Pinnacle Cup Playoffs Predictions

Pinnacle Cup is one of the few Dota 2 tournaments that managed to somehow be organized during this strange and relatively eventless year. The two seasons of the Dota Pro Circuit offered very few matches and still somehow occupied everyone’s attention, simply because they are the only ones (apart from the Majors, of course) that offer qualification points for The International 10, which is a $40 million event.

Needless to say, the teams focused on winning the matches that mattered in order to secure a spot at a competition that virtually throws money at people. Personally, I think it’s absurd that the Dota 2 pro scene is so disproportionate that the world championship has a prize pool of $40 million while the next biggest tournament has a prize pool of $500,000 and there’s only a handful of them throughout the year. But that’s just my opinion.

Pinnacle Cup Group Stage Results

Pinnacle Cup ended its Group Stage with some rather strange results. For instance, Brame finished 8^th and was eliminated, even though they came close to beating numerous world-class teams in Western Europe’s Upper Division. Given that Pinnacle Cup is merely a tier-2 tournament, I would have expected them to flourish and beat everyone apart from Team Spirit. But that wasn’t the case.

Other competitors, like Spirit, played really well and finished ahead of everybody else. Here’s the complete list o results:

• 1^st place: Team Spirit: 7 W – 2 L
• 2^nd place: HellRaisers: 6 W – 3 L
• 3^rd place: Vikin.gg: 6 W – 3 L
• 4^th place: Chicken Fighters: 6 W – 3 L
• 5^th place: EXTREMUM: 4 W – 5 L
• 6^th place: Hellbear Smashers: 4 W – 5 L
• 7^th place: PuckChamp: 4 W – 5 L
• 8^th place: Brame: 3 W – 6 L
• 9^th place: Level UP: 3 W – 6 L
• 10^th place: Team Unique: 2 W – 7 L

Playoffs Predictions

Originally, only the top 6 teams should have advanced to the Playoffs Stage. But because Tundra Esports can no longer accept its direct invite to the Playoffs and participate in Pinnacle Cup, PuckChamp will take its place. The other directly invited team was Winstrike.

Overall, the favorite to win the title and $50,000 is Team Spirit. Other competitors, like HellRaisers and Vikin.gg, have fewer chances. These will be the initial matches:

Upper Bracket

The first match is Winstrike Team versus HellRaisers. And it’s going to end quickly if HR play their standard game. The individual talent on this team is unbelievable. Just a few years ago, many of these players were competing for the strongest teams in the world. Resolut1on, Lil, and Cooman were all famous for their roles and their heroes. Now they’re a shadow of their former selves but at this competitive level, they have very little opposition.

The second match will be tough for both teams. Team Spirit has a slight advantage, but Vikin.gg should not be underestimated. I expect to see a 2 – 1 result in favor of Spirit.

Lower Bracket

In the Lower Bracket, Chicken Fighters will absolutely smash PuckChamp, while Hellbear Smashers should easily defeat EXTREMUM. After that, Chicken FIghers are likely to encounter and defeat Winstrike, while Hellbear will have a difficult match against Spirit or Vikin.gg. I think they would prefer to face Spirit, because they already defeated them once in the Group Stage.

 

Photo credit: Valve