Team Aster vs Team Mars Prediction: Warm-up for the main qualification favorite

On Thursday, July 28, qualifying for the big Dota 2 tournament in August, ESL One Malaysia 2022, will start in China. Team Aster and Team Mars will play in the first round.

ESL One Malaysia 2022 China: Closed Qualifier is a closed qualifier for the major international Dota 2 laning tournament, ESL One Malaysia 2022. Qualifiers in China will be held among eight Chinese teams from July 28-30, 2022. Only one team is selected for the main ESL One Malaysia 2022 tournament through a closed qualifier.

Before leaving for the U.S. major, and hopefully, the Chinese will get to the event, the guys from Team Aster decided to have a little warm-up and take part in the closed qualifications for the August major international tournament ESL One Malaysia 2022. Remarkably, of all the tops, only Team Aster players volunteered to participate in this mini-tournament. Most surprisingly, Team Aster's main opponents could be their young colleagues in the Aster.Aries organization.

Team Aster players followed the example of PSG LGD and played the summer round of the DPC league without strain. Overall, Team Aster finished well in the final league, winning second place in the replay. But more important for the team is successful performance in the LAN tournaments, the Majors, and just ESL One Malaysia 2022, where the guys should qualify through these qualifications. This will help them feel confident on the lan, because so far, they are the kings of the online, and the team has big problems on the stage.

Team Aster had a mixed spring tour, especially against their success in January: the team won second place in the first DPC league, and in the replay, the team defeated the resistance team RNG. Then the guys reinforced the result with a championship at the Intel World Open Beijing, which was not an incredible sensation, but the result was still unexpected. After the Chinese New Year, the players began to perform relaxed. An extremely poor performance in the regional finals of the DPC leagues (3rd place out of 4), then not reaching the finals of the OGA Dota PIT Season 6: China (3rd place). All that doesn't change the main point - Team Aster remains one of the main favorites to start the third cycle of the 2021/22 season, the more so in the second regional final.

Team Aster is one of China's youngest teams, formed in late 2018 and already a top team in its region. Last season was a mixed bag for the guys; if we evaluate their results within the Chinese region, they are very cool: vice-champions of the first DPC league, champions of the second DPC league, and champions of two seasons of i-League 2021. Even PSG LGD can't boast the same results in China. Still, on the international scene, Aster played just awful: only 9-12th place in the two majors in Singapore and Kyiv, an unsatisfactory result in TI10 as well - 13-16th place. You can look for excuses, they didn't play in a full squad in Singapore, and at TI10, the whole team suffered from coronavirus, but the fact is that nobody makes concessions to the top Chinese team.

Something had to be done, and the bosses of the organization made two substitutions in the squad: Ori, who moved from Vici Gaming, will play in position two, and Siamese.C, who spent the last season in the Aster Aries youth team, has arrived in the five position.

The Chinese team called Team Mars is an ordinary pack of not the top Chinese players. The team does not participate in the DPC cycle, will not qualify for the TI11, and leads a miserable existence on the T3-4 Chinese Dota scene.

The team has been competing at low-rated tournaments: Asian Arena, Titus Colosseum Cup, and Chaos Realm League. But even there, Team Mars players regularly lose their games. I don't rule out that this team won't mind making money on 322 games, but if the guys are playing, it means they haven't caught it yet.

The lineup is constantly changing; now, it is as follows: 1) syndrome, 2) lost, 3) YC, 4) Hy, and 5) Ryuki. Little-known players, the only ones who at least somehow glimpsed recently in the DPC - the four Hy, played in the now forgotten "Dynasty." I don't know what the guys forgot in this qualification, but it's worth noting that plenty of such teams are in this qualification.

Teams are of completely different levels, so I do not expect a close confrontation, which means it makes sense to bet on Team Aster to win.