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Dota 2 Arlington Major Day 8: PSG.LGD and Spirit make Top 3, Fnatic get eliminated

Chinese juggernauts PSG.LGD and The International 10 champions Team Spirit emerged victorious in the upper bracket semifinals of the Dota 2 PGL Arlington Major to guarantee themselves at least a Top 3 finish. Pictured: PSG.LGD Ame, Team Spirit Collapse. (Photos: PSG.LGD, Team Spirit)
Chinese juggernauts PSG.LGD and The International 10 champions Team Spirit emerged victorious in the upper bracket semifinals of the Dota 2 PGL Arlington Major to guarantee themselves at least a Top 3 finish. Pictured: PSG.LGD Ame, Team Spirit Collapse. (Photos: PSG.LGD, Team Spirit)

Things are heating up after Day 8 of the Dota 2 PGL Arlington Major came to a close.

Southeast Asia's Fnatic became the latest team to be sent home after they fell to South America's Beastcoast, 2-1, in the final match of the first round of the lower bracket.

Fnatic bowed out of the Arlington Major in 9th-12th place without getting additional Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points.

As a result, Eastern Europe's Outsiders and North America's Evil Geniuses (EG) became the last two teams to secure a direct invite to The International 11 (TI11) in Singapore, Dota 2's marquee million-dollar world championship tournament.

Meanwhile, Chinese juggernauts PSG.LGD and The International 10 (TI10) champions Team Spirit emerged victorious in the upper bracket semi-finals against Stockholm Major champions OG and Team Aster, respectively.

PSG.LGD and Team Spirit are now guaranteed at least a Top 3 finish in the Arlington Major along with US$75,000 and 670 DPC points in winnings.

These two teams will then face off in the upper bracket finals in a rematch of the TI10 grand finals to become the Arlington Major's first grand finalists.

On the other hand, OG and Team Aster drop down to the lower bracket, where they will next face the winners of the second round of elimination matches.

Here's a breakdown of all the matches in Day 8 of the Arlington Major:

Lower bracket round 1:

Beastcoast 2-1 Fnatic

The day opened with a high-stakes match between Beastcoast and Fnatic. Not only were both teams fighting to extend their stay in the Arlington Major, the result also determined the last two teams to receive direct invites to TI11.

If Fnatic won, they would take one of the two direct invites. The last one would go to Outsiders if they defeated Fnatic in their match in the second round of the lower bracket. Otherwise, EG would take the last direct invite.

If Beastcoast won, then the last two direct invites would go to Outsiders and EG while Fnatic would lose out. It is worth noting that Beastcoast had already secured their direct invite.

Things were looking good for Fnatic after game one, as they dominated Beastcoast in a 45-minute slugfest.

Beastcoast were quick to bounce back in game two, as they ran over their opponents in the laning stage en route to a quick 25-minute GG call.

Jean Pierre "Chris Luck" Gonzales paced Beastcoast's 26-11 kill lead with a game-high 10 kills against two deaths on a mid Underlord while Adrián "Wisper" Dobles on an offlane Puck pitched in with eight clean kills.

Beastcoast ended Fnatic's hopes for a TI11 direct invite in a 45-minute rout in game three, where the South American squad once again dominated the laning stage and never looked back.

Chris Luck had another phenomenal performance, notching a series-high 22 kills against two deaths on Lina as Beastcoast ended the series with a 39-21 kill lead.

Upper bracket semi-finals:

PSG.LGD 2-1 OG

The second series of the day was arguably the most hyped matchup of the Major so far, with Chinese juggernauts PSG.LGD taking on Stockholm Major champions OG.

Both teams took turns stomping one another in the first two games of the series before PSG.LGD pulled off a massive comeback in the decider.

OG absolutely dominated PSG.LGD to start the series, forcing the GG call after just 21 minutes and with a very lopsided 17-2 kill lead.

OG's three cores racked up all their team's kills, with Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev on Troll Warlord having seven, Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov on Storm Spirit having six, and Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf on an offlane Bloodseeker having four.

PSG.LGD struck back hard in game two behind a mid Pudge pick for Cheng "NothingToSay" Jing Xiang, stomping OG in 34 minutes to force the series to a deciding game three.

Wang "Ame" Chunyu on Spectre notched a game-high 11 kills against one death to pace PSG.LGD's 37-12 kill lead in game two, with Zhang "Faith_bian" Ruida on Beastmaster and Zhang "y`" Yiping on a position 5 Viper also pitching in with nine kills apiece.

Game three started out with OG in control, as they dominated the laning stage behind bzm's Keeper of the Light and ATF's Viper dominated the laning stage while also slowing down Ame's farm on Alchemist.

OG proceeded to dominate the midgame clashes, where Sébastien "Ceb" Debs' Earthshaker wreaked havoc to give Yuragi's Morphling the openings he needed to wipe out PSG.LGD.

The Stockholm Major champions then destroyed their opponents' bottom barracks just before the 30-minute mark, looking poised to take the series.

However, PSG.LGD punished some costly mistakes by Yuragi in the crucial teamfights to begin mounting their comeback.

With both Ame and Faith_bian on Razor finally getting the items they needed to take the fight to OG, PSG.LGD looked unstoppable as they bulldozed their way to a 50-minute victory.

Faith_bian notched a series-high 14 kills against seven deaths in that slugfest, with Ame having 11 kills of his own against six deaths.

Team Spirit 2-0 Team Aster

The final series of the day saw TI10 champions Team Spirit soundly sweep Chinese powerhouse Team Aster to advance to the upper bracket finals against a familiar foe in PSG.LGD.

Team Spirit came out swinging to start the series, dominating the laning phase behind Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov's Razor and Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov's Chen.

That gave Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk on a carry Templar Assassin the space to farm the items he needed to spearhead Spirit's run to a 34-minute victory.

Collapse notched a series-high 13 kills against three deaths to pace Spirit's 25-10 kill lead in the opener, with Alexander "TORONTOTOKYO" Khertek on Void Spirit also pitching in with seven kills of his own.

Game two was a similar story, with Collapse and Miposhka reprising their heroes from game one to give Spirit the start they needed.

While Aster were more aggressive this time, TORONTOTOKYO on Puck proved to be menace in the midgame teamfights.

Spirit's midlaner repeatedly picked off the enemy's backline heroes to allow Yatoro's Terrorblade to melt through Aster's lineup.

Despite Asters best efforts to extend the series, Spirit forced them to call GG after 44 minutes of action to secure the 2-0 series sweep.

TORONTOTOKYO had a perfect game on Puck, notching a clean 10 kills and eight assists to pace Spirit's 28-16 kill lead. Yatoro and Collapse also pitched in with eight kills apiece.

Here's how the Arlington Major Playoff bracket looks like as Day 8 came to a close:

(Photo: PGL)
(Photo: PGL)

Day 9 of the Arlington Major will see three more teams get eliminated.

The day will start with the second round of the lower bracket featuring Outsiders taking on Beastcoast and Entity facing off against BOOM Esports.

Day 9 will close with the first lower bracket quarterfinal between Team Aster and the winner of the Entity-BOOM Esports match.

The Arlington Major is the second and final Dota 2 Major of the 2021-2022 DPC season.

The tournament features 17 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world fighting for their slice of the US$500,000 prize pool and 4,570 DPC point pool.

More importantly, the Arlington Major is the last chance for teams to secure a coveted direct invite to TI11, Dota 2's marquee million-dollar world championship tournament.

For everything you need to know about the Arlington Major, check here.

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