OpTic Gaming Champion SLI Invitational Season 5

The Minor scale MOBA DotA 2 games tournament in the Pro Circuit series titled SLI Invitational Season 5 which was held from 12 April 2018 to 15 April 2018 has been completed. The winner of the SLI Invitational Season 5 has been obtained. His title was obtained by OpTic Gaming.

Match Recap

The StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational or commonly abbreviated as SLI Invitational has entered Season 5 in 2018. Participants for this year will remain 8 teams with 2 direct invite teams and 6 qualifying winning teams. The direct invite team for this international tournament were Natus Vincere and VGJ.Thunder who replaced Newbee.

While the qualifying teams were the Kinguin Team representing Europe, FlyToMoon representing the CIS region, OpTic Gaming as the North American representative, SG Esports as the South American representative, Vega Squadron which replaced LGD Gaming as the China representative, and Fnatic as the Southeast Asia representative.

The tournament format begins with groups that are divided into A and B. Then, continues with the playoff format. In the group stage, OpTic Gaming topped Group A with runner up VGJ.Thunder and Vega Squadron topped Group B with runner up Fnatic. The group winners and runners-up qualify for the playoffs and immediately compete in the semifinals.

The first semifinal match was between Vega Squadron against VGJ.Thunder. The match between teams from China was won by VGJ.Thunder with a score of 2-0 in the best of 3 match system. The second match saw OpTic Gaming against Fnatic. In that BO3, OpTic Gaming managed to finish off Fnatic’s resistance with a score of 2-1. OpTic Gaming faced VGJ.Thunder in the grand finale of the SLI Invitational Season 5.

Winner of SLI Invitational Season 5

OpTic Gaming became the winning team in Dota 2. They lifted the trophy in Kiev, Ukraine, as champions of the StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5. Excellent performance in the group stage and fantastic play in the playoffs, North America squad led by Peter “ppd” Dager win over Vici Gaming J Thunder in the grand final. Peter Dager and friends won three straight games after losing the first game.

The MVP of the tournament was undoubtedly Neta “33” Shapira, who was willing to play as an offlaner against all of OpTic’s foes. The Sand King he plays is an interesting sight to behold. He regularly evades skills with Burrowstrike and is a huge nuisance to VGJ with his rather unusual hero builds.

The team’s decision to move 33 to the offlane position and place Ludwig “zai” Wahlberg in the utility support slot reaped huge rewards in the form of 450 Pro Circuit points and a $135,000 cash prize.

OpTic Gaming’s gameplay has been steadily improving during the DOTA 2 Pro Circuit season, even when they didn’t win the title. The results of this tournament put them in 14th position on the DOTA 2 Pro Circuit standings. There’s still a lot of work to be done, given the difference between their points and the cutoff point for direct invites to The International 8. Their win at StarLadder is a big step in the right direction for direct invites.

Unfortunately, OpTic will not be present at three of the five upcoming eSports events in the Pro Circuit calendar, as they are not awarded live slots or they qualify through the respective regional qualifiers of each tournament. However, given their first place in StarLadder, maybe we can see them invited to the China Supermajor which will be the last event of the season. For now, they will turn their attention to the North American qualifiers for the ESL One Birmingham tournament, which kicks off Thursday, 19 April 2018.

That’s the latest eSports news from DotA 2 about OpTic Gaming who won the SLI Invitational Season 5. Don’t forget to wait for other interesting news about DotA 2, such as GESC Thailand which will take place soon.

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