Day 1 of Dota 2's Kiev Major main event is in the books, as teams are one step closer to splitting that $3 million prize pool. That is, the teams that made it. Like previous majors, Dota 2's Kiev Major is a single-elimination tournaments, lose one best-of-three match, and your team is sent packing.
Surprisingly enough, this happened to two teams who received direct invites to the tournament, as opposed to those who made it via regional qualifiers, in just Day 1, out of four. Chinese team Newbee and Greek team mouseports were the first two to go, after receiving the direct invites. This will happen to two more teams during day 2, as invited teams Evil Geniuses and Thunderbirds face one another, after invited teams OG and Team Random (formerly Wings Gaming) match up.
For mouseports, this wasn't that much of a surprise. The mouseports roster previously competed under Ad Finem, and they placed second in the Boston Major. That placement is likely what led to their direct invitation to this major, despite failing to qualify for every important Dota 2 tournament since. They've simply failed to properly adjust and perform in great moments since, and mousesports has probably seen their last direct invite for a while, pending their performance at the International this year (assuming they qualify.
For Newbee, this was much more of a surprise. The Chinese team placed third in the Dota 2 Asia Championship last month, and their first match was against Team Liquid, who failed to last a single round in the same tournament. After a miraculous 2-0 run after going down one game, Liquid sent them home.
They were the second Chinese Team to go home today, after I.G. Vitality fell to CIS team Virtus Pro.
The Kiev Major continues tonight at Midnight PDT and will likely go through around Noon, so you can still catch some of the morning games live. There will be four games played per day until the finals, which will take place on Sunday. You can watch them live on YouTube or Twitch.
