Getting a Dota 2 tournament before the Arlington Major is indeed good news for fans. The Riyadh Masters 2022 has 10 teams fighting for a large share of $4 million.
What made it even more exciting was the first match: TSM versus Team Liquid. We say exciting because it had Anathan "ana" Pham playing as a stand-in for Liquid. The match did not disappoint and when the smoke cleared, it seemed that TSM ruined Ana's return to the competitive scene.
Before looking into that match, Ana was playing for Liquid as a stand-in for Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen. He's not the only one because there are also these stand-ins for the tournament:
- Deboosters
- Abdimalik "Malik" Sailau as stand-in for Gleb "Funn1k" Lipatnikov
- Team Secret
- Roman "Resolut1on" Fomynok as stand-in for Daryl "iceiceice" Xiang
- Tundra Esports
- Nikita "Daxak" Kuzmin as stand-in for Neta "33" Shapira
TSM vs. Liquid
In the first game, Ana went for Spectre and it was pretty much what you would expect from the two-time TI champion. He had a good performance with 12 kills and five deaths though it wasn't enough. The game was quite close but in the latter part, it started to swing in favor of TSM. After the 50-minute mark, Liquid lost the team fight and it gave TSM the confidence to push.
For the second game, there was a back and forth between the two teams. TSM had a lead and initially got a hold of it. Towards the late game, the situation swung in favor of Liquid but in the end, TSM grabbed the victory and closed the match 2-0.
Nigma Galaxy vs. RNG
The second match of the day was Nigma Galaxy against Royal Never Give Up. In the first game, Nigma showed what they got and left RNG in the dust. Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi ended the game with 17 kills and two deaths.
That loss didn't seem to have discouraged RNG as the Chinese team went for some payback. Three of RNG's players had double-digit kills by the end of the match. The only difference from the first game was that it took longer to finish.
Remaining Matches
As of this writing, there are two matches left for the day. It’s OG versus RNG and Liquid against Nigma Galaxy.
Dota 2 is available on PC.
