Drama dominates Dota 2 Bali Major – Trader’s Report June 2023 by PandaScore
It might have kicked-off at the tail end of the month, but the events of the Dota 2 Major in Bali, Indonesia has no doubt been one of the biggest stories in esports recently.
The event was plagued with lots of tech pauses, and the way the tournament infrastructure was set up meant that admins and referees had trouble getting a full view of all five players at any given time.
Still, from the trading perspective, the tourney itself did not come with too many surprises. There were a lot of 1-1 splits in the match-ups, but the top teams made it out of the group stage as expected. It was when the playoffs came around that the boat really began to rock.
During the first round of knockout games, BetBoom Team’s Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko made an arguably careless decision that cost his team the tournament. The opponent, Tundra Esports had requested a pause to report and hopefully resolve a technical issue the team was having.
During the downtime in the pause, Moskalenko tabbed to a web browser showing a Twitch stream broadcasting the very event he was currently playing in. While occurring during a pause, and viewing a stream that is delayed compared to when the events happen in real-time, thus presenting little risk to competitive integrity in real terms, it still violates the explicit guidelines set by the Dota Pro Circuit, and game publisher Valve.
The rule explicitly states “players are prohibited from watching any broadcasts while they are currently competing in an official match.” Additionally, the only applications or programs a player can use during a competitive match include the Dota 2 game itself, Steam (the platform used to access the game) and Teamspeak for voice comms while they play.
As a result, Moskalenko was disqualified from the series itself, as well as the rest of the Bali Major, with the BetBoom Team forfeiting the matchup against Tundra. The Russian squad was then bumped down to the lower bracket of the playoffs and forced to play using coach Roman “Resolut1on” Fomynok – who was as recently as last year a pro player with the Team Secret Squad that finished runners-up in The International 2022.
When it comes to trading, in many cases a coach stepping in can spell disaster for a team and the odds will swing against them. Prior to the announcement that Fomynok would step into the team, BetBoom was matching up against its next opponent–Chinese outfit Azure Ray–at 1.30 to win. With the coach in the lineup, odds swung towards Azure Ray, with BetBoom paying 1.70 to win.
Azure Ray took a 2-1 victory while BetBoom crashed out of the tournament, with the squad’s hopes now resting on Valve’s final assessment of the breach of conduct. BetBoom has narrowly scraped into the penultimate tournament of the season, The International, via the season rankings. But should Valve determine that a greater punishment should be levied, Mosalenko flicking to a Twitch stream for a few seconds could cost the side its season.
Vitality shows volatility is still common in Counter-Strike
June was a mixed bag for Vitality, with the French side finding success on some fronts, and falling flat in others.
Many expected the organisation’s Counter-Strike side to continue its good run of form, following its success at the Paris Major, but the BLAST Premier Spring Finals presented a couple of hiccups.
Vitality lost its opening series against Brazilian side, Imperial, including a crunching 16-3 on Overpass, and a 16-14 defeat on Vertigo. The result was a shock considering Vitality went into the match as 1.04 favourites.
This was followed up with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Cloud9 to make it to the playoffs. In knockouts, Vitality slugged it out against FaZe Clan and exchanged blows with G2 Esports to face off against Heroic, who have been a top 2 side all year. Vitality went into the match paying 1.70 to win and despite going toe-to-toe with the Danes, ended up losing the series 2-1.
With professional Counter-Strike fast approaching the switch from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to Counter-Strike 2, the performances seen from Vitality, even after the heights reached in May, show that there is still a lot of volatility in the market, and there’s plenty of work for traders still to do.
