This story was originally published by Dead Spin
After their first maps on Friday, Team Liquid and 1win appeared headed to the lower bracket to face elimination games. Instead, they are both one victory away from the grand final at the Elite League Season 2 playoffs in Lima, Peru.
On the first day of the playoffs, the top four seeds from pool play paired off in the semifinals of the upper bracket. That pitted No. 1 overall seed OG against fourth-seeded Liquid and No. 2 seed 1win against No. 3 nouns.
In the first match, OG took the first map, winning on green in 53 minutes. But Liquid responded with back-to-back wins to take the best-of-three match — winning on red in 31 and 44 minutes. In the following contest, nouns opened with a 38-minute win on red before 1win responded with two victories, in 29 minutes on red and in 51 minutes on green.
The Dota Elite League Season 2 began with a 16 teams in Swiss-style group play. The top eight teams from the group advanced to the playoffs — the top four moving into the upper-bracket semis and the next four relegated to the lower bracket. The winner, decided in Sunday’s grand final, will win $240,000 out of the $800,000 prize pool. The runner-up will get $120,000.
All playoffs matches are best-of-three save the grand final, which is best-of-five.
In Friday’s lower-bracket matches, BOOM Esports eliminated beastcoast 2-0 (winning in 33 minutes on red and 39 minutes on green), and Execration pulled off a reverse sweep to eliminate Shopify Rebellion, losing in 35 minutes before winning in 36 and 41. Execration was on red for all three maps.
BOOM will next play nouns while Execration faces OG in the lower-bracket quarterfinals on Saturday. Later in the day, Liquid and 1win will play in the upper-bracket final.
DOTA Elite League Season 2 schedule
Saturday’s matches
Lower-bracket quarterfinals
–nouns vs. BOOM Esports
–OG vs. Execration
Upper-bracket final
–Team Liquid vs. 1win
Lower-bracket semifinal
–nouns/BOOM Esports winner vs. OG/Execration winner
DOTA Elite League Season 2 standings/prize pool
1. $240,000
2. $120,000
3. $72,000
4. $56,000
5-6. $52,000
7-8. $32,000 — beastcoast, Shopify Rebellion
9-11. $24,000 — HEROIC, Yellow Submarine, Cuyes Esports
12-14. $16,000 — Evil Rabbit, MOUZ, Apex Genesis
15-16. $12,000 — FUSION, Infinity
–Field Level Media
