The first Dota 2 Pro Circuit event in China is in full swing. The Perfect World Masters began its first playoff matches yesterday, with the hometown favorites Vici Gaming coming out of the gate at light speed.
The Chinese squad, led by the legendary Zhang “LaNm” Zhicheng, breezed through all would-be challengers in their two matches yesterday. In their first-round series, they wasted little time casting Mineski aside in two games, despite them being widely considered as one of the best teams in the world right now.
VG’s mid laner Zeng “Ori” Jiaoyang put on a spectacular performance in both games, going 16-2 on Storm Spirit in Game 1 and a flawless 7-0 on Puck in Game 2. Not to be outdone, hotshot carry player Zhang “Paparazi” Chengjun went on rampages of his own, scoring 13-1 on Gyrocopter and 13-0 on Morphling, respectively.
They did the same to Team Secret, who had just defeated CompLexity Gaming 2-1 in their respective best-of-three series. Put simply, it was a total beatdown. The total time of the series across both VG victories added up to less than an hour, with the Chinese holding Secret to just 18 kills in total.
VG now sit comfortably in the upper bracket finals, with plenty of time to rest and study their most likely opponents. For a team that failed to even qualify for The International 7, this is certainly a huge improvement in terms of results.
Of course, only time will tell if they can keep their momentum intact, but this new roster seems to have figured out what they need to do already.
As for tomorrow’s games, TI7 third placers LGD.Forever Young will square off against Newbee—the team that send them out of TI7 in that spot. This matchup in particular should prove to be highly exciting and competitive, seeing how both LFY and Newbee are the cream of the crop in China.
On the other side, it’ll be all-Polish squad Team Kinguin (who surprisingly made it out of Group B in first place) CIS-region team Vega Squadron. This is the first Pro Circuit event for both rosters this season, so we can expect them to fight tooth and nail for the next slot in the upper bracket semifinals.
Day 2 begins at 9pm ET, just under eight hours from now. Catch tomorrow’s games on PGL’s official Twitch channel.
