Dota 2: Predictions For ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021

Team Secret, VP, Nigma and PSG.LGD are the strongest contenders to win the tournament.

The ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021 recently finished its qualifying rounds and the top 18 teams are invited to the event which will be held between March 27 and April 4.

Tournament format

Valve has introduced a new format that starts the tournament with Wild Card rounds from which four teams will be eliminated. The top two teams from Wild Card will advance to the Group Stage wherein the bottom two teams will be eliminated, top two teams will move on to the upper brackets and the other four teams will move on to the lower brackets of the Playoffs. Rank one team from each region will not have to play Group Stages and will directly advance to the upper bracket of Playoffs.

Teams and their current standings

Playoffs:

Team Secret, Invictus Gaming, Fnatic, Virtus.pro, Evil Geniuses and Beastcoast.

Group stage:

Alliance, Team Aster, Neon Esports, Natus Vincere, Quicy Crew and Thunder Predator.

Wild Card:

Team Nigma, Team Liquid, Vici Gaming, PSG.LGD, T1 and AS Monaco Gambit.

Predictions for Wild Card

Generally in major Dota 2 tournaments, all 16 teams can be easily ranked in a single order. But as this is a different format, eliminations from early rounds have to be considered. Starting from the bottom, four out of six teams that will be eliminated after the Wild Card rounds are predicted to be T1, Team Liquid, Gambit and Vici Gaming. Team Nigma and PSG.LGD are predicted to win the Wild Card and proceed to the Group Stage.

Although Vici Gaming has secured more DPC points than PSG.LGD, they're not given the advantage here as they lost their last series against PSG.LGD by 1-2. PSG.LGD has also managed to defeat the Rank one seeded team in China, Invictus Gaming by 2-1 in a recent series. Acknowledging their potential, they are predicted to qualify for the Group Stage.

Team Nigma on the other hand, had amazing LAN event results in recent years with the same lineup. Having the same team for a long period of time also boosts their team synergy giving them a strong advantage to qualify for the Group Stage.

Group Stage predictions

PSG.LGD and Team Nigma will compete with Alliance, Team Aster, Neon Esports, Natus Vincere, Quicy Crew and Thunder Predator in the Group Stage.

Thunder Predator and Na’Vi are predicted to be eliminated as both of them haven’t defeated any top-seeded teams of their region in the last couple of months. The rest of the teams have at least pulled off one match win against the top-seeded teams of their region. This gives them a morale boost and experience of high-quality competition.

The top two teams in the Group Stage are Team Aster and Team Nigma who will advance to the upper bracket of the Playoffs. Their performance against their counterparts in this Group Stage of their region gives them a clear advantage. Their recent performance and LAN experience will boost their win chance.

The remaining four teams - Alliance, PSG.LGD, Neon Esports and Quincy Crew, will advance to the lower bracket of Playoffs.

Playoffs predictions

Bracket placements of Playoffs haven’t been organized yet but they are expected to be announced later on. The estimation of the placements is as follows.

Team Secret has been consistent, under great leadership and one of the strongest teams at present making them eligible to win the entire tournament. They neither have problems in quick matches nor long matches making them extremely hard to counter.

Team Virtus.pro on the other hand is the most aggressive team in the tournament and their average game duration during the DPC qualifiers was 33 minutes. They also have the highest win rate among all teams as 93.33% out of 15 matches played in the DPC qualifiers.

Other strong teams in this tournament are Team Nigma, PSG.LGD, Invictus Gaming and Fnatic. As the tournament is held in Singapore, Fnatic will receive huge support from the crowd and will boost their morale but they haven’t even come close to winning any major tournament in recent years so they aren’t placed in the top four. Although Invictus Gaming performed their best during the DPC qualifiers, they haven’t been performing their best against PSG.LGD recently henceforth they are given a disadvantage.

Overall Rankings Prediction