Dota 2 MLG Columbus Results: Speed Gaming Takes the Crown

Dota 2 MLG Columbus - Who would have thought that Speed Gaming would come out as the winners?

What a Cinderella story it was, and what an unbelievable series of amazing must-watch games, even for non Dota fans! The very first edition of a Dota 2 tournament run by Major League Gaming featuring some of the world’s best teams was played in Columbus Ohio from 22-24th of November.

The tournament had an initial prize pool of 50.000$, which got boosted up to 136.000$ because of the fans’ support for the tournament, thus making it become the western tournament with the biggest prize pool excluding The International! It featured a Round Robin format which had the following standings:

Qualified:
DK – 7 Wins and 1 Loss
Sigma – 6 Wins and 2 Losses
Speed Gaming – 5 Wins and 3 Losses
Na’Vi – 5 Wins and 3 Losses

Eliminated:
Alliance – 4 Wins and 4 Losses
Fnatic – 4 Wins and 4 Losses
Liquid – 3 Wins and 5 Losses
Evil Geniuses – 2 Wins and 6 Losses
Pretty Boy Swag – 8 Losses

Alliance, the team who was The International 3 Champions didn’t even managed to reach the playoffs. DK, the mainly Chinese squad who was the crowd favorite with their crazy aggressive gameplay, convincingly stomped through every single until they went against Speed.

Speed Gaming, a relatively new team but already fan favorite, had one of their players (Bone7) denied a visa so they went through with solo mid Canadian prodigy Arteezy. On day 1 all of them struggled, simply played bad and lost all of their 3 games, against Fnatic, Alliance and Sigma.

On day 2 however, Speed surprised everyone and won every single one of their games, including ending DK’s unbeatable streak, thus stamping their way into the playoffs. And on day 3… more on that soon.

Since DK finished first, they selected Na’Vi as their playoff opponent for the semi-finals and because of this, the other 2 teams Speed and Sigma faced each other. Speed managed to stomp their way into the Grand Finals with a 2-0 performance against Sigma.

The other semi-final on the other hand… what a truly epic series it was. On one of the games (which I won’t spoil because it’s an absolute must watch!), there were not one, not even 2… BUT 3 DIVINE RAPIERS! All kinds of new tricks never seen before on competitive Dota, even on pubs, such as Linken Sphere stacking and Bloodstone-suicide-to-heal the carry were used. DK got an amazing 2-1 victory against Na’Vi.

If the 2nd semi-final series were amazing, nothing would prepare people everywhere for the Grand Finals… The word epic was stamped throughout all of this best of 3 series.

It started right away on the first game with so many players on some of their trademark heroes, including SingSing on the Kunkka (sporting his Beaver Knight set) and Burning on the Lone Druid (which wasn’t used the whole tournament), where it went all the way over amazing proportions all the way to 80 minutes!

In Game 2, team DK didn’t ban SingSing’s Mirana which was a key hero on most of Speed’s wins throughout the Round Robin, and paid HARD for it. Also, EternalEnvy got to play his Clinkz with his very unusual way, catching DK multiple times off guard and leading Speed to outperform the powerhouse DK!

Game 3 was an absolute back and forth slug fest game, with both teams pounding each other with no mercy in an absolutely stunning final game, in which EternalEnvy again with his Clinkz managed to obtain a very clutch win over DK and got crowned Dota 2 MLG Columbus champions in front of a roaring crowd! They take home 68.000$, 2nd placed DK take 27.000$ and both Na’Vi and Sigma win 13.000$.

All of the game VODs will be available on the MLG website, be sure to check them out!

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Ali is a passionate RPG gamer. He believes that western RPGs still have a lot to learn from JRPGs. He is editor-in-chief at SegmentNext.com but that doesn't stop him from writing about his favorite video ...