The Pinnacle Cup offers a great way for EU and CIS teams to have some cross regional Dota 2 play while the DPC season is ongoing. After all, $100,000 in prize money does seem plenty satisfying. Especially, considering first-place at the DreamLeague S15 only offers thirty grand.
Nonetheless, it’s always a thrill when renowned teams are involved and cross regional play is available. We have some good teams competing and this event and plenty of Dota 2 betting options coming our way.
Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov
Pinnacle Cup Tournament Format and Teams
The Pinnacle Cup tournament format is pretty standard for the most part. Group stage is among ten teams, and all matches are best-of-three single round-robin. Only the top six teams will proceed to the Playoffs, where the top two will play in the upper bracket against two undisclosed invited teams. The Playoffs matches are also best-of-three, except for the best-of-five finals.
The participants are mostly familiar faces from the EUW/EEU DPC Season 2, most notably Upper Division teams: Team Spirit, Hellbear Smashers, Team Unique, EXTREMUM, PuckChamp, and Brame.
Several DPC 2021 Lower Division teams make up the rest of the competition, such as Vikin.gg, HellRaisers, Chicken Fighters, and Level UP.
With a top heavy competition like this, we can identify plenty of solid options on offering for the following few rounds of play. Let’s go through the upcoming matches and set our predictions.
Vikin.gg vs Team Spirit
The fallen angels versus the rising stars, one factor that really stood out between the two is their different upbringing. Vikin.gg was a former Upper Division team demoted to Lower Division after their poor showing last season. Meanwhile, Team Spirit’s sudden unrivaled strength surged them into first place at the ESL One EEU Season 2.
Both teams are very much on par in terms of experience. Yet, Team Spirit’s recent attention earned them the respect as a reliable betting candidate . On May 14 at 15:00 (CEST), the odds are in favor of Team Spirit’s victory at x1.61 versus Vikin.gg at x2.25 return.
Considering how dominant Spirit has been thus far domestically and in this tournament, we can go with the straightforward option here.
HellRaisers vs PuckChamp
Coming up, we got yet another case of Lower Division champ versus an Upper Division “loser”. HellRaisers remained undefeated in the CIS Lower Division S2, marking them as the undisputed victors. The same cannot be said for PuckChamp, who couldn’t climb out of the bottom two seeds. It seems like the continuous losing spree has broken PuckChamp’s morale as they struggle even in the Pinnacle Cup.
The Dota 2 odds at GG.BET reflect the gruesome outcome of PuckChamp’s poor performance. They have a whopping x3.19 against HellRaisers’ x1.33 odds. In this case, I would go with a 2:0 for HR just to oompf up those odds. For a 2:0 result in favor of HellRaisers you can expect x2.12 in return.
Brame vs Chicken Fighters
Brame, the Greek squad, isn’t exactly a team that stood out as a potential candidate at the upcoming major. Yet, their scores reflect their consistency and prevalence to secure at least a fourth-place finish at DreamLeague S15. As for Chicken Fighters, or formerly High Coast Esports, they join Vikin.gg in the DPC 2021 Lower Division after “securing” last place last season.
The two teams are scheduled to clash, and have relatively even odds. In fact, Brame surprisingly has a much higher odds of winning despite being an Upper Division candidate. Brame has an x2.03 against Chicken Fighers’ x1.75 return. We are going with the odds favorite here and side with Chicken Fighters to round up a solid 3-way slip.
| BETTING PROVIDER |  | |
|---|---|---|
| HellRaisers vs PuckChamp | HellRaisers to win 2:0 | @ 2.12 |
| ViKin.gg vs Team Spirit | Team Spirit to win | @ 1.61 |
| Brame vs Chicken Fighters | Chicken Fighters to win | @ 1.75 |
| TOTAL ODDS | 5.97 | |
Keep in mind, on the same day (May 17), both Team Spirit (x1.16) and Vikin.gg (x1.14) have matches against Team Unique and PuckChamp, respectively, in the Pinnacle Cup Dota 2 event. Since they are the biggest favorites around, rooting for their victory again wouldn’t be too shabby to stack up your betting slip.
