Tundra, Thunder Awaken, Soniqs, Na’Vi, and Talon eliminated after Arlington Major Group Stage

Though we wish all of our favorite teams could do well at the Arlington Major, it just cannot be. After a hard fought group stage, five teams have been eliminated from the Arlington Major. The tournament, so far, has had fierce competition with a large amount of tied series. Every win and loss was all the more important. Group A especially was incredibly stacked. It contained many tournament favorites including, Boom Esports, OG, and PSG.LGD. But alas, not all the favored teams survived.

Here are the teams that are out and how this effects their chances at TI:

Thunder Awaken were unable to make it back to the playoffs like they did last major. They unfortunately were not able to win a single series this tournament. They lost three series in total, to OG, RNG, and LGD. Playing with a stand-in for Herrera "Darkmago" Gonzalo seemed to effect their peak performance. Fortunately for them, this doesn't really effect their qualification for TI. Thunder had multiple first place finishes in their region during the DPC season. They also finished 5th-6th at the Stockholm major, leaving them currently with the most DPC points out of any team.

Na'Vi actually looked to have an impressive performance at this major. The team failed to qualify for the last major and have had a relatively disappointing DPC season. Na'Vi were actually able to win two series, one against Tundra, and one against Beastcoast. Their issue however, is that they were only able to draw one series. The rest unfortunately were losses, including the one that started it all against EG. Na'Vi will unfortunately have to play through qualifiers to make it to TI after being confirmed eliminated yesterday. However, depending on how Team Spirit and Outsiders do, Na'Vi may have an easier time fighting through the qualifiers considering the caliber of a team that they are.

Talon perhaps has the most heartbreaking story of the bunch. The team battled to be able to qualify to the upper division of the SEA DPC in tour two. In a stunning display of Dota, they were able to qualify for a spot at this major, defeating out many tough opponents in the highly competitive region. However Talon were only able to win one series in the group stage. Playing with stand-in, Kenny "Xepher" Deo, Talon showed moments of brilliance but were unable to make it to the playoffs. Now, to qualify to TI, they face a hyper competitive qualifiers where they will have to play outstandingly to make it through. This is made all the more difficult if Fnatic fail to gain enough points to qualify to TI at this major.

The newly sponsored NA mainstays had a lot to prove at the Arlington major. Their fellow NA powerhouses TSM FTX were able to get second at the Stockholm Major after acquiring their sponsorship. But Soniqs had a very rough performance. They were unable to secure any wins in their group and took four losses under their belt. One bright spot was their win against LGD, making them the only team to be able to do so. Soniqs will have to go through NA qualifier to make it to TI. How difficult this will be depends on how well EG ends up doing at this major. If EG is able to directly qualify, then Soniqs will have a much easier time going through qualifiers, their only real problem being Nouns Esports.

This may be one of the more shocking names on this list. Tundra were widely considered one of the favorites to win the whole tournament. Though they had a rough performance with a stand-in at the Riyadh Masters tournament, they were at the top of the WEU DPC. Unfortunately Tundra could never really seem to get it together. They were unable to win a series though they had four draws. Tundra is in an interesting spot when it comes to DPC points. They are in the sweet spot to directly qualify but it depends on how well other teams do at this major. They are several other teams that do not have that many points that could possibly overtake them and know them out of the running. In that case they would have to play through the brutal WEU qualifiers. That could contain any number of teams from this major. Not to mention, Team Secret and Nigma will also be going through those qualifiers.

The playoffs start tomorrow at the Arlington Major. How teams perform could ahve a major impact on some of the teams eliminated. What teams will reach their dream of playing at TI. Stick with us to find out at esports.gg!