Hello everyone, and welcome to another weekly Dota 2 article. As always, we will explore the latest news and developments that the week has to offer, so you can keep up to date with all the information being released in the professional scene! Your time is valuable, so without further ado, let’s get started.
DAC 2017
The first item on our list of things to cover is the DAC 2017. This exciting tournament featuring many of the top teams from around Asia. It is the biggest competition before the Kiev major in late April, and as much of the top talent in Dota 2 is from Asia, a strong performance in the Asia Championship can give you a momentum and confidence boost. Invictus Gaming were able to easily take home the title of DAC 2017 champions by absolutely destroying a tier one team in OG. Not only did they win, they didn’t drop a single map to OG by taking the series in three straight victories.
Another benefit to this victory is that OG is considered one of the top teams in Dota 2, and Invictus Gaming is almost guaranteed a direct invite to The International 2017 because of this victory. The Chinese scene was struggling for a while, and many thought that the talent pool in China was lacking. All this talk has been proven useless with three of the top four spots in the DAC being occupied by Chinese squads. Expect a strong Chinese presence in upcoming tournaments as they battle for dominance with other crews.
Another unexpected consequence of the Asian Championship was that it highlighted the fact that teams like Wings Gaming and Evil Geniuses are not unbeatable. Wings Gaming won The International 6 and are the current defending champions of the esteemed title while Evil Geniuses won the tournament the year before Wings Gaming did. Both these crews struggled in the DAC however and will look to forget their performance.
Evil Geniuses looked good at the beginning but ended up placing sixth, which is a suboptimal performance for a tier one team. Wings Gaming did even worse as they were the second team to be eliminated and have a terrible blemish on their record. While these squads are still elite and will have no troubles rebounding from this, the losses they suffered will provide hope to newer teams that look to dominate Dota 2.
Dreamleague
The Dreamleague qualifiers recently ended and the squads that will attend the seventh season of the competition have been determined. The ever popular Cloud9 was forced to forfeit their spot due to a scheduling conflict with the ZOTAC cup, but there were plenty of other talented crews to take their spot.
The European closed qualifier yielded Vega Squadron and Empire, while Onyx took the lone North American spot. These teams are eager to prove themselves, and the Dreamleague is the perfect place for that. Onyx recently surprised many people by qualifying for the Kiev major, so you can look forward to a sneak peek at North America’s most recent attempt at a competitive international team.
ChuaN
The Chinese scene has already been discussed quite a bit this week, but I must talk about the roster changes that took place after the DAC. Veteran ChuaN, who had taken a break from the competitive scene after The International 6 is back, and this time he is on the Vici Gaming roster. Vici Gaming has struggled lately, and many hope this mixup will lead success for both ChuaN and Vici.
7.05 Patch
Another Dota 2 patch was released, and patch 7.05 offers many exciting new changes. After a major LAN, the most popular heroes are usually nerfed in an attempt to keep the game balanced. Sure enough, soon after the Asian Championship, the newest patch nerfs the most popular heroes in the DAC 2017. The characters that were nerfed are Lina, Alchemist, Lifestealer, Magnus, and Monkey King.
Indian pro scene
As many of you know, Indians in the pro scene are basically nonexistent. Well, the COBX Indian eSports championship is trying to change this. With a prize pool of five hundred thousand Indian rupees, they hope to help grow the pro scene. The prize pool only amounts to about seventy five hundred US dollars, but it will attract enough users to hopefully advance India’s attempt to produce a decent Dota 2 scene. The qualifiers start in late April and are open to anyone who is of Indian nationality and residence. The tournament will be streamed live on youtube.
Moonduck TV
Our final story this week is about Moonduck TV adding a couple of new personalities to their team. Shaneomad and Brax have both joined the studio in their attempt to produce quality content. The community reacted well to the duo so far, and many hope that the two personalities can make Dota 2 more entertaining. Brax is the more experienced of the two, and he brings in a unique skillset of both experience and of knowledge on the technical side of the game. Brax, the former professional player is the perfect match for Shane, the funny and witty caster. Together they can play off of each other almost perfectly and cast pro matches like never before. Look forward to this dynamic casting duo in the future.
Thanks for reading this weekly Dota 2 news article. I hope the content in this article, as well as my analysis, was enjoyable. Look for future articles, and I will see you next time! Good luck!
