For those who might have missed the most important news from the past week in competitive Dota 2 scene, here is a short recap.
Click here for results, VODs and all the other information
Known as the last big LAN event before The International, ESL One Frankfurt will return this year on Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt Germany, with the same $250,000 prize pool. The regional qualifiers for the LAN event have already started with the European, American and SEA brackets.
Although we must wait to see who comes through the qualifiers as regional champions, two out of the three directly invited teams have already been announced, namely Alliance and OG.
ESL One Manila to be broadcast on local television
The local non-cable TV5 channel was announced via a press conference as broadcasters of the LAN event via Akyson TV, a subsidiary channel, while the grand finals will be available on TV5 at prime time.
Sylar joins Vici Gaming, the team loses Manila Major rights for regionals
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Left without a team after the Spring Shuffle window and the LGD drama in which he was involved, Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun has joined Vici Gaming, forcing the team to prepare for open qualifiers at the next Major. Sylar will take the carry role from BurNIng, who will move into the offlane, with Bai 'rOtK' Fan switching to position 4 support.
Vici Gaming current roster from position 1 to 5:
Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun
Chen 'Cty' Tianyu
Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei
Bai 'rOtK' Fan
Xu' Hym' Zhi
Newbee executes EHOME in the finals of Epicenter’s Chinese qualifiers
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Four teams were invited to the Chinese regional qualifiers while two more were added from a pre qualifier process. Newbee had a dominant bracket performance, defeating CDEC Gaming, Vici Gaming Reborn and LGD Gaming to reach the grand finals where they faced EHOME today, in what turned out to be quite a one-sided best of five series.
EHOME was one of the first teams on the direct invite list for Epicenter, but the organizers have decided to replace them with Team Liquid in the Spring Shuffle window.
Ayesee returns to the commentary desk with Starladder|i-League Invitational
Greetings and salutations Dota 2 fans, Aaron Ayesee Chambers is back! After an absence of more than a year, he will team up with the personalities from Beyond the Summit to provide the commentary at Kiev CyberSport Arena for Starladder|i-League Invitational.?
Na’Vi and Virtus.Pro last invites for SL|i-League Invitational
The eight final participating teams for Starladder|i-League invitational have been locked in and the LAN event is set to kick off this week, April 14th in Kiev, Ukraine at CyberSport Arena.
Starladder|i-League Invitational participating teams:
Alliance (invited)
OG (invited)
MVP Phoenix (invited)
LGD Gaming (invited)
Virtus.Pro (invited)
Natus Vincere (invited)
Vega Squadron (qualified)
Vici Gaming Reborn (qualified)
Warcraft movie Director to present exclusive footage at Epicenter
Universal Studios and Legendary have partnered with Epicenter to bring a huge surprise to the fans attending the LAN event at Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russia. Exclusive footage of the Warcraft movie, which is based on the Universe that Blizzard Entertainment created more than 10 years ago, will be presented at Epicenter by film director Duncan Jones and one other special guest.
Hitbox.tv and ESL partner up for widespread event coverage
ESL and Hitbox have come to an agreement, giving Hitbox a two year broadcasting contract. This covers all ESL events from DotA 2 and CCS:GO to World of Tanks and Minecraft. The list of games that ESL's Hitbox Channel will be broadcasting is as follows:
- DotA 2
- CS:GO
- CS:GO b
- League of Legends
- Rainbow 6 Siege
- Heroes of the Storm
- Hearthstone
- Starcraft 2
- Minecraft
- Battlefield 4
A new era for syndereN, No Diggity wins Epicenter European qualifiers
Despite a few rookie mistakes from No Diggity, they managed to dominate the new PR roster, and after dropping the third game of the series, they composed themselves and focused on securing the first trip to an event in a very long time for both Era and syndereN.
All four winners of the regional qualifiers will travel to Moscow this May where they will be playing each other in a GSL group format for the two available spots into the LAN playoffs of Epicenter.
Regional qualifiers winners:
compLexity Gaming
Newbee
Fnatic
No Diggity
Directly Invited teams:
Evil Geniuses
Team Secret
OG
Team Liquid
Virtus.Pro
Alliance
