Western Europe’s qualifications for The International 2022 may have been significantly impacted by lag, but it didn’t stop Entity from completely trashing anything and everyone who stood in their way of reaching Dota 2’s grandest stage.
Bodied, alliance Destroyed is Team Liquid. Group Secret? In a 5-0 matchup with just one game lasting longer than 40 minutes, you were double eliminated. Entity dominated these preliminaries to the point where the up-and-comers punched their tickets to TI11 and went undefeated.
The Lag Issues
Unfortunately, technical difficulties, server troubles, and lengthy pauses in between matches marred the entire WEU qualification experience, potentially affecting the results of some series. This includes a day’s postponement for the third game between Into the Breach and Secret, which ultimately wasn’t very helpful.
Most of the gameplay during Secret’s series with Liquid was arguably the worst; players were clearly experiencing lag and FPS issues, and zai and Resolut1on even made the joke that neither team should use ultimates because the servers had repeatedly demonstrated that they couldn’t handle them.
As goonsquad, Liquid, and other teams pointed out, they had also had issues during the qualifier round, it is clear that this was not the only instance of slowness or server issues throughout the competition.
These problems were freely discussed with Valve and PGL administrators in the hopes of solving them or coming up with a remedy, but nothing of the sort ever materialized.
In fact, Noah “Th3ReaLJP” Eigenheer, the manager of Entity, confirmed Valve informed Secret and Entity that the finals would be held on WEU Luxembourg servers in an effort to avoid the difficulties Liquid and Secret encountered switching between other EU and RU servers. To some extent, this strategy worked, and Entity’s performance was superior to that of the previous round.
The Lag Aftermath
Unfortunately for Secret, Entity appeared to have them covered from the get-go and quickly raced to a 2-0 advantage over a team captained by Puppy that appeared worn out after nearly 12 hours of play. The only moderately competitive game in the championships was the third one, but Secret never had a lead after nine minutes.
If the Entity’s current level of play is any indication, they would have won the qualifiers regardless of server problems. However, this is again another subpar performance from Valve and PGL in terms of hosting important matches online.
Despite the difficulties, Liquid and Secret will both be traveling to Singapore to compete in the TI11 Last Chance Qualifier, giving them both a chance to qualify for TI11. The 12 second and third place teams from each region’s individual qualifier will compete for the final two spots in the main event from October 8 to 12.
Puppey can maintain his TI attendance record if Secret can once more do some of its LAN magic. Since winning the first The International with NAVI back in 2011, he is remains the only player to have competed in every edition since. He probably hopes to keep that streak going in an effort to surpass his previous roster’s third-place showing at TI10.
