Dota Pro Circuit 2021/22: Season 2 is over. Five of the six regions have determined the teams that will play at the ESL One Stockholm Dota Major 2022.
Now only the CIS games remain, but they will be held as part of a separate tournament, so these matches (as well as the region itself) can be taken off the table. In the other regions, the DPC season was full-scale and quite interesting. However, the spring league was not only rich in strong teams and their brilliant play but also in disappointments. In almost every region, there was a team that seriously frustrated their fans. The clubs and tournament operators managed to place themselves on record - in a negative sense of the word. Please read the article from Cybersport.Metaratings.ru about our disappointments in the Dota Pro Circuit spring season 2021/22.
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The beastcoast players are no longer the same
Beastcoast cyber-sports organization entered the Dota 2 professional scene several years ago. It was the first team from South America that made us think about the potential power of the region. After all, beastcoast has been doing well in the majors and on TI. That was the case in the past, but lately, beastcoast has been playing increasingly worse.
In 2021, the team played steadily and successfully in South America but failed at international tournaments. At The International 10 beastcoast achieved only 12th-16th place, which can best be described as a failure. In the first season of 2022, the team played poorly but could pull itself together and beat everyone in the regional finals. However, in the second season, beastcoast was as close to failure as possible. The team lost two matches during the season in South America (how is that even possible?), and only replays allowed the beastcoast to get an invitation to the majors.
However, given the performance level of this team, there is no doubt that beastcoast won't be able to get out of the group at the Stockholm majors. K1 and Co are not giving much hope at all. It is hard to think of a weaker team than beastcoast. But even now, the Peruvian team can be called one of the biggest failures of the season. It seems that the era of beastcoast is coming to an end, at least in its current lineup.
Quincy Crew is unstable
There have been two teams in North America for a while that have performed well while playing without the organization's support. We're talking about Quincy Crew and Team Undying, who have always been competing for second place in the region. This winter, the Team SoloMid organization decided to sign Team Undying. Many wondered why the club was interested in Team Undying and not Quincy Crew since the second team had been around much longer. As time goes on, this choice becomes more and more clear.
Quincy Crew is a very unstable team. Yawar YawaR Hassan and Quinn Quinn Callahan play there regularly and the rest of the roster changes after every unsatisfactory result. Thus, after failing at The International 10, three players left the team at once: Rodrigo Lelis Lelis Santos, Arif MSS Anwar, and Avery SVG Silverman. Now Quincy Crew lost the battle for the majors, and two people left the team: Milan MiLAN Cozomara and Remus Ponlo Goh Zhi Xian.
It's hard to believe in a team that can't decide on a permanent roster (many teams from the CIS are guilty of the same thing). Quincy Crew can play well in the short run, but we understand that the team will fall apart at the first failure. That's what happened during the spring DPC season, although many had high hopes for this team.
Royal Never Give Up made the worst substitute of the season
Before Dota Pro Circuit 2021/22, Royal Never Give Up assembled a new lineup that looked promising. The carry position was taken by the young talent GodKing, while the legendary Somnus丶M filled the center position. Chalice, FelixCiaoBa, and xNova also joined the team. It seemed that this squad could become the second team in China because they had both young hot blood and players with many years of experience.
At first, Royal Never Give Up lived up to its name as a promising newcomer. The team finished third in the regular season and then second during the regional finals. It was more than a decent result and a solid entry to The International 11. The spring DPC season also started very well for Royal Never Give Up, as the team won three matches in a row and had a 3-0 score.
After that, Royal Never Give Up made a strange decision and kicked GodKing. According to him, the kick was the statistic that he dealt less damage than the other teams' carries. That sounds weird at best, but it was a unanimous decision of the other Royal Never Give Up players, so it looked understandable at the time. GodKing's place was taken by Flyby, who used to play in Sparking Arrow Gaming in 3rd position. Here's the question: why swap the carry for an offlaner?
Royal Never Give Up, together with Flyby, defeated Team MagMa (2-0) and then lost three games in a row. The team almost missed the majors because of this. RNG had to play with Vici Gaming in replays, but the latter couldn't participate. As a result, Royal Never Give Up took only fourth place in the region because of the substitution, and now it is unlikely to show good results in the majors. The team has changed from a favorite to an outsider.
And just today, Royal Never Give Up kicked FelixCiaoBa and replaced him with the legendary Kaka. This replacement certainly strengthened the roster, but the way Royal Never Give Up solves problems does not inspire confidence.
T1 is no longer the favorite of SEA
Last year, T1 was considered the strongest Dota 2 team from Southeast Asia. It finished third in the majors and made it to the top 7-8 at The International 10. That's a great result for a team from that region. Therefore, it seemed logical that T1 would keep the roster and continue entertaining the fans with their game.
T1 kept the lineup, but its results went downhill dramatically. During the winter DPC season, the team only finished in third place. T1 played with 23savage as the carry, and before the regional finals, he was kicked. Rumor has it that 23savage "caught a star fever" and started neglecting training. This did not please the other players, and they decided to get rid of him. Gabbi took 23savage's place. He seemed to be a perfect fit for the team. After all, with 23savage, T1 finished third in the regular championship, and with Gabbi, it became second in the regional finals. That shows the progress already.
However, T1 had a poor spring DPC season. The team lost to BOOM Esports (1-2) and Fnatic (1-2), but it also lost the series to a completely unknown team called Polaris Esports. The final stats of T1 was 4:3. Polaris Esports also had the same score, so the teams competed against each other for third place in Southeast Asia and the right to go to the majors. T1 won, of course, but all of that left us with an unpleasant after-taste. From being the best team in Southeast Asia, T1 has turned into some scrub that is unlikely to be able to put up a fight against other teams in the majors.
Team Secret will definitely change the lineup
Team Secret completely failed during the winter DPC season. The team finished only fifth and couldn't even compete in the regional finals, losing many DPC points. The same thing happened during the spring DPC season. Because of this, Team Secret will miss the ESL One Stockholm Dota Major 2022 for Dota 2.
At that, Team Secret started pretty well and beat Team Liquid (2-0) in the first match with a very confident performance. Then the team lost to Tundra Esports (0-2) but beat OG (2-1). So in the middle of the season, Team Secret still looked like a strong team. However, afterwards it lost to Gladiators (0-2) and even Brame (1-2), which was a real sensation for the Greek squad. At this point, Team Secret had only two matches left. To advance to the majors, they had to win both. Team Secret defeated Entity, 2-1, but then lost to Nigma Galaxy, 1-2, forfeiting their chance to qualify for an international tournament. The team finished the season with a 3-4 record, a complete failure for a team of Team Secret's caliber.
We've got a feeling that after the league loss, the era of this Team Secret lineup has come to an end. Puppey has already stopped surprising us with his drafts, the impact from YapzOr is wispy, iceiceice ruins every game, and SumaiL has no synergy with these players. Only Nisha plays in Team Secret, but he can't win solo.
The team has two options for their future: either Team Secret makes a couple of lucky substitutions and makes it to TI11, or nothing changes in the roster, it doesn't make it to the main tournament of the year disbands, and Puppey finishes his career. It's a horrible scenario, so Team Secret needs to get hold of themselves and come up with something. This team is one of the biggest disappointments since the beginning of the year.
Nigma Galaxy - the biggest letdown of the year
The biggest frustration of the Dota Pro Circuit 2021/22 spring season is a team from Europe called Nigma Galaxy. The team has been in freefall for several years and has finally hit rock bottom.
Nigma Galaxy's results went downhill after finishing second at The International 2019. Since then, the team hasn't won a single significant tournament (or even placed high in any). Since then, Nigma Galaxy has made only one replacement: swapping W33 for iLTW. The team's results got better for a short time, but soon everything went back to normal, and Nigma Galaxy started to lose again. Because of that, Kuro and co couldn't even qualify for The International 2021 last year, but that didn't force the team to make any drastic changes.
The Dota Pro Circuit 2021/22 winter season was a failure for Nigma Galaxy. The team finished 4-3 in the league but lost in qualifiers and did not make it to the regional finals. However, that didn't make Nigma Galaxy change anything either. The team only got to that point when it had 0-5 statistics during the spring DPC season. After that, Nigma Galaxy kicked iLTW, but it wasn't enough. As a result, Nigma Galaxy ended the season with a 1-6 statistic and fell to division 2 for the first time. If that's not the biggest disappointment of the season (year), then what is?
There is this strange feeling that the team play is weaker than the individual performance of the players. Each of them is very good on their own. Maybe not everyone is playing at their peak form right now, but everyone can certainly improve. They're all very talented, but it's like they lack synergy in official matches. They don't have some general idea in the game. Even teams that don't have such strong individual performers look more powerful because they can realize their collective potential.
You can see that Nigma Galaxy players are either tired of playing together or just tired of playing Dota 2. Miracle- stopped carrying and showing highlights, and MinD_ContRoL and GH don't contribute any impact. At the same time, they play well as individuals, but they can't convert that skill into team play. However, the weakest link in Nigma Galaxy is KuroKy. He loses drafts, doesn't have an adequate game plan, doesn't hold the line well, and doesn't push the buttons in fights on time.
Honestly, I think iLTW had a hard time playing because KuroKy makes a lot of mistakes on the line. In my opinion, if a cyber athlete doesn't understand the meta and doesn't work on their performance enough, it will most likely show in the lining stage. Because the lining stage shows how well you understand the intricacies and how much you play: it's about the timings, buying items, etc. It seems that iLTW knows it all and often plays well on the line, but KuroKy doesn't, which puts iLTW at a disadvantage.
It's time for KuroKy to move to a coaching position or retire from professional Dota 2. After that, Nigma Galaxy needs to make a couple more replacements and build a new team around Miracle- by taking in some young players. Perhaps that would be the most logical decision in the current situation. In the meantime, I don't even want to look at Nigma Galaxy performances, as sad as that may sound.
