UPDATE: MVP.Phoenix pulled out of the tournament. Malaysian-team Orange eSports will be replacing them.
GEST (Gigabyte Esports Tournament) Challenge will be returning today, featuring a revamped format which saw participating teams increase from four to sixteen. Eight teams from both SEA and China will make up this $10,000, single-elimination tournament.
GEST (Gigabyte ESports Tournament) Challenge will be returning, and it will debut this year with a different format. Despite still retaining its single-elimination system, the count of participating teams have been increased to 16 and they will compete for a part of the $10,000 prize pool.
The 16-team tournament will feature eight teams apiece from the SEA and CN region. Between these 16 are eight The International 4-bound teams. All first round matches will feature a head-to-head from teams coming from different regions.
The tournament will start today with four round 1 matches. Kicking it off will be the 13:00 CET (19:00 SGT) matches of LGD against Pokerface and Vici Gaming facing Mineski. Following that will be the 16:00 CET (22:00 SGT) games of Invictus Gaming and Scythe Gaming and CIS versus Orange. All matches will be best-of-three, and will be played on the Perfect World server. All SEA teams will be provided with proxy networks to minimize and hopefully eliminate the ping issues.
The champion of the GEST Challenge will get $7,000, while the runner-up and third placer will get $2,000 and $1,000 respectively.
This is the first installment of GEST Challenge this year. The format of last year's challenge was very different - it was only a four-team tournament featuring two invited Chinese teams and the top two finishers of GEST. The prize pool of that tournament was also significantly lower, as that only offered a $1,500 winner-takes-all prize scheme.
Source: DotaTalk
