The last couple of days were pretty exciting for all Dota 2 fans out there. After waiting for a couple of weeks with no competitive Dota, we finally got to see the third Minor of the 2019-2020 Dota Pro Circuit season, the StarLadder ImbaTV Season 3 Minor. Let’s take a look at what happened at this event and which team grabbed the lion’s share of the $300,000 prize pool.
Group Stage
As with any Minor before this one, the group stage lasted only two days. During which, we got to see some pretty epic series and a couple of surprises. Perhaps the most notable one was the elimination of CR4ZY, the ex Fighting PandaS roster. Even though they’ve lost two of their big players, the NA team quickly found decent substitutes for them.
However, it seems like the team just didn’t have enough time to practice because they’ve ended the group stage with just one win. To be fair, that was expected because they had to go up against the likes if Alliance and Gambit Esports.
Playoffs – Team Aster is above all
As expected, pretty much every series in the playoffs was a blast to watch. However, one of the teams definitely stood out ahead of the others was Team Aster. The Chinese powerhouse didn’t have the best DPC season so far, so no one really expected them to deliver such a dominant performance. Nevertheless, Sccc and his team-mates had the luck to be in the easier group out of the two. As a result, they finished without a loss all the way to the Grand Final, where they had to face Alliance.
However, even the mighty European team was no match for the truly remarkable Chinese. They’ve completely outplayed their enemies in the first two games, even though Alliance tried to play with some of the hottest meta picks right now. We even got to see the legendary Nikobaby Medusa in the second game, but even this was not enough. Team Aster needed just 24 minutes to close the series and go a game three.
Although people expected Aster to dominate every game, this didn’t happen for the third. While it’s true that they had the lead at one point, Alliance was able to turn things around after a very messy fight. This resulted in a fast push where the EU team got two lanes of barracks, and ultimately, the win. This was Team Aster’s first loss in the entire event, which pushed the series into a fourth game.
Despite the loss, the Chinese team showed no mercy in the fourth game and absolutely ripped through their opponents in the final game of the series. As a result, Team Aster are now the champions of the StarLadder ImbaTV Season 3 Minor and will be heading out to the ESL ONE Los Angeles 2020 Major which begins next week. They also take home $72,000 and 140 DPC points.
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