Team Secret and Virtus.Pro secure The International 11 LCQ Final

The International 11 Last Chance Qualifier is still running its course, though it’s coming to an end very soon, and let’s just say the matches have been full of action. Up in the upper bracket, we are down to the final two teams with one securing a TI11 spot after their match.

After two day of Playoffs, five teams have already been eliminated, with two soon to follow. Let’s take a look at what has been happening so far.

Team Secret went through the upper bracket madness
T1 and Team Secret faced each other in the upper bracket semi-finals after defeating their respective opponents. T1 brought out their cheese strats as if it was all or nothing for their round. Particularly, Carlo “Kuku” Palad spammed Undying on the offlane, which is a very good pick in recent meta. It received countless buffs in the recent patches, which significantly made laning easy for offlane. This goes well with Kuku’s greedy and aggressive playstyle, which is coupled with Topson playing Morphling mid.

Team Secret had arguably the toughest opponent, which is Xtreme Gaming. The Chinese rival had decent success with late game, which Secret eventually figured out they had to play the snowball game. Picking mid-game power creeps, such as Lycan and Templar Assassin paired well with Nyx Assassin as a sneaky observer. Going around the map invisible, which gave Xtreme a lot to worry about when Secret would jump on their unsuspecting carry player farming peacefully in the jungle.

It was an amazing setup for a duel between Secret and T1 that ultimately ended in an underwhelming 2-0 wash in favor of Secret. In the lower bracket, T1 and VG played an intense series for a slot in the Lower Bracket semifinal against either Team Liquid or Natus Vincere. 

Ultimately, it was ViCi that came ahead with a convincing 2-1 victory and now will have to face Team Liquid, a team that definitely has the potential to make it all the way to TI11 .

6 teams have been already eliminated from the tournament
Tempest, Infamous, Nouns, Polaris, Xtreme Gaming, and Wildcard Gaming have been officially knocked out of contention for TI11 qualification. However, there’s certainly no shame in losing today, especially after such a phenomenal display of performance. Notably, the South American team Infamous, the team that nearly sent the Chinese powerhouse Xtreme Gaming packing initially.

Infamous managed to snatch the first game, and was very close at securing the second game too for the clean sweep. In game 2, Infamous’ line-up has strong lockdowns with Doom and Enigma posing a game-winning threat to its opponent. However, Zhang “Paparazi灬” Chengjun came in clutch with the Linken Sphere saves from Doom’s Doom. Although Enigma’s Blackhole still played a massive impact in occasionally catching Paparazi’s Ember Spirit, Xtreme had Vengeful Spirit’s Nether Swap save ready.

Alongside Xtreme Gaming continuing their lower bracket run were Natus Vincere and Vici Gaming, which defeated Tempest and nouns respectively. Considering the trio was from the upper bracket, their victories were expected as the stronger teams in the lower bracket.

Wildcard Gaming was eventually able to close out the series cleanly against Polaris Esports, but ultimately fell to ViCi gaming in the lower bracket.The International 2022 Last Chance Qualifiers will continue with the lower bracket semifinal and the upper bracket finals, so make sure to stay tuned as we’ll be covering the rest of the TI 11 LCQ. Also, don’t forget to check out our dota 2 betting site where you can find the best offers!