The Pinnacle Cup is set to bring you explosive Dota 2 encounters between teams from Europe and the CIS region across May 2021. Read GosuGamers preview for the group-stage.
You might have seen how most of them fare in their own regions through the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) schedule, but now with the arrival of the Pinnacle Cup, some of the DPC Upper and Lower division contestants from both Europe and the CIS region will be pitted against each other for a chance to win a share of $100,000.
The Pinnacle Cup is making its entrance into the Dota 2 world on Wednesday, May 5, after successfully holding a 32-team event for CS:GO earlier this year.
For the Dota 2 competition, the event will host a total of 12 teams, all joining the battle via direct invites. 10 squads have been seeded in the group stage where they will fight for six slots in the playoffs. Two other teams, which haven’t been revealed yet, have received a free pass into the playoffs upper bracket stage.
Watch the Pinnacle Cup - Dota here.
Pinnacle Cup group stage attendees
The group stage will run from May 5 to May 25 in a best-of-three series round-robin format. With just six slots up for grabs in the playoffs stage, four teams will leave the Pinnacle Cup at the end of the group stage. So, who are the ones looking in good form and who might struggle to find their footing in the event?
The front-runnersThe two best teams at the end of the group stage will be awarded a spot in the playoffs upper bracket, along with the yet-to-be-revealed final two invitees. Looking at the recent results, not only in the DPC leagues but also at recently concluded third-party tournaments, two competitors stand apart from the rest.
Vikin.gg and Team Spirit compete in different DPC regions but have actually played against each other on numerous occasions. Both have played a couple of grand finals already this year and both have claimed a few titles. Vikin.gg took the spoils at the Positive Fire Games at the end of April. Prior to this, at the end of March, they took down Team Spirit in the EPIC League Season 3 grand finals. However, just two weeks ago, they also lost to Team Spirit in the grand finals of the Dota 2 Champions League 2021 (D2CL).
More so, in the current DPC season, while Vikin.gg are dominating Europe’s Lower division - staying undefeated after four weeks of matches -Team Spirit are the uncontested leaders of the CIS Upper division, with four consecutive victories and no losses.
Given their recent competitive history, Dota 2 fans should expect these two to absolutely crush the opposition at the Pinnacle Cup and sail through the group stage.
Middle of the pack
The teams placed third to sixth at the end of the group stage will head to the playoffs lower bracket and although there are a couple of teams entering the competition that have the potential to deliver the unexpected and dethrone Vikin.gg and Team Spirit, their inconsistency is what places them a tad behind.
Brame and Hellbear Smashers both have what it takes to snatch one of those two upper bracket spots. They are both currently competing in the DPC Europe Upper division after they were promoted from the Season 1 Lower division. However, over the past couple of months, it’s only Brame who have ventured outside the DPC schedule and played in other third-party events. They mostly finished in the top six, the best result being a top-three finish at D2CL last month.
Hellbear Smashers, on the other hand, secured the Snow Sweet Snow Season 2 title at the beginning of March by defeating Vikin.gg. Since then, they were set to compete in the EPIC League Season 3, but after losing their debut series to Brame, they decided to withdraw from that tournament and fully focus on the DPC matches.
The Pinnacle Cup will mark their first foray outside DPC since then and if they take this event seriously, the team’s veteran player Rasmus "MISERY" Filipsen and his young teammates can yield a very good result. Not only at the Pinnacle Cup, but it can also be the perfect training ground for the Dota Pro Circuit where they are currently standing on a 0-4 series record.
Although HellRaisers are in the Dota Pro Circuit Lower division, they are one of the few teams with tier-one calibre players on the roster. Roman "Resolut1on" Fomynok, Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk, and Bakyt "Zayac" Emilzhanov bring an enormous amount of experience to the team and just as they currently dominate their division in the DPC, they might very well take this opportunity to redeem themselves after the poor results at EPIC League Season 3, D2CL, and Snow Sweet Snow #2.
From all the teams competing at the Pinnacle Cup, Chicken Fighters are probably the most motivated to prove everyone wrong. The roster, led by Adrian "Era" Kryeziu, has been through numerous challenges in recent years. They started the first season of DPC leagues under the Ninjas in Pyjamas banner but got dropped by the organization after they were relegated to Lower division.
They found a new sponsor for the second season, but just a couple of months after signing with High Coast Esports, financial issues stopped the collaboration. Now they are playing again without financial support and are most definitely eager to deliver an upset or two.
