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:
EPICENTER returns for its second season of Dota 2 action
In May 2016 we took a journey, with eight of the best Dota 2 teams from around the world, to Moscow, Russia. Now we return once again as EPICENTER have announced that a second season of their spectacular event is on the way. This time we will witness ten teams from around the world taking part in all-out Dota 2 warfare to claim their share of the $500,000 prize pool.
NP receive the final invite to The Manila Masters
Without European or CIS qualifier runs for The Manila Masters, the organizers decided to grant the last invite to NP, which means that the bracket comes in pairs: two North American teams (NP and EG), two European (OG and Secret), two Chinese (Invictus Gaming and Newbee) and two SEA teams. The Southeast Asian squads are yet to be decided, with one due to be picked via local Filipino qualifiers and one via a SEA qualifier round, about which no information has been made public yet.
DAC 2017 groups are drawn, Major and TI6 Champions to fight in the same group
Perfect World made a big step forward in Dota 2 history by live streaming the whole process of drawings. The three times Major Champions, OG and the TI6 winners, Wings Gaming ended up in the same group. Evil Geniuses and NP, the only two NA squads traveling to China for DAC 2017 are also fighting in the same group. DAC group stage kicked off yesterday, March 27, at stake being the main event seeding. The top two teams from each group will be heading into the upper bracket while the bottom four from each group will start from the lower bracket, a dangerous place to be, because the first round here is a best-of-one elimination match.
Team announcements:
PENTA Sports acquire the Ad Finem organization
As the greatest success story of Greek eSports, it would be sad to see Ad Finem suddenly fall away – which is why it is brilliant to see that they have found a new partnership with a massive organization. As of right now Ad Finem has partnered up with PENTA Sports, which is one of the largest eSports brands in Europe. With PENTA at their backs, a new journey will begin as a rising Dota 2 team comes on board – which they will look to reclaim their success with.
PENTA roster:
Mathis 'Jabbz' Friesel
Jamal 'Blazemon' Sohail
Dino 'dnz' Šavuk
Max 'Mikey' Barkö
Oliver 'Skiter' Lepko
Mineski complete their new line-up
Only Ryan 'Bimbo' Jay Qui and Michael 'ninjaboogie' Ross Jr. were kept from the old Mineski roster, captain Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung choosing to bring in a few familiar faces of the SEA scene.
Mineski roster:
Ryan 'Bimbo' Jay Qui
Michael 'ninjaboogie' Ross Jr.
Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung
Nico 'eyyou' Barcelon
Lee 'kYxY' Kong Yang
Struggling to get good results since the departure of Abed 'Abed' Yusop from Execration to Team Onyx, Khim 'Gabbi' Villafuerte has decided to move to Clutch Gamers for a fresh beginning. In doing so, he will be replacing Avelino 'Ab1ng' Parungao in the team which recently surprised many SEA fans by a strong performance in the regional qualifiers of the Kiev Major. An interesting thing to note is that Gabbi has decided to swap positions and from now on he will be playing the safelane carry role for his new team.
Clutch Gamers roster:
Khim 'Gabbi' Villafuerte
Armel Paul 'Armel' Tabios
Rafael 'Rapy' Sicat Palo
Marvin 'Boombacs' Rushton
Kenneth 'flysolo' Coloma
Team Freedom goes on a temporary hiatus
Team Freedom announced a hiatus for their Dota team today on their Twitter account. The announcement came after the team had been failing to produce the results since the start of the season, most recently getting knocked out by Team Onyx in the playoffs of the North American qualifiers for the Kiev Major. Previously, they had also failed to qualify for the ongoing Dota 2 Asia Championships, getting knocked out by Digital Chaos.
Team Freedom's inactive roster:
Brian 'BananaSlamJamma' Canavan
Enzo 'Timado' Gianoli
Michael 'ixmike88' Ghannam
Andrew 'Jubei' Evelyn
Shane 'Eagle' Milke
Elements Pro Gaming experience a roster change
The CIS region team, Elements Pro Gaming is currently in the midst of a roster change after parting ways with their midlaner. Konstantin ‘Kole’ Jancetovic joined Elements Pro Gaming in late December and helped them to a 2nd place finish in the AOC Dota 2 Cup and a 5-6th place finish at the ProDota Cup Europe #16. However, after just over 3 months with the team, they have decided to part ways due to a lack of synergy.
Godan “g0g1” Prosic
Dami “Mitch” Skaricic Adilovic
Nikola “LeBron” Popovic
Uros “Swiftending” Galic
TBA
