It’s time for the year’s final qualifiers to be played in the South East Asia region, four teams battling it out for one of the four slots still to be filled for ESL One Katowice 2019 where a $300,000 prize pot awaits.
With Fnatic already invited, and other teams like Boom ID and Mineski not participating, it has been left to TNC Predator, Lotac, Team Admiral and DeToNator to compete for that final spot.
As one of the direct invites (and the only non-Filipino team in the qualifier), Lotac have a long battle ahead of them to try to prove Malaysia’s dominance. However, even with big names like YamateH and Ohaiyo, their recent success has been limited.
While regularly falling short in qualifiers, they did recently claim a win in a smaller qualifying event, for the Asia Pacific Predator League in Malaysia, winning themselves $6,000 and a place in the main tournament. Still, they consistently fall short against the top teams, so their main hope here will be that DeToNator can take down TNC, so they can have the win advantage by getting to the final in the Upper Bracket. At least they should get off to a winning start – they are 1.331 to beat Team Admiral (3.370) on Saturday.
TNC Predator, the second direct invite, are the clear favourites. Having participated at the Kuala Lumpur Major, taking 5th-6th, and qualifying for Chongqing, they have the best recent record here. Also in their favour is the fact that both Lotac and Team Admiral were taken down by them in the Kuala Lumpur qualifiers and so it simply remains to be seen if they can continue their dominance of the SEA Region.
However, that may prove tougher than first thought given that their manager has been fired in recent days for trying to cover up an allegedly racist incident. A sponsor has also been lost. It’s hardly ideal preparation. They do, however, start off as hot favourites to take down DeToNator in Saturday’s opener. They are 1.117 shots, with their opponents at 6.540.
From in from the open qualifier are Team Admiral, who have relied on trying to get through via open qualifiers for most tournaments, albeit with limited success. While they did make it to the main Kuala Lumpur qualifier, they fell short, taking 4th place after losing to Lotac, and they never managed to get through to the Chongqing qualifier. With no recent tournament wins under their belt either, they need to show up on the day and perform above expectations to have a chance of beating either TNC or Lotac.
Like Admiral, DeTonator have had minimal qualifier success, and no tournament wins either. However, their advantage is that, while they’ve played a lot, some against Lotac and Admiral, they haven’t played against TNC. This puts them in a position of being able to surprise them, and, if they do put on an incredible performance, and pull out strategies that TNC haven’t prepared for, they then may make it through. Still, the odds are against them, and it’s more likely that they get taken out by the more dominant team.
Predictions
It’s hard to predict anything but a TNC win. They have shown that they are an incredibly strong squad that only falls to tougher competition. Add in a strong record against their opposition here and they come in as heavy favourites.
Still, if TNC have an off day – hardly beyond the realms of possibility following the recent controversy – they could stumble.
