Dota 2 Bali Major Playoffs day 2: Spirit, BetBoom, Shopify Rebellion, Aster get sent home

A drama-filled second day of the Dota 2 Bali Major Playoffs saw four more teams get eliminated.

Eastern Europe's Team Spirit and BetBoom Team as well as North America's Shopify Rebellion and China's Team Aster all fell in the first round of the lower bracket.

Meanwhile, China's PSG.LGD and Azure Ray as well as South America's Beastcoast and Eastern Europe's 9Pandas have all survived to the second round.

Here's how all the action in day two of the Bali Major Playoffs went down:

PSG.LGD 2-1 Team Spirit

The first round of the Bali Major Playoffs kicked off with Chinese heavyweights PSG.LGD knocking out The International (TI) 2021 champions Team Spirit after an action-packed three games.

Spirit started off the series strong with a 44-minute victory in game one. However, PSG.LGD managed to secure the reverse sweep after taking a 42-minute game two and a 41-minute game three to keep their tournament hopes alive.

Beastcoast 2-1 Shopify Rebellion

The second match of the day was a familiar showdown between two powerhouses of the Americas: South America's top dogs Beastcoast and North American powerhouse Shopify Rebellion. After a hard-fought series, South America prevailed as Beastcoast sent Shopify Rebellion packing.

Beastcoast scored a hard-fought, 36-minute victory in game one before Shopify Rebellion struck back in a 46-minute game two to force a decider. But in the deciding game three, Beastcoast stomped Shopify Rebellion in 32 minutes to knock them out of the Major.

Azure Ray 2-1 BetBoom Team

The third match of the day was laden with drama. This was supposed to be between Azure Ray and Tundra Esports, with the latter getting knocked down to the lower bracket by BetBoom Team in day one.

However, BetBoom Team had their previous upper bracket victory turned into a default loss after Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko was caught stream-sniping. As a result, BetBoom were now the ones facing Azure Ray in the lower bracket instead of Tundra.

In addition, Pure was disqualified from the tournament and BetBoom was forced to play with Roman "Resolut1on" Fomynok as a stand-in.

With tensions running high, Azure Ray defeated BetBoom, 2-1, turning what would have been a deep upper bracket run for the Eastern European squad into utter disaster.

Azure Ray started strong with a 35-minute victory in game one before BetBoom stormed back into the series with a 33-minute stomp in game two. With their tournament lives on the line in game three, Azure Ray overcame BetBoom in a 52-minute slugfest to advance to the next round.

9Pandas 2-1 Team Aster

The day closed with 9Pandas taking down Team Aster, 2-1, in a series where all three games ended around 43 minutes.

Aster and 9Pandas traded close victories in games one and two before the Eastern Europeans closed things out in a one-sided game three.

With today's results, PSG.LGD, Beastcoast, Azure Ray, and 9Pandas have all secured at least a Top 8 finish as well as US$12,500 and 300 DPC points in winnings.

Meanwhile, Team Spirit, BetBoom Team, Shopify Rebellion, and Team Aster all exit the Bali Major empty-handed in 9th-12th place.

Day three of the Bali Major Playoffs will feature the second round of the lower bracket as well as the upper bracket semifinals. Here are the all the matchups taking place on day three:

Lower bracket round 2:

• PSG.LGD vs Azure Ray

• Beastcoast vs 9Pandas

Upper bracket semifinals:

• Team Liquid vs Tundra Esports

• Gaimin Gladiators vs Quest Esports

The Bali Major Playoffs will take place from 5 to 10 July and will follow a double-elimination format. All Playoff matches will be a best-of-three except for the Grand Finals, which will be a full best-of-five series.

While the competing teams in Bali are fighting for their cut of the US$500,000 prize pool, they have their eyes set on a share of the 3,500 DPC point pool.

Those DPC points will go towards securing all-important direct invites to The International (TI) 2023, this year's iteration of Dota 2's annual multi-million dollar world championship tournament that will be held in Seattle this October.

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

For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page and Twitter, as well as our Gaming channel on YouTube.