The ESL One Berlin Major 2023 heads into Playoffs, and its time to adjust our Power Rankings for the final stretch. For the uninitiated, there are only four new candidates out of the eighteen Berlin Major teams that didn’t play in the previous major.
ESL One Berlin Major 2023 Qualified Teams
In terms of ranking scales, we will only predict the potential top eight at the Berlin Major since the eighth place is the minimal rank to earn prize pool winnings and DPC points. As such, any team that falls behind that benchmark is mediocre at best.
[Update: The Rankings are adjusted for our Playoffs expectations taking into account how the bracket panned out.]The Chinese side of Dota Pro Circuit 2023 (DPC 2023) has been in quite a turmoil recently after the match-fixing fiasco. With multiple Division 1 teams & players out of the competition, it’s a stretch to claim the Chinese region is the strongest region anymore.
That said, Xtreme Gaming, formerly a Division 2 seed, managed to upset the D1 opponents by securing first place. On paper, they have several superstars, namely Zhang “Paparazi灬” Chengjun but not to forget the prime Vici Gaming ex-players too.
Meanwhile PSG.LGD is also a hot name that deserves a reputation in the ESL One Berlin Major 2023 power rankings. However, eighth place is the best we could place them after allocating higher ranks to the Western European powerhouses.
Next in the power ranking is EG, the South American rebrand that is. Even though they lost to their predecessors, now under the Shopify Rebellion namesake, at the Lima Major. They still earned a fifth-place victory, which is better than most fan favorites could accomplish last major.
Nevertheless, it would be a pleasant surprise if EG manages to blow our expectations by surpassing this power ranking placement. After all, the SA squad is still relatively young and certainly has more finesse to hone at DPC 2023.
It wouldn’t be a power ranking of Berlin Major without featuring Team Aster. They are the China’s strongest team in the new season, where they placed highest among its Chinese rivals at the International 11 (TI11) and Lima Major 2023.
Yet, it’s crucial to note that Aster barely qualified for the Berlin Major in fourth place, falling behind PSG.LGD, Xtreme Gaming, and even Invictus Gaming.
Talon Esports’ fifth place on the power ranking seems unreasonable, considering they were second runner-up at Lima Major. Which, truthfully, they had a very fortunate journey throughout the Lima Major, where they didn’t match against more prominent heavy hitters, such as Tundra Esports or Team Aster.
Beating HellRaisers and Team Spirit aren’t the biggest accomplishments at the Lima Major, especially since Spirit was competing with a new player. Additionally, winning against Entity in the quarterfinals was heavily impacted by Entity’s incompetency after they flopped the Tour 2 WEU DPC 2023.
Ultimately, when they are in the face of more prominent opponents, such as Team Liquid, the former just didn’t stand a chance.
Hopefully, nobody has forgotten about the TI11 Champs because Tundra Esports didn’t live up to their reputation after placing twelfth at Lima Major. That said, it was a hard-fought round against Aster, that ultimately went in favor of the latter instead.
Tundra remains one of WEU’s Big Trio, so placing them within the top four is fair enough until they could prove their prowess again by winning Berlin Major.
The NA savior that goes by, Shopify Rebellion, is a household name not only in its region but the majors. Artour “Arteezy” Babaev and his crew have always been phenomenal in majors, so it’s a tradition to include them.
However, placing them as the third-place winner of the Berlin Major isn’t just for tradition, aka the “Third Place Curse”. But they truly lived up to everyone’s expectations at Lima Major with the help of Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek, their latest offlaner.
With the power rankings of Berlin Major reaching its top-two, lets jazz up the debate between Gaimin and Liquid.
Gaimin Gladiators
For one, it’s rare for a team to win two consecutive majors except the 2016 Team OG era. Additionally, Liquid is a favorable candidate that has consistently gone neck-to-neck against Gaimin and other opponents.
In fact, Team Liquid has won first place in WEU Tour 2 DPC 2023 consecutively, which puts them at much higher cumulative DPC points than their rival.
As the team with the highest DPC points on the DPC 2023 Leaderboards at 1050 points (after Tour 2), Liquid is the proclaimed strongest team too. They have the backing of high-profile players and managed to become the king of the hill at WEU.
Western Europe is undisputably the toughest region, where Valve even had to offer four qualifier slots here to accommodate the monstrous teams.
With all said and done, every team on this power ranking can defy all odds to place better or worse. That includes the unmentioned teams, especially the decent candidates, such as OG and ex-HellRaisers.
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