The SEA region of ESL ONE Birmingham Online 2020 tournament is underway and surprising upsets have already been demonstrated by Team Androit against team Fnatic. This online tournament has been entertaining right from the start, showing DOTA 2 fans that a tournament can bring excitement despite being moved to an online format.
ESL ONE Birmingham Online 2020 SEA Region Format
Four out of the six competing teams received direct invites from ESL namely, Fnatic, TNC Predator, Geek Fam, and Team Androit. Boom Esports who are the champions of the ESL SEA 2020 will be joined by Reality Rift who came from the closed qualifiers to complete the six teams for the SEA Region of the tournament.
The tournament is set to run from May 21 – May 31 2020.
The group stage will be done in a single round-robin format from May 21 – 25, 2020 with all matches being a best-of-three series. The top two teams from the group stage will advance to the upper bracket while the 3rd and 4th seed proceed to the lower bracket. The bottom two teams will be eliminated from the tournament. The four remaining teams will be competing in a double-elimination bracket come playoff time. The grand finals will be different from the rest of the matches as it would be the only match-up to be done as a best-of-five.
Schedule
Excited for a particular matchup? Here is the remaining schedule for the group stage, mark your calendars to make sure you don’t miss it.
May 23, 2020
Fnatic vs Boom Esports
TNC Predator vs Geek Fam
Team Androit vs Reality Rift
May 24, 2020
TNC Predator vs Fnatic
Geek Fam vs Team Androit
Boom Esports vs Reality Rift
May 25, 2020
TNC Predator vs Reality Rift
Fnatic vs Geek Fam
Team Androit vs Boom Esports
The playoffs will be held on the 29th of May until the 31st.
Predictions
The SEA cohort of this tournament may not be as big as the Europe/CIS region. However, I believe that the SEA representatives will not let the fans down as they will still bring entertainment and exciting DOTA 2 right to your screens.
Right from the first matchup, there was already an interesting turn of events as Team Androit pulled off an upset that caught fans by surprise. With Team Androit carrying this much momentum after successfully mounting a comeback from yesterday’s match, I think TNC will suffer their second loss from the underdogs based on the performance they showed yesterday, where they seemed to be out of sync as they got swept by Boom Esports in just about an hour with both games combined. Boom Esports clearly showed how ESL SEA Champions approach the game with a clean sweep right off the bat.
Reality Rift struggled in their first match as Geek Fam showed as to why they got direct invites from ESL while the prior team got the slot from the closed qualifiers. Fnatic on the other hand looks to put the upset they suffered yesterday in the past as they face Reality Rift today.
Personally, I am looking at Geek Fam to win it all for this region with the dominance they displayed yesterday against RR. Once they gained their momentum in game 1, they never looked back and coasted to a 2-0 win. They are gonna be facing Boom Esports next, and at their previous matchup in the BTS Pro Series, Geek Fam swept Boom Esports 2-0. I am picking Geek Fam to take this matchup, and ultimately the whole thing even though Fnatic is certainly the strongest contender and heavily favored team in SEA.
