Two quick matches of Dota 2 changed the fates of some of the biggest names in eSports.

Round one of The International Dota 2 Tournament 2019 (TI9) paved the way to the Finals which wrapped up earlier this week. As it often happens in what has become biggest eSports event of the year some really big names were eliminated, while others accelerated towards greatness.

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The structure of TI is brutal for teams that finish in the bottom half of qualifying matches. The bottom eight teams in round one face best of one matches. A win means a team gets to keep competing for the biggest prize in eSports. A loss means that team’s tournament is over. As it happened at TI9, long standing eSports franchises Alliance, Fnatic, and Liquid all found themselves in the lower bracket alongside newcomers Royal Never Give Up(RNG).

Swedish based Alliance was the winner of TI3 in 2013 and since then has been a reliably strong competitor in the Dota 2 eSports scene. Fnatic is probably best known for their efforts in eSports outside of Dota 2. The Fnatic franchise is competitive in many other games but in Dota 2 they have had trouble maintaining a stable competitive roster from year to year. Team Liquid is simply one of the oldest and biggest brands in eSports with a lineage dating back to early competitive Starcraft 2. In contrast, RNG was not formed until 2018.

When just thirty minutes into their match up Liquid wiped Fnatic’s heroes off the map and then did it again at the thirty-seven minute mark, that was it for Fnatic’s TI9 dreams. An entire year of practice, training, and competition nullified in forty minutes of Dota 2.

The RNG versus Alliance game was much the same as the Liquid, Fnatic face off. Two big team fights near the end of a forty-five minute match leading to victory. What was surprising here was the fact that the two year old RNG upset the stalwart Alliance.

In case anyone is feeling excessively sorry for the Alliance and Fnatic squads this year, the record breaking $34 million prize pool of TI9 means that both these teams walk away with over $500,000 for losing a game of Dota 2.

NEXT: Team Liquid Continues Its TI9 Winning Streak