The Chinese qualifiers for the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 came to an end today.
The StarLadder ImbaTV China qualifiers
The four teams who made it to the China closed qualifiers for the Kiev Minor were Team Aster, Newbee, Keen Gaming and Avengerls. Newbee had a successful run to the grand finals, kicking Avengerls and Aster to the lower bracket. Aster managed to make it back by taking out Keen Gaming and met Newbee for a rematch in the final Bo5 series.Aster showed no mercy while exacting their revenge, defeating Newbee with a confident 3:0. The first two matches were as close as it gets in both team kills, gold and experience while the third one proved to be a complete stomp ending in 29 minutes with a final score of 23:8. Team Aster were the clear favorites to win the closed qualifiers for Kiev as only a few days earlier they were a step away from directly securing a spot for the ESL One Major.The StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3’s group stage is set to kick off on March 5, while the grand finals are scheduled for March 8. The event puts $300,000 in prize money, 660 DPC points and a ticket to the ESL One Major on the line.
A match-fixing scandal?
The Chinese community is a bit conflicted at the moment as a result of the first series played during the China qualifiers for Kiev. The games in question included Newbee and Avengerls. Reportedly several of the players of Avengerls have previously been involved in account boosting and other shady activities.
Several pro players like Zhang "xiao8" Ning and Chen "Zhou" Yao have already expressed their opinion that there’s definitely something wrong. Avengerls took the lead in the series by winning game one and things started getting really suspicious during the second match. Despite having a formidable gold lead of over 10k gold and double the kills of their enemies, Avengerls lost the game. We saw some baffling plays and a lack of coordination that’s atypical even for regular pubs.
Avengerls lost the series and a lot of questions were raised. For those unfamiliar, match-fixing is a malicious and forbidden practice of one team betting against themselves and losing the game on purpose in order to make a profit from the bet.
Whether Valve, ImbaTV or StarLadder will investigate the issue remains to be seen as none of them have made an official statement yet. In case the players are found guilty, they’ll most likely receive a lifetime ban from all Dota 2 Valve events.
