[Another week has gone by—check out the second week of FPL goodness (Sept 7-14!]

The first week of FaceIt League, the renown in-house league, has already drawn plenty of attention from the wider Dota 2 community. Pros from North America and Europe have come together in the tournament pre-season to show off their skill for a chance at some pocket change and, more importantly, pride and glory that’ll last until the next season begins.

We’ve got a quick wrap-up of how things are going for these players: Who’s on top? Who’s out? And who’s playing classical music in the background?

Regional Rankings

As of noon on Friday, September 8, 2017.

How does the point system work? — All players start with 1200 points. Each win garners +15 points, losses -15. Win streaks will earn bonus points based on the win-streak length.

LISTING FORMAT: Handle (Real Name, if known) — Score (Win-Loss, Winrate%)

Top 10 North America

1. MSS (Arif Anwar) — 1474 (33-23, 70%)
2. Arteezy (Artour Babaev) — 1464 (58-32, 55%)
3. Cr1t (Andreas Franck) — 1444 (36-24, 67%)
4. BloodyNine (Daniel Foster) — 1437 (65-36, 55%)
5. iAnnihilate (Danny Cote) — 1427 (57-33, 58%)
6. CharlieDota (Charlie Arat) — 1417 (60-29, 48%)
7. Ritsu (Ravi Kodippili) — 1415 (26-18, 69%)
8. Yawar (Yawar Hassan) — 1414 (28-18, 64%)
9. yjesv (Unknown) — 1414 (52-31, 60%)
10. Monkeys_forever (Jaron Clinton) — 1407 (19-13, 68%)

[Full NA rankings on Faceit League site.]

Top 10 Europe

1. No[o]ne (Vladimir Minenko) — 1544 (39-30, 77%)
2. bOne7 (Pittner Armand) — 1484 (36-21, 58%)
3. Pablo (Axel Källman) — 1427 (33-20, 61%)
4. ALWAYSWANNAFLY [awfly] (Andrey Bondarenko) — 1423 (19-15, 79%)
5. mdlxaa (Alperen Arslan) — 1405 (59-26, 44%)
6. Pingvincek (Jure Plešej) — 1398 (42-20, 48%)
7. Blazemon (Jamal Sohail) — 1393 (21-13, 62%)
8. MinD_ContRoL (Ian Borislavov Ivanov) — 1392 (48-27, 56%)
9. FollowMag (Andrew Chipenko) — 1389 (37-20, 54%)
10. ramzes666 (Roman Kushnarev) — 1386 (29-17, 59%)

[Full EU rankings on Faceit League site.]

Unvouched

Fn (Rostislav Lozovoi) — EU

The first unvouch of FPL was a story full of banter and low-key tragedy for the European player. After losing an official FPL game, Fn challenged Resolut1on (Roman Fominok) to a 1v1 mid, reportedly claiming that Resolut1on got carried. However, the latter upped the ante and turned it into an unvouch match.

Halfway through the match, Fn disconnected for reasons that aren’t quite clear, and Reso took the opportunity to kill his opponent. Between this series of events and, allegedly, the banter in TeamSpeak, Fn requested to unvouch himself.

Ryuu (Alan Andersen) — NA

While the player’s departure itself was quiet and likely even occurred during preseason, it got enough attention — or at least was enough of a subject for the player himself — for him to put out TwitLonger explanations.

Originally, he pointed fingers at FPL “supervisor” of sorts, and fellow NA player, Bulba (Sam Sosale), who was reportedly being toxic in his games. He claims that the player was being overly bossy and controlling, and that it was becoming unbearable. Because of this obnoxious nature plus the position Bulba had, he thought it was Bulba’s fault he got unvouched.

In a follow-up statement, he discussed clarification talks with the FPL admins, who said his play, not his behavior, got him unvouched. He cites the arrival of Hurricane Harvey (as a Houston) resident as well as the aforementioned toxic gameplay by Bulba for making him restless.

Ryuu also notes that because it was preseason, he was experimenting with picks.

Clip of the Week

Casters are showing their chops by casting FPL games, an excellent pre-season warmup and a way to keep the masses entertained. But play-by-play commentator Owen “ODPixel” Davies chose to do it in a more classical way: the “rap god” shifted gears and sang for a match.

It was... some kind of magic. Not sure if it’s Broadway-blessed pixie dust or a purgatory hymn for help. (We’re leaning towards the former.) You decide.