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:
You can now win a gold medal playing eSports
The 2022 Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China, will include eSports. Teams from the 45 member countries of the Olympic Council of Asia will be able to compete in the world’s second largest multisport event. Being featured in the Asian Games is certainly not a guarantee that eSports will become part of the Olympics however. The category “Board Games” featured in 2006 and 2010 but has since been dropped.
ESL India Premiership announcement
ESL announced on its website that their ESL India Premiership will return in 2017, along with three seasons. There will be three tiers of competition, three games played (CS:GO, DOTA 2 and Clash Royale), three seasons for each teir and zero entry fee. Teams will need to go through the Open Cups and the Challenger Leagues to make it to the Master Leagues, where their games will be streamed live on a not-yet-specified "popular live streaming platform." The live finals will be in LAN format.
Vega Squadron qualify for SL i-League Invitational #2
Vega Squadron's perfect run gave the CIS team the highly coveted SL iLeague LAN spot where they will fight for a piece of the $100,000 prize pool in Shanghai, China at the end of May. Announced earlier in the month, StarLadder i-League Invitational 2 will feature only eight teams. Newbee and VGJ have both been directly invited to the main event. iG seized the first qualifier spot last week. Only four other slots are still up for grabs through direct invites and various online qualifiers.
Invictus Gaming and Fnatic qualify for Zotac Cup
Just before heading to the Kiev Major, Invictus Gaming claimed one more LAN presence by winning early this morning the Zotac Cup Chinese qualifiers. Fnatic were on top of their game as well, and crushed their opponents as they stomped through the brackets undefeated. It was in the Grand Finals that they knocked the wind out Clutch Gaming's sails - ending the all Filipino team's dominating streak abruptly.Zotac Cup is the first event organized for Dota 2 by the computer hardware company. The LAN playoffs will be taking place in Taipei, Taiwan from May 30 to the 3rd of June. A total of eight participants will fight for the $100,000 prize pool, six of them being decided via regional qualifiers while two teams will be granted a direct invite.
Team announcements:
iNsania replaces syndereN in Ninjas in Pyjamas lineup
Ninjas in Pyjamas welcome aboard ex HoN player, Aydin "iNsania" Sarkohi. iNsania will be assuming the support position 5 role in Troels “SyndereN” Nielsen’s stead. More known in the HoN community, iNsaniabegan his Dota 2career in September 2015 . It didn't take long for him to start to play competitively and played briefly with Team Doge in 2016 and then part of Solidudes for last three months before joining Prodota Gaming in January.
Ninjas in Pyjamas current roster
Adrian"Era" Kryeziu
Max "qojqva" Bröcker
Aydin "iNsania" Sarkohi
Kalle "Trixi" Saarinen
Kai "H4nn1"Hanbückers
747 and Monkeys-Forever separated from compLexity Gaming
Both Eric "747" Dong and Jaron “Monkeys-Forever” Clinton have unexpectedly parted ways with the compLexity Gaming Dota 2 roster. CompLexity Gaming released a statement announcing the changes to the Dota 2 division effective immediately. The release cited team dynamics regarding synergy and not fitting together as much as was desired or needed for success.
compLexity Gaming roster:
Kyle 'melonzz' Freedman
Zakari 'Zfreek' Freedman
David 'Moo' Hull
SoNNeikO officially departs from Vega Squadron and rejoins Na'Vi
An announcement on Vega Squadron’s website confirmed that Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev, their support role player, has decided to take his leave from the team. After a five months stint with the team SoNNeiKo took a break shortly after the Kiev Major qualifiers and was replaced by a substitute. Na’Vi quickly announced that SoNNeikO’s return was on the cards as the team are about to enter into a long bootcamp to practice for EPICENTER 2017 qualifiers and The Summit 7.
Vega Squadron roster:
Ilya 'Alohadance' Korobkin
Sergey 'G' Bragin
Vasily 'Afterlife' Shishkin
Airat 'Silent' Gaziev
Semion 'CemaTheSlayer' Krivulya
Natus Vincere roster:
Per Anders Olsson 'Pajkatt' Lille
Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin
Viktor 'GeneRaL' Nigrini
Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev
Malthe 'Biver' Winther
Valve announcements:
Say goodbye to your smurf accounts: Valve introduces prime matchmaking
In two weeks-time players will not be able to play ranked matches unless they have their accounts linked to a phone number. Dota 2 latest update is aimed to improve the quality of player’s experience in ranked matches and brings a lot of changes to the matchmaking system. The biggest change is that players will be required to link a phone number to their account in order to queue for ranked matches. The phone number cannot be attached to multiple accounts, therefore the players who used to bounce between smurf accounts will have to decide which one will be their main.
