader of the SEA elite division.

Team SMG have some stellar Malaysian players at their disposal who could easily strengthen any Southeast Asian Tier-1 team, but in their current stack, they can't get to the result yet. The MidOne and Moon nicknames carry a lot of weight in the region.

Some experts saw this team as possible winners of the Asian qualifiers for the TI. This further underlines the level of stellar characters at some positions. But after failing to qualify for the main tournament of the year, the boys began to play in a large number of low-rated tournaments, sometimes kicking outright horror there and at times even winning such games.

The squad has been playing together for a long time. The only change before the start of the new season's DPC league was the arrival of the only Filipino, Raging Potato, who has experience playing in several TIs and has mainly played for Execration and Neon in the last few years.

Team SMG continues to fight for their first-ever major, and they are close to this achievement, so the already unmotivated TNC should run over with a handicap (-1.5) on maps. The odds are 1.90.

Team SMG will win the first map with a handicap (-12.5) kills. The odds on that are 2.02.