Winstrike, Complexity and EHOME to SLi Minor

Three qualifying tournaments for the last Dota 2 major of this season has ended yesterday. We learned the names of four participants representing the CIS, China and North America.

CIS

The CIS qualifications winners are Winstrike Team. In the final match, they beat Natus Vincere with a score of 2:1. Given the fact that "born to win" were considered the main favourites, this outcome may seem unexpected. Moreover, Winstrike showed a decent play during the qualifiers for EPICENTER Major, so you can’t call it a total surprise.

The true big surprise of qualification is Black Hornets Gaming, well, their withdrawing from the tournament. "The Hornets" lost to Team Colizeum Ru, the winner of the first open qualification. The rest of the results roughly coincided with the pre-tournament layouts.

North America

Kips is doing the thing. Complexity won a ticket to Kyiv in a fairly convincing manner against teams not lower in level. Before the start of the qualifiers, J.Storm and Complexity had approximately equal chances for success, and EternaLEnVy and his beastcoast could also intervene.

However, Muriel Huisman’s players lost only one of the seven maps and showed themselves ready for the final stage of the Dota Pro Circuit. J.Storm and beastcoast will have to prepare for the qualification for The International as the regular season has come to an end for them. Still, we'll meet again at Tug of War: Dire very soon. 

China

The last place at the EPICENTER Major qualification was a sobering cold shower for EHOME. The team which occupies the twelfth place in the world ranking needed to spill blood to gain a foothold for the invitation. xiao8's squad (who still had to go through an open qualification) came in fully armed. Not a single lost map — EHOME remains in the game!

Team Sirius became the second tournament participant from the Celestial Empire to visit Kyiv. While the main staff of Team Aster had big problems, Sirius made small changes, Sylar returned to his first position, and the team not so flawlessly but passed the qualification.

Note that Keen Gaming, Team Aster and Newbee were left behind in the fifth stage. If the last two can already tune in to the qualifiers for the main tournament of the year, Keen Gaming will have a nervous wait: so far the team is in ninth place at Dota Pro Circuit but the ticket to Shanghai is not yet guaranteed.

The remaining three regions (South America, Southeast Asia and Europe) will hold their qualifications on May 23 and 24. On Saturday night we will find out the full list of participants in the tournament in Kyiv. SLi Minor will be held in the capital of Ukraine from 12 to 16 June, $300,000 is at stake, as long as two spots for the EPICENTER Major.

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