Team Spirit and Gambit Esports will be representing the CIS region at the WePlay! Bukovel Minor.
The two teams successfully cleared the qualifiers and will join the likes of Ninjas in Pyjamas and Nigma at the event. The winning team will earn a spot in the second major of the 2019-2020 Dota Pro Circuit season, DreamLeague Season 13.
Gambit Esports earns a spot in the WePlay! Bukovel Minor after a surprisingly underwhelming performance in the DreamLeague Season 13 major qualifiers. The team kicked things off well in the group stage by topping its group with a 7-1 record. The team fizzled badly in the playoffs, eating a rough 2-0 loss to Virtus.pro before losing a 2-1 to Natus Vincere.
The team righted the ship in the minor qualifiers. Playing against HellRaisers and then Team Spirit, the team posted a pair of sweeps to take the first CIS spot in the WePlay! Bukovel Minor.
This is important for Gambit Esports as it looks to maintain it’s hopes of qualifying to The International in 2020. The team started the season with a second-place performance at ESL One Hamburg, but followed that up with a last-place finish at the MDL Chengdu Major.
Gambit has the right pieces to be a top Dota 2 team. They’ll be looking to show it at the WePlay! Bukovel Minor by earning a spot in the DreamLeague Season 13 major.
Team Spirit joins Gambit Esports in Bukovel Minor
Team Spirit started its run in the WePlay! Bukovel Minor qualifiers with a 2-1 victory over Gentlemen, a sponsorless team that includes several notable veterans including Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorokhod and Evgeniy “Chuvash” Makarov.
The team was then forced into the lower bracket after losing to Gambit. There it met HellRaisers in a best-of-five elimination series.
HellRaisers had its moments in the series, taking games one and three in methodical fashion, but Team Spirit answered emphatically with dominant stomps. The series went all five games, but in the end, Spirit’s aggression was too much for HellRaisers.
The WePlay! Bukovel Minor stands to be a crucial test for both teams. Both looked formidable in the early stages of the season and seemed capable of taking over the top spot in the CIS region. A wrench got thrown into that during the DreamLeague Season 13 qualifiers as Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro appear back in vintage form.
Spirit and Gambit risk sliding back into the pack with a poor performance in the WePlay! Bukovel Minor, and will need to be in top form in order to maintain their momentum.
