TNC Predator loses TI direct invite chance as AniMajor run ends at the hands of Abed, Evil Geniuses

TNC Predator's valiant stand came up short as it crashed out of the WePlay AniMajor after suffering a 2-1 defeat to Filipino mid laner Abed "Abed" Yusop and North American powerhouse Evil Geniuses in the lower bracket round two on Friday night, June 11.

TNC wound up in the top eight in this year's second Dota 2 Major being held in Kiev, Ukraine for a prize of $12,500 (nearly P600,000) and 200 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points.

The all-Filipino squad garnered a total 572.25 points but those were not enough to secure an invite to The International 10 which will stake the highest prize pool in esports history at $40 million (over P1.9 billion.)

TNC will need to slug it out against fellow Filipino teams including Execration and OB x Neon Esports in 15-team Southeast Asia regional qualifiers that will also feature Fnatic and Motivate.Trust Gaming.

Carlo "Kuku" Palad's T1 is the only SEA team that has sealed a direct invite to TI10 in Sweden through DPC points following its 2-0 sweep over Aster in the AniMajor playoffs upper bracket opener last Wednesday night.

After a 36-3 humiliation in 29 minutes in the series opener, TNC bounced back with a gutsy 51-minute victory in Game 2 punctuated by a rampage from Armel "Armel" Tabios' Templar Assassin.

However, Abed's Ember Spirit and Artour "Arteezy" Babaev's Nature's Prophet proved too much to handle in the deciding Game 3 as EG advanced to the top six.