Across multiple localities, the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 – Online event has been incredibly successful in grasping the Dota 2 community’s attention. While not all of them have concluded, North America have their winner in the form of Evil Geniuses from their pool of 4 teams.
Read on for a concise glance at the entire event.
As many of you are aware, the Dota 2 Major did have to switch up the format to online leading up to the event, though the essential components remained unchanged – 4 teams, $40,000 and a Group Stage followed by some Playoffs. Running from March 28th – April 2nd, ESL invited the following four teams for the short event:
- Evil Geniuses (with two stand-in players)
- Quincy Crew (former Chaos Esports Club)
- business associates
- CR4ZY
As the favourites, Evil Geniuses were looking to win the event from the start. However, they were quickly upset by Quincy Crew in the opening Group Stage. By finishing second with a 2-1 scoreline, they’d have to play against CR4ZY in the Qualification Round to make it to the Grand Final.
The series went the distance to Map 3, and Evil Geniuses took it, fighting their way through the Single-elimination gauntlet to reach the Grand finale.
In the Grand Final, the best-of-five would determine who would determine who’d take home the majority of the $40,000 prize and be crowned the ESL One LA 2020 – Online event champion.
Returning for a rematch after Quincy beat them in the Group Stage, many had written off EG from overcoming their opponent. However, Evil Geniuses proved why they’re one of the best Dota 2 teams in the world even though “Ryoya’ and “BuLba” stood in for “Abed” and “RAMZES666”.
Although Evil Geniuses may have won the first two maps, that didn’t stop Quincy Crew from pulling it together and stealing the third map in a shocking 20 minutes. Determined to come back in the series, a 54-minute map 5 would see EG claim an eventual victory after accumulating resources for a disastrous last 20 minutes for Quincy Crew.
The North American and Southeast Asian variants of the ESL One Los Angeles Online are all complete – leaving a few more regions to finish before the main event to take place shortly.
