For those who might have missed the most important news from the past week in the competitive Dota2 scene, here is a short recap.
Tournament news
Mars Dota 2 League 2017 dates revealed
Mars Dota 2 League kickstarted the Fall 2016 competitive season with the MDL Autumn event in September, and are now one of the first tournament organizers to confirm the dates for their 2017 Spring event. MDL 2017 will take place from the 10th of May to 14th of the same month, with eight of the best teams world-wide competing in China.
Team Liquid are your DreamLeague Season 6 victors
In perhaps their first convincing performance since the Fall Reshuffle, Team Liquid have managed to snag 90,000 bucks by winning the sixth season of DreamLeague. Facing off against them were Escape Gaming, led by player-turned-caster-turned-player Troels 'syndereN' Nielsen and backed by the insane clutch support plays of Yazied 'YapzOr' Jaradat.
OG crowned Elimination Mode Champions
The second edition of Moonduck’s Elimination Mode tournament came to a close last night with a mesmerizing best of five grand final between Evil Geniuses and OG. Ten days before the Boston major to kick off, two of the strongest teams going to Boston took a break from the standard Dota 2 and indulged themselves with an entertaining grand final for the viewers, a series that featured everything you might want to see in a whole year. From Arc Warden versus Underlord in game one, to long time buried mid lane Lina or Support Wrath King or the classic rat doto strategy perfectly executed by Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein on Lone Druid in the fifth match. The two teams went trading games all night, forcing a decisive game five in which the icing on the cake was Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev’s core Visage.
Execration are going to ESL One Genting
The South East Asia qualifiers for ESL One Genting come to an end with the Filipino team Execration claiming the LAN finals spot on a clean but hard fought 3-0 victory over Mineski. Execration, one of the two directly invited SEA teams to the upcoming Boston Major, might have cleared any doubts regarding Valve’s decision to invite them and the concerns raised by their fans after they decided to make a substitute swap at the beginning of November.
Newbee edge out LGD in a five game thriller to qualify at ESL One Genting
Newbee solidified their impressive performance with yet another successful qualification cycle after winning the World Cyber Arena 2016 Chinese qualifiers and Dota Pit League Season 5 Chinese qualifiers earlier this month. The ESL One Genting main event will take place between 6-8th January at Arena of Stars from Genting Highlands Resort, Malaysia. All but one participants are known. The remaining one will be decided after the end of the the Malaysian qualifier.
ESL One Genting 2017 participants:
Wings Gaming (direct invite)
Digital Chaos (direct invite)
Fnatic (direct invite)
Virtus Pro (EU qualifiers winners)
NP (US qualifiers winners)
Execration (SEA qualifiers winners)
Newbee (China qualifiers)
TBD (Malaysia qualifiers)
Boston Major updates
LGD FY are granted permission to add two substitutes for the Boston Major
LGD Gaming Forever Young’s attendance at the Boston Major became impossible after two of their players had their Visa applications rejected multiple times. Du 'Monet' Peng and Luo 'Lpc' Puchao were denied again in their last visa interview, which put the organization in a very tough spot. AAlthough Lu 'Maybe' Yao signed up on the Majors registration list as substitute for LGD Forever Young on the 11th of November, it was announced today by the organization that the two players coming in to help them in Boston are both borrowed from Vici Gaming. Yang 'END' Pu and Leong 'DDC' Fat-meng will be Peng and Lpc’s replacements.
LGD Forever Young Boston Major line-up:
Yang 'END' Pu (substitute)
Xie 'Super' Junhao
Yao 'Yao' Zhengzheng
Zhang 'xiao8' Ning
Leong 'DDC' Fat-meng (substitute)
Team shuffles
Cast and Teehee released from TNC, leaving just three members
According to TNC's official announcement, the decision of parting ways with Mark 'Cast' Pilar and Linuel 'Teehee' Abanto came from the fact that the team as a whole “didn’t fit well together”.
According to TNC's official announcement earlier today, the decision of parting ways with Mark 'Cast' Pilar and Linuel 'Teehee' Abanto came from the fact that the team as a whole “didn’t fit well together”.
TNC current roster:
Carlo 'Kuku' Palad
Sam 'SamH' Hidalgo
Ryo 'Ryoyr' Hasegawa
Vega Squadron is first to complete their roster from the many CIS squads that are currently experiencing heavy shuffles. Promised a week ago, the announcement for the last player joining Vega just went online, with Sergey 'G' Bragin rounding out the new roster. With the latest two additions, Akbar 'SoNNeikO' Butaev and now G, the new Vega Squadron line-up looks extremely interesting to say the least.
Vega Squadron current roster:
Rostislav 'Fn' Lozovoi
Sergey 'G' Bragin
Andrey 'MAg-' Chipenko
Syoma 'CeMaTheSlayeR' Krivulya
Akbar 'SoNNeikO' Butaev
