A long, grueling seventh day of Dota 2 at DreamLeague Season 26 and its second group stage sees the playoff picture starting to take shape.

DreamLeague Season 26: PARIVISION On Fire, Liquid in Dire Straits

Although there are four more days in this segment of the competition to go, the teams that have a better understanding of the Patch 7.39 metagame this early are already bubbling up to the top of the group, while the others seem like they’re struggling to just stay afloat.

Falcons Grounded

Before we talk about how the second group stage has gone in general, there’s an elephant in the room that I want to point out: the defending DreamLeague champions Team Falcons aren’t here. Quite frankly, they looked pretty lost in the first group stage, splitting their map record right down the middle instead of having a very positive win rate like we’re used to seeing from them.

They also lost their tiebreaker match against Gaimin Gladiators, eliminating them way sooner than expected. Their inconsistencies as a roster this season are starting to be exposed more and more as we get closer to The International, which is a worrying sign for a squad that has so much raw talent in their possession.

Whether or not they can recover from this setback in time to get back to form for TI14 is anyone’s guess — including theirs. They tend to make odd, game-losing decisions in the heat of battle this season, which is a stark contrast to how unshakable they looked prior to TI last year.

Talon Stock Going Up

Well, this is not something that I thought I’d be writing about Flipster Talon, but they’re actually looking really damn good in this second group stage. Although they lost their first series versus PARIVISION, which is hardly a shameful thing considering how disgustingly good that team is, they managed to take one map in the match — a win which may come in handy once group stage 2 is done.

Impressively, they took down Gaimin two games to none the day after, showing a nice level of resilience despite the early loss coming out of the first group stage. They followed this up with yet another series win today, this time against Nigma Galaxy — and this was after going down 0-1 to Daniel “Ghost” Chan’s new patch Bloodseeker.

Looking at the rest of their matches for this group stage, I think it’s entirely possible for them to finish at least second in the group — which would put them in the upper bracket once the playoffs start. Southeast Asian teams aren’t exactly known for their consistency, though, so anything can still happen from here. If they can steel themselves going forward, their momentum might be impossible for all but one team to stop. I guess that Flipster deal is already doing good for them, huh?

PARIVISION Owns the ESL Pro Tour

And speaking of the team that might stop them if they meet in the playoffs, PARIVISION are on yet another one of their nearly flawless ESL Pro Tour (EPT) runs. DreamLeague Season 26 is indeed a part of the EPT, and PARIVISION have made it their personal stomping ground this season. They are 6-1 right now in the second group stage, after finishing the first group stage 12-2.

Huge ups to Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov, who is maturing rapidly as an elite carry player right before our eyes. His Ursa game versus Yakult Brothers today was just unbelievable to say the least: 21 kills and just two deaths in 45 minutes of play. He has consistently been the best player on PARIVISION for this tournament in particular, and it’s scary to think what kind of ceiling he might even have in the future. As a reminder, he’s only 17 years old right now.

Given the ridiculous tear they’re going on, PARIVISION are the heavy favorites to win this edition of DreamLeague. And if Satanic doesn’t cool down over the next few days, just wrap it up and give them the trophy, honestly.

Team Liquid in the Dumpster

In my power rankings for DreamLeague Season 26, I put Team Liquid in third place — mostly because I felt that this team could show up whenever they wanted given their credentials and experience. Also, the Liquid rollercoaster was at its latest valley at PGL Wallachia Season 4, which meant that this squad was due for another great tournament run thereafter.

TL Boxi PGL Wallachia
Image credit: PGL

Boy, was I way off the mark. Not only did they have to stumble their way into the second group stage, having gone a mediocre 8-6 in the first one, they’re also now 2-6 in group stage 2. They haven’t won a single series in this segment so far, and they are in serious danger of elimination with four days still remaining until the playoffs start.

I have to cut them a little bit of slack, though, because Michael “miCKe” Vu isn’t with them for DreamLeague. Instead, they’ve got Alik “V-Tune” Vorobey in the carry slot, which unfortunately is a significant downgrade compared to miCKe. I’m not too confident in them figuring things out before it’s too late here, especially not tomorrow when they’re scheduled to play against PARIVISION.