OG the Biggest Surprise of EPICENTER: Moscow 2017

Not even a month ago, everything looked amazing for OG as they became the Kiev Major 2017 champions. In the light of that success many saw them as the first pick. At least when it comes to the favorites for winning the trophy at The International 7. OG only had a short period to enjoy the success from Kiev Major. They were scheduled to play several more tournaments before the International.

The first tournament they played after the Kiev Major was Manila Masters. There, OG displayed some of the worst play in the last six months or so. Before anyone realized what was happening, OG was eliminated from the competition.

At that moment, nobody could have predicted that OG would be in such a bad form just a little more than a month before The International 7. While teams such as Evil Geniuses, Virtus.pro, Team Secret, and Newbee have been improving their game in the most recent period, OG has gone the opposite direction.

The Latest Disappointment

When the group stage of the EPICENTER 2017 started, OG seemed to be one of the biggest favorites for winning the title. Besides that, after the draw for the group stage has been announced, it appeared that OG should not have any major issues in the group with Team Secret. This team is possibly their biggest challenger.

While Team Secret proved to be one of the biggest contenders for the top seed in group A, OG has been far from living up to the expectations. Today, three teams from group A have played their last series of the group stage. OG was one of those teams. In four series that they played in the group stage, OG managed to defeat only Na’Vi that were perhaps the weakest team in the tournament.

In other four games of the group stage, OG suffered terrible defeats starting with a 0-2 sweep by LGD.Forever Young. This was followed by 1-2 loss against Team Liquid and today another 0-2 sweep by Team Secret. Because of that, OG has been eliminated from the EPICENTER even before the Main Event of the tournament.

This has been OG’s last tournament before The International 7 for which they will undoubtedly receive the direct invite. However, if they do not change something in the team, even The International will be just another fail for them in a series of bad recent results.

Na’Vi Continues to Drop

The other team from Group A that has been eliminated from the competition is Na’Vi, and this team seems to be only the shadow of the past team that became one of the greatest Dota 2 teams in history. True, they did make a significant change in their roster recently. That might have affected the results that the team had during the last year.

Just like OG, Na’Vi will probably receive a direct invite for the International 7 . They are too big of an organization not to be invited. However, they will be playing another tournament before the International, the Dota Summit 7. This event takes place the next week in Los Angeles, California.

For them, that will be yet another opportunity to get back into the good form. Unfortunately, the voices of those saying that Na’Vi will never again be as they were are getting louder and louder.