For those who might have missed the most important news from the past week in the competitive Dota 2 scene, here is a short recap.
Infamous win the WESG Americas regional qualifiers
The WESG regional qualifiers LAN from Sao Paolo, Brazil concluded with Infamous taking the tournament with a 2-1 games score against the home crowd favorites Kingao+4, ex paiN Gaming. Through their entire run in Brazil, Infamous dropped only two matches, both to the Brazilian squads who had the luxury to play in front of their home fans. After defeating T Show in the semifinals, Infamous faced the other Brazilian team left in the tournament, Kingao+4 to claim the large part of the $202,000 prize pool.
Continuing the string of nerf heavy patches since 6.88d, 6.88f contains significant adjustments to several heroes, hitting hard both Phantom Assassin and Omni Knight. As the Dota2 season starts back up, Valve has released yet another sub patch for 6.88. 6.88f targets the heroes that have been raising in popularity in recent professional matches. Some of the larger changes include a rescaling of Onmiknight's Repel and the reduction of Phantom Assassin's dagger range. Full patch notes can be found here
Digital Chaos returns to Malaysia for ESL One Genting 2017
Digital Chaos is the second team to confirm their participation at ESL One Genting, after the home based team, Fnatic did the same two weeks ago. ESL One will kick start the 2017 Dota2 tournaments with their ESL One Genting LAN finals held in the first weekend of January at Arena of Stars, Resort World Genting, Malaysia. For Digital Chaos, this will be the second time to play in front of the extremely welcoming Malaysian fans. DC missed the ESL One Manila in February this year, however they had first contact with the country's fans at the Manila Major.
TIME nominates SumaiL among the 30 most influential teens of 2016
Along with the eSports wonder kid, Syed Sumail 'SumaiL' Hassan, there are couple of other truly inspirational stories listed in the Time.com article. From the 14 years old Gaten Matarazzo, Stranger Things tv series star, to the four times gold medalist at the recent Rio Olympics, Simone Bails and world records breaking swimmer Katie Ledecky.
OG - the only European team to receive a direct invite to the Boston Major
Only eight teams have been selected by Valve for a precious direct invite to the Boston Major.
Boston Major directly invited teams:
Wings Gaming
Digital Chaos
Evil Geniuses
Newbee
EHOME
Execration
MVP Phoenix
OG
Secret are the first qualified team for the Dota Pit #5 LAN finals
Putting up a dominant performance in the first European qualifiers for the Dota Pit Season 5's LAN finals, Secret is the first team to qualify for the event. From the 20th to 22nd of January next year, Secret will be joining direct invites Wings and DC, as well as five other qualified teams at the Dota Pit Season 5's LAN finals taking place in Split, Croatia. The LAN event, which will be held at the Spaladium Arena, will feature eight teams from around the world battling for a base prize pool of $125,000.
