Lima Major Group B Day 3 Recap

More Dota 2 news from the land of llamas as the Lima Major moves into day 3.

The action continued in Peru with a third day’s play, and the group table has begun to take shape. For the most part, the teams that did well in the days before continued to excel, while the teams that had floundered still looked just as listless. That being said, there were some unexpected results, and some of them shook up the formerly established order. If you had been too busy to keep an eye on every result, here’s a condensed version detailing all the major developments from the third day of Group B at the Lima Major. 

Knights vs beastcoast 

Being without a win at a Major isn’t the kind of place any Dota team wants to be at — especially when they’re surrounded by controversy. Knights have been underwhelming to say the least, and while beastcoast haven’t exactly looked like world beaters, they’ve been exponentially better than the former.

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Going into the first game between them, there was really nothing to be said about Knights’ performance as they were outplayed in every department. The South Americans gave no quarter and dominated the game from start to its short 23-minute finish.

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Unlike the first game, the second was a lot more even for a while. Even after beastcoast took a decent lead, Knights were able to grab the odd kill and keep up somewhat. However, that all changed in the mid-game as the Peruvians snowballed and ended the game after getting a complete teamwipe to secure the series.

Shopify Rebellion vs Geek Slate 

Rebellion have shown some unexpectedly brilliant performances at this Major and are at the top of the group after Day 3, but there’s still missing that extra something that would make them one of the contenders for the title. Geek Slate meanwhile have been punching above their weight, and a win against SR would help them stay in the Playoff spots.

Game 1 between these two was a tense affair, with GS keeping a decent lead going into the mid-game before a bad teamfight allowed SR to grab that lead. Just when it seemed as though they were going to run away with it, though, the South-East Asian squad fought back, wrested the lead from SR’s hands, and finished the game some 10 minutes later.

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Unlike Game 1, the second one was a complete blowout. SR barely lost a Hero as they dominated the kills, the map, and the game that harkened back to the squad’s earlier days. 35 minutes into the skirmish, it was all over and the series was leveled.

Team Aster vs Entity 

Two of the heavyweights of this group, Aster and Entity had both shown plenty of remarkable skills and teamwork over the first 3 days of this tournament. Going up against each other, a win would be priceless for either team in their pursuit of the higher seed Playoff spots. 

Despite quite a competitive start to what was a lengthy Game 1, Entity eventually went up to a commanding gold lead of 10k by 40 minutes. By the time the game reached the hour mark, that lead had ballooned to over 50k, and although they did lose a teamfight or two, they still managed to win the game shortly after.

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Once again, where the first game was a tight contest, the second was a one-sided stomp. This time, it was Aster’s turn to teach Entity some manners. The Chinese team completely outclassed the Europeans, smothering them into a 30k gold deficit before the 40 minute mark was reached, and a big teamwipe was enough to have Entity call GG to concede half the points.

HellRaisers vs BetBoom 

Going into this Eastern European derby, things looked pretty grim for both sides. HR hadn’t won a single series at the event yet, and had only won one game. Meanwhile, EEU Dota Pro Circuit champions BetBoom hadn’t been able to, well, boom. Even at the time of writing, they are yet to win a full series.

BetBoom maintained a pretty decent lead for the entirety of Game 1’s early game phase, but once HellRaisers struck back, they were utterly unforgiving and closed the game out in just 10 minutes of utter dominance. 

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Game 2 saw no such changes of fortune, because Hellraisers got their lead as early as the laning stage and simply never gave it up. Their gold and Experience leads swelled massively, and it wasn’t long before they took two lanes of Barracks and forced their regional dominators to surrender for the second time in the series.

Team Liquid vs Geek Slate 

While they’ve certainly been excellent, Liquid haven’t been as dominant at the Major as they had been in the Western European DPC Winter Tour. This is perfectly in line with every other regional overlord at the event so far, but still a bit disappointing for a WEU team. Geek Slate meanwhile had little to lose and very little in the way of fear, which gave them a great shot at taking out the bigger team.

It was a mark of just how balanced the two teams were that they maintained almost complete parity until well into the mid-game of their first battle. However, Liquid soon took a strong lead and it kept rising until, just when it looked as though it was over for the Geeks, the latter turned the game around, won a few decisive teamfights, and won the match off the back of those.

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Rather disappointingly for the SEA squad, Game 2 was, yet again, a unilateral pounding from the WEU superpower. Liquid weren’t behind for even a minute at any point in the game, and simply didn’t allow GS to find even a foot of ground to stand on as they pulverized their opponents and evened the score in the 33rd minute.

beastcoast vs Entity 

The South Americans have been their usual Robin Hood selves — taking points off of the best of teams but also losing points to relatively weaker sides. Entity meanwhile hadn’t won a series since their consecutive Day 1 victories, and were itching to get back to winning ways.

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Game 1 was a battle of small margins as both teams prevented the other from taking a sizable lead at any point. The Peruvians were in the lead for most of the match, but what was alarmingly high in the early game became relatively negligible as the match wore on. Eventually, however, Entity took over suddenly and completely, and proceeded to close the game out following two successful teamfight.

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As has been a pattern on Day 3, where the first match was competitive, the second was a slap in the face of the victors of the first. The South Americans seemed to be on a whole other level as they beat Entity to a pulp, and the kill score of 20 to 3 makes it evident as to why they won within 30 minutes to achieve another drawn result.

Shopify Rebellion vs Knights 

Following Rebellion’s good form and Knights’ disastrous losing streak, everyone would have heavily favored SR for this match. However, the Americans are well-known for dropping games they shouldn’t lose for any reason, and on the other hand Knights had nothing to lose.

In a surprise turn of events, Knights didn’t just beat SR in Game 1, they dominated the ex-Evil Geniuses squad. The laning phase was the last time SR saw anything of a gold or experience parity, and once that was over, Knights were uncharacteristically methodical in their dispatching of their opponents to win their first game at the event.

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The euphoria of the win was short-lived, however, as the Chinese side were completely outplayed in the second match. It was SR’s turn to own, and that’s precisely what they did throughout the duration of the game, which was over in 25 minutes for an equally beneficial series.

Team Aster vs HellRaisers

HellRaisers found new hope when they beat BetBoom, and they were ready to channel that morale boost to the fullest against their next opponents. Meanwhile, Aster were presumably still reeling from getting bashed by Entity in their second game.

Being the favorites, it was to nobody’s surprise that Aster took and kept a significant gold lead for almost the entire game, despite some setbacks here and there. What was much more surprising was HR coming back strong in the 40th minute and proceeding to not just win the next couple of teamfights, but win the game outright just 6 minutes later.

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While Game 1 was a close affair throughout, Game 2 was only close until the end of the early game. At this point, HR began climbing in terms of Net Worth, and they never slowed down. Slowly but surely they took away space for Aster’s cores to farm, and it wasn’t long until they were in their base and making them call GG to seal their second victory of the day.

Join us again tomorrow for yet another recap of the previous day’s matches, and make sure to take a look at our other Dota 2 content.