More than 800 teams flocked the September leg of the GPPC Dota Tournament. Young talent was definitely abundant, but the veterans aren't willing to give up the spotlight yet.


Girl's Bracket
13 teams participated this month, tied for the biggest delegate that joined this division on recent memory. As last month, Pacific.iChill and Pacific.LiveandWired (who split the Championship the past 2 months) ended up on the same group. Advancing into the playoffs were Pacific LAW and Pacific iChill from Group A, while Rampage and Auto Click represented Group B.

It wasn't an unfamiliar site on the playoffs - we see the top 2 finishers on the past 3 months again battling it out for the top prize, outclassing stellar Group B performers Auto Click and Rampage. We are now looking at Pacific LAW's quest to be the Champion for this bracket for the third consecutive month, and of course, Pacific iChill's mission to prevent that from happening. And what a match it had been.

Pacific LaW is appearing to be in control, where they utilized their early-mid game advantage with Invoker and executed their SD-AA-CK trilane into perfection. They grabbed an early tower and hero kill lead, with their main carry (Chaos Knight) getting most of the kills. However, the QoP+Lich+TH+BM combo of Pacific iChill allowed them to put themselves back into the match, and opened up some farm for Morphling in the process. After having Morph get its core items, iChill methodologically pushed when skills are on cooldown, eventually getting lanes and then ultimately winning.



When asked about the win, Pacific.iChill's Mawley responded "our hard work paid off with a great win". The 2 teams have now split the Championship of the past 4 GPPC legs.


Rising Stars
The Rising Stars Division had almost 700 teams (among many others not admitted) competing for the title. It was definitely a tough competition, and the winners were totally deserving to call themselves to team to look out for.

The teams were divided into sets of 32, all of which were to produce 1 playoff team. The playoffs showed a battle of teams where practically everyone is still unbeaten. It is actually a pity to see teams performing this well be eliminated, but that is the nature of the competition. One wrong pick, one wrong skill, one wrong item build - and that may spell one's defeat. Such is the case for VMY, ROG and TNT. Thus advancing into the playoffs are the semifinals pair of Sydney and orbDS, and VEMO and RAE. Sydney and RAE went off to win their respective matches to secure a meeting on the Championship.

However, this night belongs to the Set 17 (Ipad1 / Ipad4) qualifier Sydney (also known as Minds), as they ended up winning the title and the distinction of being the Champion of the Rising Stars division. They fought a very well contested Championship match against RAE, and they definitely had their hands full.

RAE pulled of a suprirse Warlock on their last pick, which did wonders for them. WL had them winning almost all early team skirmishes, especially with Seer and Puck allowing him to land big Ultimates. Sydney persevered and recovered with some well-placed ganks, but one cannot be far from a general impression that they are on the back seat on this game. However, a wonderful bait on Morphling's replicated kited RAE out - and they paid with their top barracks. Seeing their disadvantage on team fight, Sydney satisfied themselves with split-pushing and systematically pressured lanes slowly until their opponents were forced to call GG.



Rising Stars Division Top 3
1st place : Sydney
2nd place : RAE
3rd place : orbDS


All Stars
Finally, the division that everyone has got their eyes burned into. Arguably 8 of the best of the local WC3 DotA teams (several absentees due to schedule and other circumstances) competed in this star-studded division, held at Pacific Intramuros. Though it might be a new place, these teams blessed the place with their presence and entertained the audience with wonderful games.


The Group Stage showed a lot of tough battles, with no team finishing it unbeaten. However, last year's defending champion iZone did enough to earn a spot on the double-elimination playoffs. They had 2 wins, as did TsongXP^Alcatraz, who is proving to be a sure-fire, consistent All-Star caliber team. Group B had a 3-way tie however, but Pacific.eMaxx and Ledion.DreamzSS advanced through a superior time rating.

Pacific.eMaxx rode their GEST win momentum into a first round 1 against iZone, garnering them a spot on the WB Finals. Meanwhile, Dreamz secured their own slot via dealing with TsongXP. However, eMaxx suffered 2 consecutive setbacks having their team eliminated at 3rd place. It also set up a finals between July champion Dreamz and August winner iZone.

The match started in favor of iZone, getting First Blood from a beautiful telekinesis into tower. However, that was probably the only thing that went their way, as Dreamz started to take control not long after. A superb Chen Micro had Morphling killing Rubick, and a well-leveled Axe having his way at mid placed Dreamz on the driver's seat. Moreover, Morphling cannot have a better start - getting 6 kills without any death and his team taking all t2 towers at the 18 minute mark. That gave him enough farm to take control later on, registering another 12 kills on the next 12 minutes.

Dreamz has become the probably most consistent team on PH DotA on recent times, showing forth strong performances if not taking a podium finish.



All-Stars Division Top 3
1st place : Ledion Dreamz SS
2nd place : iZone.Gigabyte
3rd place : Pacific eMaxx


Links
PacificPH - Official Site
DieSmiling - All-Stars Finals Highlight