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Hello Dota 2 players! In today’s piece, we are going to go over analyzing and discussing one more minor of the start of 2017’s Dota 2 competitive season. October has many events for the fans to watch and cheer for their favorite teams, with 3 minors and 1 major happening, so stay tuned for our next articles and don’t miss out on these great competitions featuring many fan favorites and world-class professionals.
Tournament Information
The PGL Open will take place on a LAN setting in Bucharest, capital and biggest city of Romania. It’s the very first Dota 2 tournament of this caliber to be held in the country, that isn’t very well known for its Electronic Sports impact – something that might change after this event.
The games kick off on October 19th, and the finals are scheduled to be played on October 22nd, with 8 crews fighting for the victory and the largest chunk of the prize money and DPCs (Dota Pro Circuit Points).
Event Prize Pool
The purse for this battle is similar to all the other tourneys classified as minors by Valve, $300.000 USD awarded to the 8 organizations participating, as per below:
The contest will also distribute Dota Pro Circuit points that might be seen as more valuable than the cash reward in the eyes of many players. That’s because the invites for the next TI (International 8 in 2018) will be based on the new points ranking created by Valve, awarding players and teams for their consistent performances throughout the entire year. The point distribution is as follows:
Because of this distribution, guys will try very hard to at least finish on the 4th place to guarantee a nice head start to the new Dota season – no one wants to be left behind in the race for TI 8.
Competition Participants
The event will be attended by 8 teams: 2 of them received direct invites and other 6 earned their spot through qualis, one from each main Dota 2 region (Europe, CIS, North America, South America, China, Southeast Asia).
The invited orgs are:
And the qualified crews are:
If you’ve been up to date on our articles, you’ll notice that some of the squads that qualified for this event are the same that qualified for the first minor that will happen earlier in October. Team Secret, Natus Vincere and Mineski all won 2 out of 2 qualifiers that happened at the start of the season the guaranteed spots in the first two minors of the year – already quite a nice feat, showing consistency and strength throughout many matches. PGL Open will feature two different phases of play – first, the crews will be randomly divided into 2 groups of 4 and play against each other in best of 3’s. The 2 top from each group will advance to the playoff phase while the bottom 2 get eliminated from the tournament (earning a bit of the prize pool but no Pro Circuit points). After the group stage is over, the playoffs will be played in Best of 3’s – both the semi finals and the grand finals – in single elimination, whoever loses a series is out. EG come into this tournament with a lot to prove. After a failed run on The International 7 in many people’s eyes (including their own) and a roster change (Fear joined and zai left), EG started the season failing to qualify for the first minor, StarLadder i-League. With a huge fanbase and still a very skilled squad, Evil Geniuses must aim for the trophy here, to further cement their place as a tier 1 team with the potential to defeat anyone that they have to play against. They’re the favorites alongside LGD to go very deep in this event. LGD faces the same challenge as EG. They walk into this event as one of the favorites, but they also have to prove their worth, having failed to qualify for the other minors that are going to take place in October. Also similar to EG, the LGD roster went through one change – eLeven left the team and fy, a fan favorite and considered by many as one of the most skilled players in the scene. Their squad now has even more potential to reach deep stages in every event they attend, and you can bet they want to start off the season with a strong showing in Romania. The South Korean guys are finally back together! After a very exciting international debut at a previous TI (and a disband shortly after), the players are back together under the same organization for one more competitive season. You can expect a very aggressive play, with fast paced picks and coordination, looking to take early control of the game and ride it out for fast and brutal wins. Although as an underdog, Immortals can definitely pull off a playoff spot if the other teams don’t prepare for their style of play. This force was formed after TI, being a mix of players from 2 of the biggest organizations in the South American region: the Brazilian SG eSports and the Peruvian Infamous. It is yet to be seen how the crew chemistry works within the team, as 2 players speak Portuguese and 3 players speak Spanish. This is the only event they managed to earn a spot so far, and they come in as one of the heaviest underdogs, with a great probability that they’ll end up in the last place of their group. Let’s hope they show up with some good strategies and are able to bring some surprises to catch their opponents off guard. Team Secret has qualified for the 2 minors and the 1 major in October. They won all the qualifiers they played in, defeating the very fierce opposition. Because of that, they have great chances at taking this trophy home. They’re the only team with squad changes to have shown strong plays in a competitive setting, showing that their coordination is already on point. Watch out for YapzOr on the 4th position – he’s one of the few players in the world that can end up carrying the game from a support position. His impact on the matches is something out of this world, especially with Rubick. Is the legendary Na’vi finally back? With this new squad (with Dendi as the main star, as always), the crew has managed to win 2 minor qualifiers, and almost grabbed a spot at the major as well (they lost in the semi finals). Most fans eagerly waited for the day Na’vi would rise again and challenge the top teams – right now the season looks promising for them, but they still need some solid performances on LAN events to be considered a tier 1 force in the world. As usual, the Southeast Asia and the South America qualifier guys are the underdogs for these global events. Both regions are weaker in comparison to the others (and good SEA players have left for foreign teams instead of forming their own in the region), so it is hard to expect them to challenge for titles. With a style and metagame completely different from other squads, Mineski can pull some upsets, but I wouldn’t expect it at a high probability – they will most likely get eliminated in the group stages. The team that wins the Chinese qualifier is always a huge threat to all the other squads in the event. That’s because the region has proven to be the strongest one as of now, with 4 crews in the top 6 of this year’s International. VGJ has the legendary Sylar as their carry with rOtk as the coach – two of the most experienced personalities in the entire Dota scene – This is one advantage they have over most of the other teams, let’s wait and see what they make of it. We hope you enjoyed this preview! Keep yourself up to date during the entire Dota 2 comp Season by following our site – this year is packed with a bunch of events and we are going to try to cover all of them for you! Until the next one! Good luck!Tournament structure
Dota 2 PGL Open Betting Tips
Conclusion
