3 best Dota 2 teams in China struggle on third day of ESL One Los Angeles Online

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The third day of the ESL One Los Angeles Online Dota 2 tournament saw some surprising upsets in the Chinese region. Vici Gaming, Invictus Gaming, and PSG.LGD lost their respective series today. All three teams now occupy the bottom three rungs in the group and are in danger of being eliminated from the online league.

VG and IG are the two highest-ranking Chinese teams in this year’s Dota Pro Circuit, placing second and fifth. PSG.LGD, in a disappointing showing this season, haven’t managed to qualify for a DPC event yet, flunking out of the open qualifiers twice, which caused them to scramble for a new carry three times in two months. The International 2019 bronze medalists have seen some improvement, however, recently winning the China Dota 2 Professional League over fellow giants VG.

Here are the full results for the third day of ESL One L.A. Online: China.

• Newbee vs. VG: Newbee 2-0
• EHOME vs. Royal Never Give Up: RNG 2-1
• EHOME vs. IG: EHOME 2-0
• PSG.LGD vs. RNG: RNG 2-1

The first series of the day saw VG matching up against Newbee. Newbee underwent extensive roster changes in the offseason, regaining veteran captain Faith but losing superstar Sccc to Team Aster, and filled out with young talent from academy teams. Newbee have since failed to qualify for every DPC event and haven’t made changes to their team just yet.

While VG have had all the success this season, Newbee looked like the experienced squad. VG experimented in the first game with an Underlord in the mid lane but were crushed by a swift pushing lineup with overwhelming physical damage from Newbee that included Lycan, Templar Assassin, and Beastmaster. 

VG didn’t play much better in the second game. Newbee’s young mid, Yin “Aq” Rui, put on a performance of a lifetime on Morphling. He styled on VG’s entire team throughout, converting his godlike, deathless performance into an easy 2-0 win for Newbee.

IG have been a revelation in this season’s Majors, placing third at the MDL Chengdu Major and top-six at the DreamLeague Leipzig Major. They’ve played an electrifyingly entertaining brand of Dota spearheaded by young star Zhou “Emo” Yi. 

Unfortunately for IG’s fans, though, it wasn’t on display in their series against EHOME. IG fell victim in the first game to a powerful pushing lineup despite them holding the kill lead, this time heralded by EHOME’s Death Prophet and Wraith King. The second game was an even more uninspired showing. IG fell in 15 minutes courtesy of another pushing lineup led by Lycan and Death Prophet.

RNG were the big winner today, taking down EHOME and PSG.LGD. The organization’s best result this season has been a close grand finals loss to Nigma at the WePlay! Bukovel Minor after capping off the previous season with a respectable top-half finish at The International 2019. The team has been on a tear in the league, however, and they haven’t lost a single series yet.

In their series vs. EHOME, Monet’s Phantom Lancer was the crucial element in aiding RNG to victory. They ran into problems in the second game against EHOME’s preferred pacey lineup with Lycan, but they drafted good teamfight and pickoff potentials in the first and third games that allowed Monet to reap the benefits and easily take over the game.

Against PSG.LGD, RNG had the best gift in game one: a feeding Somnus. PSG.LGD’s mid laner was unusually dull on Razor, dying five times in less than 15 minutes of total game time. Somnus’ last death was the final straw and PSG.LGD tapped out shortly after.

The second game saw Somnus coming back with a vengeance. With a silky-smooth Templar Assassin performance, aided by new offlane addition Ren “eLeVeN” Yangwei’s global presence on Nature’s Prophet, PSG.LGD made short work of RNG’s base.

Unfortunately for PSG.LGD, he was unable to carry his prowess into the third game. Opposing mid laner Gao “Setsu” Zhenxiong” converted his first blood onto Somnus’ Templar into a blazing hot start on Shadow Fiend. Aided by Monet’s Dragon Knight, RNG methodically took down tower after tower, securing mega creeps in 25 minutes and PSG.LGD’s signed conceded moments later.

Here are the current standings for the ESL One L.A. Online China group stage: