PGL Arlington Major Preview: Tournament Favorites

By KawaiiSocks on Jul 29, 2022 09:25 UTC

Image by PGL

The Major starts in under a week and right now is the best time to have a look at the participants and gauge their strength. A lot of teams will have to play with a stand-in and that will definitely impact their performance. Because of that, some of them can no longer be considered tournament favorites and they will have to give up preview spotlight to other teams.

LGD Gaming

PSG.LGD couldn’t attend the last Major, but no one in the right mind doubts their skill. They are still a team to beat and one of the most consistent competitors in the history of Dota. They should also have their full roster at the tournament, which is a huge bonus.

Playstylewise nothing’s really changed for PSG.LGD. They still favor strong laning heroes with high tempo and teamfight potential. Their drafts will regularly include heroes like Warlock, Death Prophet and Monkey King. The latter is XG.Ame^^ signature hero and is an absolute treat to watch every single game.

Coming off the back of another LAN victory, PSG.LGD are in a great spot to solidify themselves as undisputed DPC Champions and once again raise fan hopes for the upcoming TI. Who knows, maybe this year is the year?

Shopify Rebellion

Home-field advantage is a thing. At the last Major we had TSM going for a cinderella run, proving once and for all that NA is a region to be reckoned with. This time around home crowd will be cheering for the undisputed region favorite and after the last roster change they seem to be back in top form.

If there is a weakness to the team, it is their predictability. They are extremely efficient with the heroes they pick, but in the majority of their games they rely on a 4+1 gameplan. It is the reason Arteezy mostly plays Terrorblade and Medusa.

A more aggressive team can easily exploit the early game of Evil Geniuses, but most of the time it simply won’t be enough: there is very little you can do once the most farm efficient position one player in the world comes knocking at your door with some late-game oriented hyper-carry.

Team Liquid

It might be weird to highlight the second team from the region, rather than the first, but it our firm belief that Team Liquid are a lot more motivated to prove themselves than Tundra. The latter are almost guaranteed to attend TI at this point and it might be in their best interest to fly under the radar, save the strats and prepare for the bigger tournament.

Team Liquid doesn’t have the same luxury and going through WEU qualifiers is not something any team in the world would want to do willingly. That means they will fight tooth and nail in every game, sparing no strat.

We believe that for a team of this caliber, with so much experience and talent, mental fortitude and motivation are the biggest limiting factors and Team Liquid are in a situation where they will have to break their limits. Only time will tell whether they are successful, but we have really high hopes for the squad.

OG

The Champions of the last Major and one of the most recognized teams in esports. OG is a team you should always keep in mind. It’s not the drafts, the strategy or even the individual execution. It is the sheer power of will that automatically qualifies OG as the tournament Favorites.

Not that the team lacks any of the regular aspects of a great squad. They are flexible and unconventional in their drafts, they can play many different strategies and they absolutely have high levels of coordination to pull off some flashy combos.

What also frequently throws enemies off, is that their “superstar” is not their mid or carry player, it is their offlaner. AMMAR_THE_F is an absolute monster, especially in a meta where damage dealing cores from offlane are common. Heroes like Razor and Timbersaw have exceptional scaling potential on top of having great tempo and the current patch really suits Ammar’s playstyle.