Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner at the DPC SA 2023 Tour 1 TIebreaker.

The first tour of this year’s South American Dota Pro Circuit has come to a conclusion with the end of a third week of matches. With it, the winner of the tour has emerged, as have the teams who will be attending the upcoming Major

South America DPC Tour 1 Final Table 

With only two spots to the Majors, the SA table was always going to be hotly contested, but as it turned out, those two slots barely faced any competition. The tour was won by beastcoast, who took a clean sweep and only dropped two games in the entire league. Next up was EG with similar stats, but with one loss having been handed to them by their ex-teammates over at beastcoast. 

Third, fourth, fifth and sixth place requires their own paragraph, because of the drama that took place between them. All four teams were even with 3 wins and four losses which led to a four-way tiebreaker. Alliance.LATAM surprised many by winning this tiebreaker, with Keyd Stars coming in fourth place, Thunder Awaken in fifth and Infinity being unable to secure any DPC points after a sixth-place finish. 

In the relegation zone, Ravens managed to climb to 7th after claiming two wins to exit with some dignity, but Infamous’ result of 1 win and 6 losses was nothing short of shocking. This was doubly disappointing for them as they had taken games off of everyone except EG. 

Recap

There were a total of 10 series in the final week, with six more Bo1 tiebreaker matches taking the total number of games far higher. Here’s how they unfolded.

Jan 24 

To the surprise of many, Alliance.LATAM pulverized beastcoast in their first game against the Peruvian juggernauts. They completely dominated from start to finish, leaving beastcoast gasping for breath. By contrast, Games 2 and 3 were almost identical, with plenty of battles and a lot of give-and-take despite beastcoast maintaining a decent lead for most of the matches. They also both ended with the giants suddenly taking over complete control before ending the game within another 10 or so minutes for a 2-1 recovery of the series.

One may have assumed that EG vs Thunder Awaken would be a hard-fought matchup, but the former absolutely massacred their opponents. Over the course of two games, TA were only able to claim 22 kills to EG’s 81, and they both ended before the half-an-hour mark. The only real difference between the matches was that the second game was pretty balanced until the 15-minute mark whereas the first was a total mess for TA.

Infamous’ tough luck continued as they were wrecked in their first game versus Infinity, with the latter barely suffering any inconvenience as they marauded into the enemy base to claim the win. In Game 2, however, INF struck back strongly with a commanding victory within the 33-minute mark. Unlike the first two games, the deciding Game 3 was a brutal, hotly contested affair with no team being able to take a significant lead until well into the mid-game. Once again, Infinity never relinquished the lead once they had it, and ended the game in 40 minutes.

Jan 26 

Another day, another loss for Infamous, but this time far more comprehensively and at the hands of underdogs Ravens. Game 1 was pretty close till about 33 minutes in, when Infamous just seemed to lose the plot and soon also lost the game. Despite being closer in terms of kill count, Game 2 was a gradual, methodical win for Ravens as they won their first series. 

EG’s rampage continued as they bulldozed past Alliance.LATAM. Game 1 was a completely unilateral dunk by the big guys, but Alliance did put up a good fight in Game 2 — not enough to make EG lose, but certainly enough to make them sweat. Nevertheless, it was a regulation 2-0 win for EG. 

When beastcoast all but slapped Thunder Awaken in their first game, it seemed as though the second would be just as big a stomp. On the contrary, it ended up being an intense encounter of two seemingly even teams, with the lead going this way and that and nothing set in stone until literally the very last minute. It did ultimately go beastcoast’s way, but there was every chance that a Game 3 could have taken place. 

Jan 28 

Game 1 of Infinity vs Ravens was a bizarre match. Things were pretty even for the first 40-odd minutes, with Infinity maintaining a reasonable lead for the most part, but it ended in a flurry of kills for both teams as Ravens managed to edge out their opponents despite having lost a lane and a half worth of Barracks. The second game, however, was a much simpler mid-game Morphling and Beastmaster push strat by Ravens, and it ended in their favor within 29 minutes with the kill score at a tepid 19-9.

Infamous, the whipping boys of Division 1 this tour, finally got their one and only win against Keyd Stars and it happened in dominating fashion. The first game was on an even keel until about the halfway mark, when INF grabbed the game by the nape of the neck and brought it home. Game 2 was much more one-sided for INF, with the same gradual rise followed by taking map control and closing the game out that we are all familiar with.

Jan 29 

This was Thunder Awaken’s chance to secure third place on the table, but they messed it up and allowed Alliance.LATAM to equal them, which eventually led to the latter taking part in and winning the four-way tiebreaker. Alliance didn’t just beat TA, they simply outplayed them in both games. They had good drafts, took better fights, and just looked like the better team.

EG vs beastcoast was the game every single person following the SA DPC tour was waiting for, and although it didn’t go all three games, it delivered in spades. In Game 1, EG had a sizable advantage for almost the entire game, but just when it mattered the most, beastcoast’s Phantom Lancer simply got too big for EG to handle, and they lost despite still having a healthy kill lead. Game 2 was a bloodbath with 98 kills in an hour-long game, and it was beastcoast that emerged on top when the dust finally settled. 

Tiebreakers

When there are as many as six tiebreaker Bo1s, the action is often frantic and frenetic. The first match saw Keyd Stars dominate Infinity, maintaining a game-long lead to eke out an important win. Next up, Alliance.LATAM vs Thunder Awaken saw the former come back from the grave after being down by well over 10k gold at the start of the mid-game, making the bets of a brilliant Faceless Void pick. Thunder Awaken beat Infinity immediately after that in much the same way as the latter had lost to Keyd Stars.

Alliance once again proved their resilience with another comeback against Keyd Stars, who had dominated them for pretty much the whole game until that point. If that wasn’t enough, they then proceeded to turn Infinity’s own advantage against them around before securing their third win as well as the Third Place on the table. The last tiebreaker saw yet another comeback, but this time it was Keyd Stars flipping the script on Thunder Awaken, who let a sizable lead slip away at the start of the mid-game.

Join us soon for a recap of the Chinese DPC tour when it ends, and take a look at our variety of other Dota content while you’re at it.