Higher or lower: can LGD Gaming step up from dead last at TI6?

For the last two months LGD Gaming has looked like a team evolved. They’ve made deep runs into their last 7 events, though have been qualifiers. Either way you spin it, LGD is playing better than they’ve played all year. And what better time to show up than the TI7 qualifier? Just last month, LGD Gaming claimed their first title of the year at the Mars Dota 2 League 2017.

Is LGD Gaming flying under the radar?

LGD Gaming and their sister squad just outplayed four of Dota 2’s best at the Mars Dota 2 League. This tournament was the last we’ve seen of these teams heading into TI7, so it provides a little indication of who looks good right now and who’s got some homework to do. I’m curious is OG is off of other team’s radars because they isn’t much talk of them at the moment.

Despite falling to LGD Gaming in their very first series of the playoffs, Red Bull decided to partner with OG for TI7. OG will be sporting a new Red Bull-infused logo for the tournament. OG won the group stage, but that didn’t amount to much.

Invictus Gaming had a poor group stage but won the the first round of the losers’ bracket. Newbee was swept by LGD’s sister squad in the winners’ bracket and forced to meet iG. EG lost to LFY in the group stage tiebreaker, so they started in the losers’ bracket and fell to OG. And finally, Newbee to LGD in the losers’ finals (LGD met LFY in the winners finals and the grand finals).

The big question here is: were the LGD teams’ sweeps over OG and Newbee in the upper bracket both flukes? These sweeps placed all the invited teams into the losers’ bracket ASAP, so they were all fighting to survive for most of the tournament.

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