ESL One Birmingham is the biggest Dota 2 tournament of April, and twelve of the strongest teams around the world traveled to the UK to compete for the one million dollars of prize pool.

Currently, the group stage has concluded, and four teams are eliminated. Among them the two-time The International champions, Team Spirit. The Dragons had five draws in the group stage. However, in the tie-breakers, they lost all three matches. Gaimin Gladiators, Shopify Rebellion and Talon Esports join Team Spirit on the elimination bench. Eight other teams will continue their path in the playoffs:

ESL One Birmingham playoffsImage: liquipedia.com

This tournament showed flaws of the round robin format with Best of 2 matches. While it may seem a great decision in terms of amount of maps and tournament justice, it does not allow to highlight the strongest teams and seed teams properly. Both groups had tiebreakers, and lots of teams were playing not to lose instead of playing for wins. At least, this was an impression of many viewers.

Tomorrow, the event will continue with the matches of the upper bracket.

Main image:x.com

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