Riyadh Masters Play-in Group B winners: Quest Esports and Xtreme Gaming

The battle in the arguably more ferocious group finally comes to an end. Group B Play-in winners, Quest Esports and Xtreme Gaming, will join Team Liquid and Team Aster at the Riyadh Masters 2023 group stage. This is yet another China-Western Europe combo coming out at the top of the Play-in groups.

Quest Esports have a lot to prove after letting Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf go due to contract issues. Even though both parties failed to come to an agreement, Quest were the ones on the receiving end of criticisms. Amidst the backlash, Quest immediately loaned Abdimalik "Malik" Sailau from Natus Vincere as they head into Riyadh Masters. There is no question that ATF was a star player at Quest, but the team remained strong even without his help. They placed first in Group B of the Play-in phase with a whopping eight out of 10 map victories.

There is not much to say about Xtreme Gaming. They failed to make Bali Major after a fifth place finish at the third season of Chinese Dota Pro Circuit. This was also after a disappointing Berlin Major run. After a lackluster performance thus far, they enlisted the help of the former PSG.LGD player, who was supposedly retired, Zhao "XinQ" Zixing. Even though they were second to Quest, with seven wins and three losses, they were the only team that were able to 2-0 Quest. Perhaps there is a huge potential budding within Xtreme Gaming that will come to full bloom in the upcoming Riyadh Masters group stage.

Only eight teams from the play-in phase remain who will fight for the final four slots at the Riyadh Masters group stage. Each team from each Play-in group will face each other depending on their rank placement in a best-of-three—Top versus bottom teams of each group. The winners will proceed to the group stage whereas the losers are eliminated.

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