This year's The Asia is snugged in between Christmas and New Year, and it defintely should be a prime candidate on how you guys should spend the holiday weekend. The tournament will be one of the many attractions at the GE3 (Games, Esport, Entertainment Exhibition) event, and you surely wouldn't want to miss it.
Tournament format
Other game titles such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Hearthstone and Battlefield 4 will be showcased at the event. Because of the packed schedule, the Dota 2 tournament will unfortunately not have any group stage. Instead, the tournament will feature a double-elimination format.
All of the teams except for India's Oblique Gaming and Brunei's Revival are seeded directly into the second round. The games until round four are all best-of-one and will be finished on the first day, and all matches after that will be played in a best-of-three format.
The team who will advance from the upper bracket will receive a one-series advantage, instead of a one-win advantage. That would mean that the team from the lower bracket will have to defeat the upper team on a best-of-three series twice in order to claim the championship.
A closer look at the schedule would show that more than half the participating teams will be eliminated on the first day. The first games of day one would be tough as well, as even the viewers will have to choose which match they would want to watch. It should ease out as the tournament progresses, as there will only be one game at a time starting, at the end of day one.
The champion will get $15,000, while the second and third placer will receive $9,000 and $6,000 respectively. Despite the prize pool being exactly the same as last year's, The Asia remains the highest paying South East Asian Dota 2 tournament.
Qualified teams
Last year's Champion LGD.cn nor any other Chinese teams will be defending the title of ACG going to another country this year. This is mostly due to heavy schedule in the days leading up to ACG and also Fengyun Championship, an online tournament that is currently ongoing in China. However, fret not because ACG will feature the best teams from each South East Asian country as well as Korea. We know they are the best because all of them went through the gruelling qualifiers to secure their air fares to Singapore.
Most of the teams participating this year are not new to the competition. All the teams aside from Startale and First Departure have at least one player on their roster who has participated in The Asia 2012.
Titan
 Kang Yang 'kYxY' Lee Wei Poong 'Yamateh' Ng Wai Pern 'Net' Lim Chong Xin 'Ohaiyo' Khoo Joel 'XtincT' Chan | Titan is by far the most experienced team among all participants. They have won the Malaysian qualifiers not long after being under their sponsor. They have shown improvement over the past few months, but they will not be playing with one of their player because of citizenship issues. YamateH will be filling in for Meracle. |
*Spirit Gaming
 Viet Thanh 'Misa' Nguyen Vuong 'Taipolime' Thien Tai Vo 'QQ' Quoc Vuong Minh Nhan 'Secret' Nguyen Avu 'Ares' Van Tin | While the name may be new, these guys are in no way neophytes to the scene. They have actually competed in The Asia before, being known then and most of this year as 1st.VN|GIGABYTE. They have set themselves as the team to beat in their country as they didn't drop a single game in the qualifiers. |
First Departure
 Paul 'Hana' Tan Jun Jie 'Lubby' Chan Kai Sheng 'Meen' Teo Joel 'chibix33' Chan Wilson 'Poloson' Koh | With the exit of Zenith, First Departure has become the premier Singaporean team. Despite losing their carry Meracle, they have found a good replacement in Chibix33. Lubby told us they have already agreed to play and practice with Chibi and do not wish to change their roster at the very last minute. Decision was made based on friendship. |
Revival.UMS
 Howard 'Far' Lim Ricky 'Near' Hong Vincent 'Raisa' Ting Asdani 'Dani' Richardson 'BrandyAkiko' Yao | Revival.UMS makes their way back into The Asia after closely edging out their sister team on Brunei qualifiers. We have talked to them last year about the situation of Dota 2 in their country, and we are looking forward to see how it progressed. And yes, they have players that go under the name of 'Near' and 'Far. |
Oblique Gaming
 Ketan 'evil-ash' GoyalRaunak 'Crowley' SenPuneet 'ProphecY' Sangolekar Rishabh 'Cyberhen' Vaid Vivek 'acrid' Gore | India's scene is quicky expanding, and they had to have multiple Zonal qualifier just to cater the teams interested in joining. However, it is once again Oblique Gaming who will be joining ACG this year and they showed that they are very much ahead of their compatriots. |
AMD.Mineski
 Ryan Jay 'Bimbo' Qui Jessie Cristy 'JessieVash' Cuyco Joshua 'Josh/Owa' Dela Serna Julius 'Julz' Deleon Jhoven 'Joven' Pancio | Mineski had a strong, undefeated run on the Pinoy Gaming Festival, which had them qualifiy for the tournament. They have decided to skip Christmas as they spent a few weeks bootcamping on Malaysia, and it is curious to see how that will affect their inconsistency, which has been their undoing. |
MiTH-Trust
 Pipat 'Lakelz' Prariyachat Chanon 'aabBAA' Chiwpreecha Noppadon 'sD' Paopongprapun Thithat 'Bungsell-rottee' Tachawattanakul Trai 'Tri' Akaravinak | Last year's fourth placer will be going for an improvement this year, bringing their team's cohessiveness as their biggest weapon. They have been one of SEA's stronger teams during the GEST period, and this tournament would be a good chance for them to break the slump that they are currently in. |
Rex Regum QEON
 Ritter 'RitteR' Rusli Rene 'Minerva' Michael Halim Azam 'NFR" Aljabar Farand 'KoaLa' Kowara Jeffry 'Gehenna' Martin | RRQ, probably the newest formed team out of all the participating teams, won the Indonesian qualifier after climbing out of the lower bracket to defeat Joenet, Indonesia's representative last year. The team is lead by veteran RitteR, and the rest of the team members are old-school and accomplished players themselves. |
Startale
 Yong-Kyu 'YK' Park Jeffrey 'Tenbeezy' Yi Noah 'MP' Pyo Yong-Min 'Febby' Kim Tae-Young 'Wangjyu' Kang | Startale is the winner of the first Nexon Sponsorship League. Despite being relatively new, they have had their share of global experience after competing on the Nexon Invitational Super Match, EMS One Fall, and the Fengyun tournament. They have shown potential and is the dark horse of the tournament. They have recently added Febby to the team. |
Venue and Preparations
The Asia will be held at D'Marquee, Downtown East, Singapore. Downtown East is said to be a recreational and entertainment hub, and everyone interested to watch the event are encouraged to drop by to meet your favorite players.
The organizers have already started the preparations as early as Monday, 23 December, to assure the quality of the event set-up. The matches will either be on stage or on the ACG Dota 2 playing area. No one should be complaining about the computers, as the specs [of the computers] which will be used are all very modern and up-to-date. On unforeseen incidents, we were also told that ten computers are on stand-by.
Last year's The Asia was held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Online Spectators
Toby 'TobiWan' Dawson and David 'GoDz' will be the on-site commentators on this tournament. They will be streaming on Rapture Gaming's channel. Aside from them, there are also a good number of online broadcasters across different languages, all to cater the diverse followers of The Asia.
These is the list of the casters, with a flag representing the language they will be casting on:
TobiWan and GoDz
ThePorceleinLily
Xyclopz
PewPew
MeoMeoooooo & Ngay Bao
Lon & TryQ
Jerk
Yota
MermaiD
IronLD
Taeyoon Lee
Puntero & Slon4ik
?
Baozi
You can also watch the games via DotaTV by purchasing the ticket here. However, there are only limited broadcasters slot per game and we still cannot confirm which lanuages will be available on DotaTV.
Other Events
There are scheduled activites like ACG participants versus fans, media interviews and other community events.
Aside from the other titles such as CS:GO, BF4 and Hearthstone being competed upon in the event, there will also be a gaming cosplay competition. Filipino cosplayer Alodia Gosiengfiao will be coming as a special guest and a judge. But why are we all so worked out for for a cosplay? I guess there is something worth looking forward to.
Buckle down however, as upon asking GoDz, we were told that he is still missing a part of the costume. It is a longshot, but we are still hoping for an enchanting cosplay to be delivered with skipping grace.
Valve merchandise will also be sold at 'The Marketplace', which we assume is something similar to The Secret Shop.
GosuGamers covering ACG
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Eric 'ReiNNNN' Khor and Ren 'Pacific.Ren' Vitug will be travelling to Singapore for the event, where they will be joined by local editors Frederick 'winterequinox007' Benjamin and Raphael 'Phase_' Yee. Aside from the usual tournament coverage that GosuGamers regularly brings, we will also publish interviews, make live blogs and provide exclusive photos.
Please do greet us when you chance us on the venues, and I assure you that we would at least try to be friendly. If there are things you wish we could do to make your home experience on following The Asia better, please do let us know as well via a message or on the comments section.
Source: eClub
