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The group stage of the first MDL Chengdu Major has come to an end today. This is the first major for the 2019-2020 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and is being held in Chengdu, China. While 15 teams made it from their respective regional qualifiers, Invictus Gaming qualified after winning the recently concluded Dota Summit Minor. The teams will look to not only claim the $300,000 winnings, but will also look to rack up their DPC points, considering the fact that some of the top teams like OG, Team Secret, PSG LGD and the ex-Liquid roster are taking a break.
Format
The 16 teams are divided into 4 groups, with the top 2 teams advancing to the upper brackets of the playoffs while the remaining 2 teams moved to the lower bracket. All the games were best of 3 with the groups being played in the GSL format.
Group A
TNC Predator continued their recent dominance as they won both their matches 2-0 to top their group. In contrast the South American team Unknown came last after not winning a single game. Fighting Pandas, the NA roster of Eternal Envy, came second after beating Ehome in the deciding match.
Group B
Group B, considered to be a relatively weak group, was topped by Vici Gaming quite easily. The newly-formed Alliance took the second spot after beating Fnatic 2-0 in the decider match with the CIS team Spirit coming last in the group.
Group C
In Group C, the newly-formed EG and the new Team Liquid roster completed a 2-0 sweep in their respective games, the series between both these giants was by far the most exciting of the group stage as Liquid mounted an amazing comeback to win the series 2-1. With team Aster relegating Adroit to the last spot, the match between Aster and EG saw both the teams making many mistakes with the North American giants finally closing the series 2-1 after a series which saw the average match time being at least 45 minutes.
Group D
Invictus Gaming continued their recent good form as they dominated their group with 2 convincing wins while Gambit disappointed many fans as they came last in the group. J Storm took the second spot of the group as they beat the Peruvian team, Beastcost 2-1 in a long drawn out series.
The action will resume tomorrow with TNC taking on Alliance in the first match of the upper bracket of the playoffs in a best of 3, while Liquid will take on J Storm in the last best of 3. The remaining 4 matches of the lower bracket will be best of ones. All the matches can be caught live on the official Twitch channels of Beyond the Summit.
