World Electronic Sports returns with the second edition, the same olympic format from the inaugural edition and a total of 5.5 million USD prize pool spread among four disciplines.
Same as last year, the Dota 2 competition has reserved a very much appealing 1.5 million USD prize pool, enough money to attract the best players and organizations from the professional scene. With the national qualifiers just around the corner, Russian and Ukraine geared up for battle with star-studded line-ups.
Team Ukraine made it last year up to the last stage of the event, but once they reached the LAN finals from China, the team dropped a tad too many games in the group stages and placed only 13/16th. Only Roman 'Resolut1on' Fominok and Ivan 'Artstyle' Antonov from last year’s roster are returning to fight for the Ukrainian flag this year, the full line-up including players from Virtus.Pro and Team Empire.
Team Ukraine roster:
Roman 'Resolut1on' Fominok (OG)
Ivan 'Artstyle' Antonov (Virtus.Pro coach)
Vladimir 'No[o]ne' Minenko (Virtus.Pro)
Ilya 'Lil' Ilyuk (Virtus.Pro)
Andrey 'Ghostik' Kadyk (Team Empire)
The other three VP players, Solo, RAMZES666 and 9Pasha will team up with Na’Vi’s RodjER and Team Spirit’s iLTW to form the Russian representative team Antihype.
Antihype roster:
Alex 'Solo' Berezin (Virtus.Pro)
Roman 'RAMZES666' Kushnarev (Virtus.Pro)
Pavel '9Pasha' Khvastunov (Virtus.Pro)
Vladimir 'RodjER' Nikogosyan (Na’Vi)
Igor 'iLTW' Filatov (Team Spirit)