The ESL One Stockholm Major finally arrived and we already had a couple of very unexpected results. One of those results is related to one of the teams having visa issues, which we talked about a couple of days ago. It’s a bit disappointing to see that the first major of the year has faced so many troubles, from teams being disqualified, to a whole region missing out on the tournament. Now on the first day of the event, one of the teams was forced to forfeit their first match, and it’s still unsure how long these problems will last.
The team we are talking about is Mind Games, the last team from the DPC EEU Playoffs to qualify for the major. The reason why this happened is that three of their players didn’t receive their visas on time. “Despite previous confirmation of approval from the VISA center, three of their players did not receive their VISA in time and were not able to travel to Stockholm for the start of the tournament.” was the statement we received from the tournament organizer on Twitter.
“The team will receive a forfeit loss for today’s match against Thunder Awaken. We will continue to work with the team and provide updates on the situation.” ESL added, which means that the situation for Mind Games is still uncertain. There is a possibility that the team misses the rest of the event without even having the chance to play a single game.
Mind Games was scheduled to play against the South American team Thunder Awaken. Before facing the Russian team, Thunder Awaken played against Team Liquid, one of the strongest European teams in the tournament. And against all the expectations, Thunder Awaken took down Team Liquid in a very convincing 2-0 series.
Now, taking into account TA’s win against TL, and that Mind Games had to forfeit their game, Thunder Awaken is the only team in the event so far to have a clean 4-0 score in the standings. Some other teams also had a 2-0 win but they only played one series during the opening day.
One of the other teams that finished the day without losing a game was T1, who had to play against North American representatives Evil Geniuses. EG came into their match against T1 after taking a disappointing defeat against Tundra Esports, which was the opening match of the event. Their win over EG also meant that Tundra Esports would have a flawless opening day. In the end, it was Evil Geniuses the team that ended up giving two different teams a clean 2-0 score.
Boom Esports taking one game away from two-time The International champions OG was also unexpected. Though it’s important to remember that OG is playing with Ceb as the stand-in for Misha, and N0tail is taking the role of the team’s coach. This is all related to the recent visa issues they’ve been experiencing.
The opening day of the first major Dota event of the year turned out to be an exciting one, although some teams are going through really rough moments due to external issues. Hopefully, we’ll receive a positive update on the current situation, be sure to stay tuned as we’ll be updating you on the situation of these teams, and the results of their matches.
