The European groupstage of D2CL#5 kicks-off today with the first best-of-two match between Virtus.pro and Power Rangers. The eight challengers will attempt to grab one of the top-three positions of the group, which lead to the LAN playoffs of the tournament.
The fifth season of Dota2 Champions League begins today with the first match of the European round-robin groupstage. Each of the eight members of the group will play seven best-of-two series in total, aiming to finish in the precious top-three that leads to LAN. Virtus.pro and Power Rangers will cross their swords in the first match of the tournament, starting at 20:30 CET.
The post-DAC fuzz is expected to have an impact on the European participants, mostly due to the incomplete rosters and mediocre recent performance. After the recent departure of Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov, the defending champions Natus Vincere may have to deploy a stand-in player for their first matches in the competition. Alliance is facing a similar challenge, as they have yet to fill the void left by Henrik 'AdmiralBulldog' Ahnberg. Last but not least, both Power Rangers and Meepwn'd seem to be struggling with roster instability issues, and the use of standins may be unavoidable for the two teams.
Besides today's match, two more matches are scheduled tomorrow, February 24th. Virtus.pro will take on NiP at 18:30 CET, while HellRaisers will face PR at 20:30 CET. For more information regarding the D2CL#5, check out our coverage hub here. Live broadcasting of the games will be provided by joinDOTA in English and D2CL in Russian.
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