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Welcome, Dota 2 fans! In today’s article, we are going to take a look at another event taking place in October, although this one isn’t considered a Minor by Valve and has a slightly lower prize pool (but still very significant to the teams in the region). The contest we’re going to discuss and make betting tips for is The Major League, a 3-day tournament that will take place in Iskandar Puteri, a city in Malaysia.
The matches will be played in a LAN setting in front a big crowd (at EduCity Sports Arena) starting October 20th and ending on October 22nd. All viewers will be able to watch all the matches via Twitch.tv broadcast in English (and a few other languages as well).
Tournament Info
The prize reward for this event is roughly $70.000 USD (converting from the regional currency), divided by the 8 attending teams – it is expected that the winning crew takes home at least 40% of the total prize pool.
The competition is being organized by The Livescape Group and Beatnation, and the main sponsor is going to be Celcom, a local TeleCom Company.
Attending Teams
The tournament will be attended by the best Southeast Asia organizations, together with a couple Chinese squads. 7 crews were directly invited and one team is going to have to fight for their spot through a Malaysian only qualifier.
This qualifier is going to be held in the upcoming days in LANs all around Malaysia, giving an opportunity for the local guys to compete in a big event with nice prizes.
IG is a Chinese organization. Nowadays they have two Dota 2 roster’s, with Vitality being the weaker and more experimental one. They went through 2 roster changes after The International 7 – Flyby and Srf joined in the places of Paparazi and InJuly.
This is going to be the first competition for the organization with these 5 players together, so their team skill is still unknown to everyone. Despite this fact, IG VItality is one of the favorites to take home the winning trophy – For this reason, if you want to bet on this event, I would consider favoring IG alongside one or two other squads in their respective matches, as they are probably more skilled and more prepared than the rest of the Southeast Asia squads.
WG Unity is a very international crew competing in the SEA region. They have players from Malaysia, Singapore, Jordan and Australia. This roster was formed recently, at the end of August / start of September, so there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the org.
Meracle is the one to keep your eyes on for this crew. He’s a fan favorite in the region and widely considered one of the best position #4s. You can expect some big plays from him.
As for betting tips, I’m putting WG Unity as a middle of the pack team, with great chances of reaching the semi-finals, so they might be a good bet for group stage matches or early playoffs.
Fnatic is a SEA organization but the roster they picked up after the previous TI has one Canadian and two Swedish players in it. They have a very strong squad capable of dominating the region – but the main doubt is if they can stick together long enough to improve chemistry and work out their weaknesses, seeing as the they have EternalEnvy as the captain, and he has jumped between many teams and organizations in the past.
Fnatic is arguably the strongest force in this LAN, so they are a good team to bet on if you’re going to gamble. If I had to pick two finalists, they would be one of them.
Execration is a very well known org from the Philippines, having already played in previous Internationals and other global tournaments. For the 2017 – 2018 competitive season, they have an almost entirely new squad, with the exception of Kimo, the captain who joined way back in 2014 and has been the team leader ever since. 4 of them played TI 7 under Exec’s banner, so that gives them a big advantage over newly formed crews.
Considering that they got to TI by the SEA qualifier, it’s safe to say they are a threat to any squad in the region and can potentially take down anyone – so don’t count them out. I think Exec might grab at least a top 4 finish in this event, so bet accordingly.
Team EVOS is a Dota 2 organization based in Indonesia, and all its players are from the country. Right now, the squad only has 4 guys, with the 5th one to be announced in the near future – also probably a gamer from Indonesia.
EVOS is one of the underdogs for this event, so i recommend betting against them (especially if they’re up against Fnatic, iG or EHOME), and they will probably be the first ones to be eliminated. The players are rather unknown and have never accomplished much outside of their country, not even in the SEA region.
Ehome is the second Chinese force attending the competition. The organization is one of the biggest in China, with many trophies in their belt through all the years. The squad has 2 TI winners in it (faith_bian and y`) alongside the legendary mid player Cty. They failed to qualify for this year’s International – not because they lacked player or team skill, but because the CN qualifiers were insanely stacked and they weren’t on a good day.
For this event though, they’re coming for the victory. As I said earlier about Fnatic, if I had to pick the finalists, Ehome would be the one playing against EternalEnvy’s crew. And I would bet on Ehome winning it all, that’s how strong their guys are right now.
The 7th attending team is formed by 4 pros from the Philippines and Jeyo, a very well known player for the western viewers, as he’s from Canada and has played on many top orgs already throughout his Dota 2 career.
The roster currently trains in Bangkok, Thailand and as one of the underdogs in this contest, I feel like reaching the top 4 would be a very big accomplishment for the players and the organization, as they try to establish themselves as a force in the region.
Conclusion
This is going to be a very interesting event, because we don’t get to watch many SEA only series like these – their metagame is very aggressive and fun to watch, so we should be in for a good time!
Thanks for reading and keep checking our site for more Dota 2 coverage in the future! Good luck!
