The Likely Dark Horses of the Lima Major

The Likely Dark Horses of the Lima Major

Radu Muresan

10 Jan, 2023, 12:15

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Last updated: 12 May, 2025, 20:06

The first Dota Pro Circuit Major of the season will take place in Lima, Peru, between February 22 and March 5. The 18 participants have already been decided based on the results of the six regional leagues and some of them, despite not looking capable of causing big upsets, are actually deceptively strong.

Some of the tournament’s potential dark horses come from Western Europe, others come from South and North America. The teams that will be presented in this article haven’t achieved anything major in a long time. But that won’t stop them from trying and potentially succeeding to do this at the upcoming Lima Major.

The Top 3 Potential Dark Horses of Lima Major

This Major features a lot of great teams. Among them, three are exceptionally strong and should not be underestimated, despite their most recent results. These teams are Tundra Esports, Shopify Rebellion, and Talon Esports. All three of them have exceptional players and will likely do well at the tournament.

Tundra Esports

Tundra are still the TI champions and they probably have not forgotten how to play Dota in the past three months. Despite their local struggles, which in part were expected because their region is the strongest of the six, Tundra are likely to finish in the top six at the Lima Major.

In Western Europe’s Division I they finished with 4 wins and 3 losses, and had to go through a tiebreaker to qualify for the Major. The teams that defeated them were Team Liquid, Gaimin Gladiators, and Entity. All three of them will play at the Major.

Shopify Rebellion

Rebellion are a really strong team and should not be regarded as a newcomer. When it entered Dota 2, Shopify simply signed the former EG roster and only lost one player from that roster in the process: Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko, who was signed by BetBoom Team just days before the deal was made.

This means that they are fully capable of causing big upsets. Regionally, the only team that defeated Rebellion was TSM.

Talon Esports

https://twitter.com/Talon_esports/status/1622070004127612940

Talon struggled regionally and had to win a tiebreaker against Blacklist International to qualify for the Lima Major. But compared to the previous season, they now have a much stronger roster whose captain is Anucha “Jabz” Jirawong. They also have the highest MMR player in the world: Nuengnara “23savage” Teeramahanon.

The qualities of the team’s individual players are more than enough to allow Talon to get an excellent result at this tournament.

Header: Gamerzclass

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