One Move to take on Hydra in the Phygital Games 9 finals
At the group stage, the teams Polaris Esports (Philippines) and Infinity (Peru) lost twice and ended their fight in the tournament. 6 teams made it to the playoffs: Hydra (Kyrgyzstan) and OneMove (Russia) advanced directly to the semifinals, Neon Esports (Philippines), Infamous Gaming (Peru), Ualeikumnihao (Kazakhstan) and ThunderAwaken (Peru) first had to play quarterfinals matches.
The game day started with a speedy victory for Neon Esports in the first match; the team only needed 24 minutes. The rival could not oppose anything against the Filipinos and in the second match, Infamous Gaming finished its performance in the tournament.
In the opening match, Thunder Awaken easily defeated the Kazakh team, but in the next game, the balance of power completely changed, and Ualeikumnihao won a landslide victory. The third game kept the intrigue until the very end. At the 37th minute, the team from Peru destroyed all the enemy heroes, at which point the opponent gave up.
The first game for the team from Kyrgyzstan was not a walkover. Neon Esports held on for more than 40 minutes, but Hydra still won. In the second match, the Filipinos played less aggressively. Hydra did not slow down and did not make mistakes, which allowed the team to grab another win.
"In the semifinals, we met an unusual opponent – neither strong nor weak, which surprised us very much at the stage of choosing heroes. But I think the hardest part is yet to come. Today, we spent 1.5 hours watching who the opponents chose. We will definitely spend no less time on tomorrow's match," remarked the Hydra player Sergey "HappyDyurara" Horonzhiy.
One Move (Russia) – Thunder Awaken (Peru) – 2:1
The intrigue of the first match lasted twenty minutes, after which the Russian team seized the initiative, leaving no chance for Thunder Awaken with a 1-0. Despite their defeat in the previous match, the Peruvians did not give up and were able to recoup. The outcome of the encounter was decided in the next game, in which OneMove beat its opponent in class.
"We didn't expect Thunder Awaken to cause any serious problems. After the second game, we started to worry a little, but we were sure that we would win in the third match," the One Move player Maxim "Ra1bl" Afanasyev commented.
The winner of the Phygital Games 9 in Dota 2 will be determined on July 27. The teams are competing for the Phygital Flame Cup, a cash prize and a ticket to the Game of the Future international multi-sport tournament to be held in Kazan in 2024. The prize pool of the ninth Dota Games is 4 million roubles.
On the final day, visitors to the Kazan Expo IEC will have an autograph session with popular bloggers and streamers, including PGG, TraVoMaN, Smile and LighTofHeaveN. Spectators can get to the finals for free; they just need to book a seat on the kassir.ru website.
The Phygital Games are a series of test competitions in phygital disciplines ahead of the Games of the Future, which comprise competitions in 16 hybrid disciplines. Each discipline combines the concept of “phygital”(physical + digital), uniting traditional sports and eSports or VR/AR technology and testing both the physical fitness of athletes and their digital dexterity. The Games of the Future tournament will be held in Kazan from February 23 to March 2, 2024.