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Virtus Pro’s Alexey “Solo” Berezin has had a really hard time pushing his team to the same heights they achieved last season with this new roster, and those struggles continued today. The team finished the DreamLeague Season 13 Major’s group stage without a win.
The CIS mainstays were one of only two teams to go winless into the main event, joining Chaos Esports Club as the first two teams to be placed in the lower bracket moving forward.
After being punished for poor play early by Alliance’s crisp playmaking, VP were forced into a match that would decide their main event placement against Reality Rift. The Southeast Asian squad came out of nowhere to claim the top seed from their region but ended up losing a close split against Invictus Gaming in the opening match.
Veteran SEA captain Wong “NutZ” Jeng Yih was ready to lead his newer stack into the upper bracket, which wasn’t easy considering who they were playing.
Solo and his squad put up a strong fight in game one, with quality performances from Egor “epileptick1d” Grigorenko’s Drow Ranger and Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko’s Puck. On paper, the advantage was clearly to VP, but Reality made a late push that turned the marathon of a match around.
Vincent “AlaCrity” Teck Yoong came alive late on a Meepo that was farmed up and ready to go, which is always a dangerous thing to see coming at your lanes. That hero, combined with some top tier plays from Ravdan “Hustla” Narmandakh’s Rubick, put things away late for Reality as VP dropped another lead.
Game two was much less favorable for the CIS veterans, as a strange draft with no clear front-running hero was put down quickly by AlaCrity’s Templar Assassin combining with Andrew “Drew” Halim’s Leshrac and Hustla playing another game of Rubick.
VP tried to get something going on No[o]ne’s Death Prophet, but there was not enough firepower to take down the surprisingly tanky build of Reality’s team. They were able to make dents into their opponent’s lead but never really kept things more than even.
Reality went on to close out the game with a dominant final run, sending VP to the lower bracket and securing one last chance to make the main event through winners for themselves.
