Team Russia claims victory at WESG 2017
Team Russia won the large $800,000 prize at World Electronic Sports Games 2017 after defeating paiN Gaming 2-1 in the Finals.
Thirty-two teams earned the right to participate at World Electronic Sports Games 2017 after securing the respective regional qualifiers.
Unfortunately, many teams could not attend the tournament due to various issues, and in the end only thirty of them fought in the Group Stage. In particular, Team Ukraine, one of the favorites for the victory, had to drop out because some players were not able to acquire visas in time.
Group Stage
All teams were split in groups of four for the first phase of the Group Stage. They battled each other's in Bo1 matches, and only the top two from each group advanced to the second phase. Both Russia and paiN Gaming passed with a 2-1 score.
The second phase saw four groups of four teams each engaged in Bo2 battles. Russia and paiN played in the group D: the former got 5 points, the latter 7. The Bo2 between them concluded with a 1-1 score.
Playoffs
The top two teams from each group proceeded to the playoffs for a single-elimination bracket with Bo3 matches. PaiN Gaming defeated Keen Gaming and Rock.Y, while Team Russia had the upper hand against SG e-sports and Team Hellas.
In the Finals, Russia claimed the first game with a one-sided match that featured an unstoppable Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev on Lycan with a 10-0-10 score.
Otávio "Tavo" Gabriel led his team to a tie with a remarkable performance as an offlane Beastmaster. Team Russia didn’t give up easily, and the net worth was barely in favour of a specific team during all the match, but two consecutive team wipes at 28 and 30 minutes signed the victory for the Brazilians.
Both teams fought well in the decisive game, and Team Russia won with just a 25-23 score. The game remained very open up to minute 27 as there was a net worth difference of just 1,436.
Image: Dotabuff
Prize pool distribution
1st - Russia - $800,000
2nd - paiN Gaming - $300,000
3rd - Team Hellas - $150,000
4th - Rock.Y - $70,000
5-8th - Fire Dragoon, Keen Gaming, SG e-sports, Ultima_Thule - $25,000
9-16th - NiceOne, EHOME, HappyFeet, UAshki, Serbia, Peru, Team Leviathan - $10,000
Header and images: WESG
