The Mars DOTA League qualifiers for the Chengdu Major are finished, and we’re here to tell you what you can expect from the tournament itself! Fifteen out of the sixteen teams that will attend the major were determined through regional qualifiers, and the last slot will go to the winner of The DOTA Summit 11. For now, we’ve brought a recap of everyone who will and will not be at the first DPC Major.
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Europe saw both the new and old Alliance qualifying in first and second seed respectively, with the Team Liquid roster not quite cutting it in an upper bracket final series. Although it may lead some people to be surprised as the representatives of Europe are both teams that would not be considered on paper to be top four favorites at a very stacked tournament, with OG and Secret not competing, as well as Kuro’s previous lineup being absent - the European field definitely isn’t quite where it would be otherwise.
North America saw various legacy EG players fight it out, but inevitably the real EG stood up to take the crown. Fighting Pepegas - the new EternalEnvy and Aui_200 stack - tied the first seed with J.Storm taking third. Notably, Sumail and Yawar’s new project, titled the Quincy Crew, were not able to qualify and will have to fight through the Summit qualifiers to make it there.
The CIS region was seemingly one of the only one with the big names from the previous season there. However, Virtus.pro - normally the kings of DPC - were very much missing from the server. Outside of a default win over an open qualifier team they were unable to get even a single 2-0. In fact, if their group and NaVi’s was switched, then it was entirely possible that NaVi would have been the one in their shoes making it to the Summit Qualifier instead.
Unfortunately there are always certain things that can be chalked down to fortunate situations, and the CIS seeds going into the major went to Gambit Esports - the organization which was just one position shy of being invited directly to TI9, and Positive Guys.
China as well, was not without notable absences. PSG. LGD had announced their absence due to FY being in recovery. Ultimately, familiar faces in Vici Gaming and EHOME made it through, but with a somewhat surprising addition of Team Aster. Although Aster was a significantly weaker force last season, only qualifying to one particular major, they’ve since added Sccc - the TI finalist who had his dreams dashed by Liquid. We’ve got our eyes peeled to see what they can do at this major!
SEA also had their teams have the significant absence of Mineski - a brand which has been synonymous with South East Asian DOTA for years now, but has still not managed to club together a roster. Regardless, Fnatic and TNC did continue through as expected. Surprisingly enough, it was both the open qualifier teams who were fighting for the third place slot, with it going to Team Adroit - a new all-Cebuano squad. Although there were some familiar names if you’ve been following the SEA region for a while, but not players who are all too used to the world stage. Their presence at the major will be interesting to say the least.
Finally, South America saw Peru dominate, as Beastcoast and Team Unkown were able to clean up names like Pain and Infamous.
The final team list for Chengdu looks as follows:
- Alliance
- Team Liquid
- Vici Gaming
- Team Aster
- Ehome
- Gambit Esports
- Positive Guys
- Fnatic
- TNC Predator
- Team Adroit
- Evil Geniuses
- Fighting Pepegas (Eternal Envy stack)
- J. Storm
- Beastcoast
- Team Unkown
- <TBD: DOTA Summit 11 Champion>
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Written ByMamoon Sabri@ggTeaTime