Playoffs: Upper Bracket Final
Format: BO3
Saturday, August 14, is another game day in the China OGA Dota PIT playoffs. Elephant and Invictus Gaming will determine the first Grand Finalist of the tournament.
OGA Dota PIT S5: China is a Chinese Dota 2 tournament that will brighten August, specifically from the 07th to the 16th. The tournament will see the eight strongest teams in the region compete for $150,000. The group stage will take place from August 07 to 10, and the playoffs will start on August 11.
Elephant: The first serious test of the tournament
Elephants are starting to regain their confidence at the end of 2020 when this team was first formed. After failing two DPC leagues, the Elephant team still achieved their primary goal for the year, to qualify for The International 10. Qualification was handled confidently by the boys. Although they had one blemish in the top net final, their loss to EHOME made up for it by destroying them in the Grand Final of this mini-tournament for the last slot in the year’s main tournament.
The only other setback, apart from International qualification, was Elephant’s March 2021 FMWH Dota2 Championship Season 3 tournament, in which they finished third while playing without their RedPanda. He was kind of sick, but after another DPC league debacle, the team decided to switch sides, with RedPanda leaving Elephant and Super joining from RNG at the end of May. The star-studded squad needed an in-game leader, a role RedPanda could not cope with. As for Super, he is a player who has excellent credibility, has experience with coach rOtK and the foursome of the fy team.
The team has not played since May 20, and rOtK has been purposefully preparing this squad for International qualification. This coach and players are maximalists. The season is not so happy with the results, so Elephant can be very serious about this tournament, which showed the group stage in which they defeated all their opponents with a score of 2-0, and they are PSG.LGD, Vici Gaming, and young Aster.Aries.
In the playoffs, the boys tore apart the Vici Gaming team (2-0). So far, the team and the cards are not inferior to their opponents, so they are the main favourites for this August tournament.
The Elephant team is less than a year old and, in that time, has managed to win two major Chinese tournaments: China Dota2 Pro Cup Season 2 and OGA Dota PIT S4: China. They finished in second place in their debut championship, the CDA-FDC Professional Championship, but so far in 2021, the Chinese star team has had a rough year.
Invictus Gaming: The team is awake and showing their mettle
The Invictus Gaming squad had serious problems with their game before this tournament.
They had a fragile playoff performance in the last i-League, where the boys lost both games 0-2 and left the tournament. Although the boys initially lost to RNG at the same tournament, they managed to surprise on the last day of the group stage and dealt with the formidable Aster (2-1). This victory triggered a replay where the IG squad did not feel their opponents, beating first Aster and then RNG in the BO1 matches.
The boys met Royal Never Give Up again in the playoffs and easily outplayed them 2-0.
Expert Betting Tips
I predict that Elephant will win this match, but they will still have to give up one map to a stronger opponent, and therefore I would suggest betting on Total Over 2.5 maps for 1.96.
On the first map, the Elephant team will have the first 10 kills. The odds on that are 1.72.
On the second map, Elephant’s handicap will be -5.5; odds are 2.85.
Other predictions
