Cover-Credits:
Talon Esports, BOOM Esports
The Southeast Asian (SEA) teams have failed to meet expectations in the group stage of The International 11 (TI11). The SEA region is hosting Dota 2's biggest tournament for the first time ever, but it looks like there is no home-ground advantage for the region's teams competing at the event. The three teams representing SEA: BOOM Esports, Talon Esports, and Fnatic have underperformed with the first two floundering and coming dangerously close to elimination.
Talon and Fnatic both won a series out of the two they participated in on the third day, while BOOM, which was generally thought to be the strongest SEA team heading into the event, suffered three 2-0 losses and looks likely to become the first team to be eliminated from TI11.
With multiple South American teams like Hokori and Thunder Predator performing admirably and North American stalwart Evil Geniuses standing out as the best team in the group stages, SEA has become the region with the weakest results so far in TI11.
Southeast Asia might see two teams getting eliminated in TI11 group stage
Talon's performance during the first two days was rather mediocre, and their performance on day three was no better as they lost 2-0 to beastcoast. Then, it was time to move on to a regional battle against Fnatic.
Talon did rather well against Fnatic and ended up picking its first 2-0 win of the group stage. However, the silver lining for SEA has been Fnatic, which continues to hold onto the middle of the pack after day three.
The other series Fnatic played on the day was against Team Aster, where the SEA team held its own in two close games to pick up a 2-0 victory.
BOOM fans were waiting patiently for a turnaround after a dismal first two days in the group stage. But this group of mostly first-timers, which has been competitive in multiple international LANs this year, failed to perform when it mattered the most.
On the third day, BOOM played three series, losing all three by 2-0 margins, and getting dominated in most of these defeats, their worst performance in recent history.
It appears likely that BOOM will be eliminated from the event in the group stage as the final day approaches. The team needs to beat Evil Geniuses (the strongest team in the group stage) in its final series and rely on BetBoom Team and Soniqs to have horrible performances, just to force tiebreakers.
Talon too needs to up the ante in its final two series against Entity and Team Secret in order to force a tiebreaker, or else will also have to return home.
With BOOM and Talon's underperformance, Fnatic is still a competitive opponent in the group stage and might be able to secure an upper bracket playoff spot. As far as TIs are concerned, the team has always been run-of-the-mill but SEA Dota 2 fans will eagerly await Fnatic making the extra push and making it far into the playoffs this time.
