Evil Geniuses decimated Shopify Rebellion in the first round of the Lower Bracket at the Dota 2 Berlin Major on May 2, beating them in less than 30 minutes two times in a row to claim the series and knock them out of the $500,000 tournament.
The first match lasted 29 minutes. EG snowballed out of control off the back of an incredible performance from Chris Luck on Shadow Fiend. He was responsible for 11 of his team’s 28 kills. Shopify Rebellion, on the other hand, only managed to score three in total. To make matters worse, they called it quits after walking through a Twin Gate into impending doom.
The second was even more dire for Shopify Rebellion. They fared better in kills thanks to Abed winning lane, but this time it was Pakazs on Alchemist who ran amok for EG. The Peruvian star carried them to victory and it was all over in the 27th minute.
Shopify Rebellion was the last-remaining North American organization in the tournament after TSM bottomed out in Group A during groups, failing to even make it to the playoffs. Shopify Rebellion fared better, placing fourth in Group B, but lost to 9 Pandas in the Upper Bracket Quarterfinals before crumbling against EG today.
It was another nail in the coffin for the struggling region, who only have two teams in contention to qualify for The International this year—Shopify Rebellion and TSM. Only four others have even scored points in the Dota Pro Circuit, including Nouns, felt, Wildcard Gaming, and B8.
To make matters worse for Shopify Rebellion’s players, it was against the org they’d been a part of for years. In Nov. 2022, EG scrapped them in favor of signing Thunder Awaken’s all-star South American roster. Shopify Rebellion picked them up shortly after as their debut team, so it all worked out. But that doesn’t make losing to them any easier.
In a post-series interview, Shopify Rebellion’s stoic captain Fly said he felt his team had “the wrong idea” in how to tackle EG. The first game was a stomp, and although the second one was closer, they simply couldn’t find a way to stop them.
The Dota 2 skipper added he and his teammates were definitely disappointed with how things panned out, but hope to improve moving forward after Berlin wraps up.
