The Riyadh Masters 2025 Dota 2 tournament is rapidly approaching its conclusion. If you opted out of watching the group stage, you effectively missed roughly 90% of the games, as only eight matches remain in the playoffs. For those just tuning in for the high-stakes final bracket of what many consider a “world championship” level event, here`s a recap of the most interesting events and facts from the Riyadh Masters 2025 group stage.
The primary reason for the condensed remaining schedule is the single-elimination playoff format. This is a notably rare structure for top-tier Dota 2 tournaments. While seen in modified forms like the recent BLAST events with varying starting rounds, a classic single-elimination bracket where all teams begin on equal footing hasn`t been standard for major Valve-sponsored events or large third-party tournaments since roughly 2017 or 2018 (with ESL One Birmingham 2018 being a smaller scale exception). The first Riyadh Masters in 2022 also used single-elimination, but that event featured only ten teams, one of which included a relatively unknown player, making its status as a truly `prestigious` top-tier event debatable at the time. It will be intriguing to see how this unforgiving format plays out on the modern tier-1 Dota 2 stage at an event of this caliber.
Unusual Picks and Unexpected Success
One area where Riyadh Masters 2025 truly delivered was in its hero diversity. The championship has seen the emergence of several heroes that many players might have forgotten existed in the competitive meta. While a full list is extensive, heroes like Witch Doctor, Chaos Knight, Lifestealer, Sven, Shadow Shaman, Tiny, and Winter Wyvern have all made appearances.
However, the truly stand-out picks were the unorthodox choices that actually succeeded. Pure~`s Carry Hoodwink and Niku`s Mid Undying defied conventional wisdom. These are selections typically confined to public matchmaking queues, often by players with a deep affinity for the hero. To see them on the professional stage wasn`t just bold; it bordered on the audacious. Curiously, both the Hoodwink and Undying picks secured victories, and against formidable opponents: Falcons and Xtreme, respectively. This highlights a willingness among some teams to experiment even against top-tier opposition.
Statistical Anomalies and Unwanted Records
While Tundra Esports finished second in their group after tiebreakers and successfully advanced, their carry player, Remco “Crystallis” Arets, garnered attention for an interesting anti-record. Despite Tundra boasting a win rate over 70% in the group stage, Crystallis averaged the lowest creep score (CS) at 10 minutes among all core players in the tournament. At an average of just 47 CS, this is notably lower than even players on teams that struggled significantly. For context, Daxak, on the team with the worst record, averaged 57 CS at 10 minutes, while most other core players comfortably exceeded 60 CS on average by that mark. It`s a statistical oddity that adds a layer of irony to Tundra`s otherwise strong performance.
Another hero facing a peculiar struggle was Phantom Lancer. Multiple high-profile carry players attempted to make the hero work, including Nightfall (the only one with a recorded win), Pure~, Ame, Satanic, and Timado (Ame and Satanic tried twice). Despite these attempts by top talent, Phantom Lancer ended the first two stages with a dismal 14% win rate, placing it among the worst-performing heroes. Its average KDA was comparable to that of a support Rubick, a testament to how difficult teams found it to succeed with the hero.
On the team front, Virtus.pro (VP) regrettably set an unenviable record. They were the only team in the tournament that failed to win a single map, finishing with a 0:8 record. Their struggles were often visible in game, with matches featuring exceptionally low kill counts. For instance, across two maps against Team Yandex, the VP roster managed a combined total of just 12 kills. Their “best” game saw them secure 19 kills, take Roshan, and briefly hold a gold lead with a last-pick Huskar against Aurora, but this fleeting moment of hope quickly dissipated.
Mirroring VP`s team-wide struggle, their support player Antares also held a unique statistic: his KDA for the championship was less than one. This is an incredibly rare occurrence in Dota 2, a game where assists are readily available, making it difficult for players to consistently have more deaths than kills+assists combined over multiple games. It highlights the team`s overall challenging run.
Banter and Technical Hiccups
Team Liquid navigated the first stage confidently, topping their group with only one map loss. However, one of their most memorable moments wasn`t a play but rather an interview with offlaner SabeRLighT- after a victory against PARIVISION. This stemmed from a playful, ongoing banter where PARIVISION`s support Dukalis had previously called SabeRLighT- a “bot” during the grand final of FISSURE Universe: Episode 5, which Liquid won 3:0. After yet another win at Riyadh Masters, extending Liquid`s map record against PARIVISION to a dominant 7:0, SabeRLighT- used the post-match interview to remark that PARIVISION likely still considers him a bot and expressed his hope to meet them again in the playoffs to push the score to 9:0, adding a touch of lighthearted rivalry to the proceedings.
While many recent Dota 2 events have run smoothly, Riyadh Masters 2025 experienced some technical issues reminiscent of earlier esports eras. Although there were no lengthy game pauses, viewers of both the English and Russian streams reported regular sound and video glitches. At one point during the Russian broadcast, commentators reportedly lost video feed, forcing them to cast blind, before later losing audio entirely. Meanwhile, the English stream, which was on-site, occasionally picked up unexpected noise – namely, the loud shouts and cheers from Valorant teams competing in a neighboring area, creating a peculiar auditory backdrop that sometimes overshadowed the Dota 2 action itself. Moments of vocal player communication were rare, the most prominent being the “Bots!” call heard during the Liquid vs PARIVISION series, audible primarily on the English stream due to its proximity to the players.
The group stage of Riyadh Masters 2025 provided plenty of unexpected turns, statistical oddities, and memorable moments both inside and outside the game. With the unpredictable single-elimination playoffs now underway, fans eagerly await more dramatic stories and, perhaps, a few more surprising statistics to emerge.
