Dota 2 news week in review: May 16th

For those who might have missed the most important news from the past week in competitive Dota 2 scene, here is a short recap.

Nanyang Championships return

After the first event came to a climax on the first of November last year in Singapore, the Nanyang Championships are back with a second season. This time around, KeyTV has made multiple changes to tournament, including the location for the LAN playoffs. This year's Nanyang Championships will be taking place in Shanghai, China from the 6th to 10th of July, and will feature eight teams. Three out of the four directly invited squads have been already announced.

Team Secret
Evil Geniuses
Fnatic

EHOME left with four man roster, eLeVeN on a break

EHOME have lost their chance for a qualifier invite to The International 6 as eLeVeN will take a competitive break due to personal issues. It’s still uncertain who will replace eLeVeN, as the official announcement made today states that the organization has still to decide on the fifth player joining the team.

Due to his grandfather's recent health issues, along with his own personal desire, eLeVeN has chosen to take a break until after TI6 in order to spend time with family and recharge. For now, he will go into a backup role for EHOME, and when we have confirmed his replacement we will follow up with another announcement ”

compLexity Gaming reinvents their image

The old compLexity logo that we all know was created back in 2003 via a fan based contest, when the co-owner of the North American organization, Jason Lake, offered $1,000 of his own money for the best logo submission. Back then the organization name was “compLexity Syndicate” and the two graphics on the white and red logo were an “S” and a “C”. Now, without going too far from the original, compLexity have tinkered with their image and come up with a new a logo that still keeps their visual identity.

Team Liquid are crowned the EPICENTER Champions

After a long and tedious battle for all the teams involved, we finally found ourselves Sunday evening at the EPICENTER Grand Finals with Newbee taking on Team Liquid. Both teams looked ultimately unstoppable through the event, dropping barely any games - but only one prevail as the EPICENTER champions.

EPICENTER Prize Pool Distribution:

1st, $250,000: Team Liquid
2nd, $100,000: Newbee
3rd, $60,000: OG
4th, $30,000 compLexity Gaming
5th/6th, $20,000:  Alliance, Evil Geniuses
7th- 8th, $10,000: Team Secret, Virtus.Pro

StarLadder i-League Star Series Season 2 to be held in North America

Eight teams will battle for a share of the $300,000 prize pool this summer, from the 21st to 24th July in a yet to be announced location. But before traveling to the North American continent, five of the eight participating teams will have to win their right to compete via regional qualifiers. With the LAN event scheduled to happen in less than two months, StarLadder regional qualifiers kicked off on the 13th of May.

WellPlay Invitational returns with a new edition

Launched at the end of March this year, WellPlay Invitational returns with its second iteration and another $3,000 prize pool up for grabs. Seven teams are directly invited to the tournament and one more will join them via closed qualifiers.

New Chinese $1m Dota 2 League announced, with Chinese players to become official athletes

The official announcement came on May 10th via a press conference held at Grand Hyatt Hotel from Beijing, China where representatives of Perfect World, MarsTV and the Chinese National Sports General Administration presented their plans for the biggest league ever to be hosted in China.

The Dota 2 Professional League (DPL) will help further promote Valve’s Dota 2 in China while giving teams of all level a chance to perform at the highest level. Over the past few years, we witnessed some of the biggest powerhouses in China compete in both major domestic and international events. What was lacking, until now, was a platform where smaller teams could show the extent of their skills against the cream of the crop. ” - extract from MarsTV’s facebook announcement

Dota 2 Professional League will be held across two seasons and at the end of it all participating players will be declared official athletes in China. Apart from this recognition, all teams will receive a share of the prize pool money, with placements determining the exact split.

XBOCT and Ghostik join Team Spirit

Team Spirit and Fantastic Five are the latest victims of the five month roster lock down rule, having made a change mid season.

The recent disappointing result from the Manila Major regional qualifiers for Team Spirit, culminating in the team failing to progress beyond the open qualifiers at the hands of Fantastic Five, resulted in both teams undergoing roster shuffles.

Team Spirit roster:

Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich
Bogdan 'Iceberg' Vasilenko
Andrey 'Ghostik' Kadyk
Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov
Artur 'Goblak' Kostenko

Regardless of the results that Team Spirit might achieve with the new roster they will not be eligible for any sort of invite at The International 6 as they broke the Spring Shuffle rules, meaning they will be forced to fight for their right to play in Seattle via open qualifiers.