All the results from Day 1 of the next big Dota 2 thing to hit Manila.

After 2 straight days of group stage competitions to determine final seeds, the Main Event of the Manila Major, a prestige Dota 2 tournament organised by PGL and sponsored by Valve, commenced yesterday in the SM Mall of Asia Arena, with thousands of fans flocking, even for Day 1, looking to witness some great Dota 2 action.

And the games did not disappoint indeed as a ton of good (and some bad) surprises took place much to the delight of the Filipino crowd, with some of the most amazing finishes, and surprising takedowns.

The fall of titans

Starting off in the lower bracket matches, which were done later in the day, some of the favourite teams such as Team Secret and the North American Evil Geniuses were cheered for as they stand in the face of elimination, facing off against Team Empire and ViCi Gaming Reborn respectively, but sadly both teams failed to deliver, as the recent Shanghai Major champions Secret were eliminated by Empire and the TI5 title holders, Evil Geniuses, were knocked down by VG Reborn.

Team Empire celebrating their Lower Bracket victory

On the other hand, another North American team, compLexity Gaming defied the odds on their Best of 1 match as they defeat the ESL One Manila 2016 Champions, Wings Gaming after an action packed matchup featuring a lot of back and forth plays.

The End of the road for the Filipino Team

Aside from the matches from the big time players, the Filipinos themselves will not be left out as the lone Philippine team contender, Mineski was off to try and secure one more day of being at the Manila Major by aiming to defeat the Swedish Alliance. The whole crowd shook in excitement as the Filipino squad secured objective after objective, but the experience, and perseverance  of the former TI3 Champions prevailed and while Mineski nearly had it all, Alliance made a comeback and snatched the victory, eliminating the Filipinos out of the tournament.

Mineski’s raging.potato getting an early double kill at middle lane.

The Korean Agenda

A match on the upper bracket featured the long unchanged roster of MVP Phoenix, the lone team from South Korea versus Team Liquid in what can be described as a match of champions, with both teams recently becoming title holders of previous Dota 2 LAN events. While Liquid looked to have the edge in experience and play style as they are composed of some of the older names in pro Dota 2, MVP‘s signature gameplay still got the best of them as the Koreans sweep the Europeans squad but not after giving the crowd a very exciting game 2 which ended in a comeback for MVP Phoenix even when they are down with 2 sets of Barracks and an exposed base.

OG and the 9K MMR Fundamental

While it was one of the most anticipated matches of the day, the Na’Vi vs OG matchup resulted in a one sided combat with both games falling to the favour of the Frankfurt Major Champions, team OG, while Natus Vincere may have come off as undefeated in the Group stages, giving Dota 2 fans some of the most highlight plays particularly in the Winner’s Matchup, OG went overall cerebral for Na’Vi not giving them a chance to move to the next round and sending them to the lower brackets.

Miracle- getting the Beyond Godlike streak against Na’Vi on Game 2

Overall Results Tally

Upper Bracket

0	Team Liquid Moves to lower Bracket	Versus	MVP Phoenix Moves to next round	2
0	Natus Vincere Moves to lower Bracket	Versus	OG Dota 2 Moves to next round	2

Lower Bracket

0	Wings Gaming Eliminated	Versus	compLexity Gaming Moves to next round	2
2	The Alliance Moves to next round	Versus	Mineski Dota Eliminated	0
0	Evil Geniuses Eliminated	Versus	ViCi Gaming Reborn Moves to next round	2
0	Team Empire Moves to next round	Versus	Team Secret Eliminated	2