Hot on the heels of the exciting finale of The International 8, fans of the Dota scene have the chance to see what Australia and New Zealand’s teams can do at the ESL ANZ Championship throughout September.
Offering viewers a chance to see some of the area’s less well-known teams in action, and with Aus$10,000 on the line, this tournament will certainly be one to keep an eye on.
Format
The format for this event is quite unusual, as far as DOTA tournaments go. There are only six teams taking part – the top two from Season 1 earlier this year, and the other four entering via open qualifiers.
The six teams face one another in a double round-robin format. Each team plays for five weeks, playing two matches against a particular team every week. The winner of each match receives three points. Whichever two teams have the lowest point at the end of the round-robin will be eliminated. Those who remain will advance to the main event – the tournament finals.
Teams
Athletico Esports earned their position in the event by winning the Season 1 tournament in June this year – a mere three days after the group finalised their first ever Dota 2 team, taking over the team Water during the event itself.
Suffering only a few lost matches along the way, the group were able to beat rival team Natural 9 for the win, taking home their half of the prize pool as a reward. Led by team captain Splicko, the team are here to defend their title, and potentially take home the gold for both seasons of ESL ANZ.
But the runners-up from Season 1 received an automatic invite, too – the more-experienced and established Australian team, Natural 9.
This group have been involved in the South East Asia competitive scene since 2012, and have enjoyed some success, with almost Aus$18,000 in prize pool winnings so far.
Perhaps their greatest feat has been their performance at the AEF Dota 2 League Season 1, where they took all 14 games during the play-offs without sustaining a single loss.
It will be interesting to see if they can manage to take their revenge against Athletico.
The rest of the teams are comparatively minor, with little history behind them, their wins mostly limited to local or otherwise obscure events.
The teams SaveBuyBackPlz, Fox Gaming, ISR.R and iClen made it through each of the open qualifiers – SBB made it into the event first, whilst iClen were the last to qualify.
These teams may not have any national successes to boast about, but they’re certainly not to be overlooked. iClen have been established for more than five years, and Fox Gaming are the latest incarnation of Australian pro team Trident. Whether any of these teams will be able to overcome last year’s winners, though, is another question entirely.
Week three matches
In the first two weeks of the season, the matches have been quite predictable, with no surprises or twists along the way.
Athletico and N9 lead the way undefeated, having crushed their opponents in every game so far, securing themselves 12 points each. It’s clear to see that last year’s top two are the favourites for this event.
Likewise, iClen and SBB have won every match that wasn’t against Athletico or N9, giving them six points and an even 2-2 win-loss ratio. Things seem bleak for ISR.R and Fox Gaming, unable to earn any wins at all, landing them firmly at the bottom of the leaderboard.
With this pecking order already established, the week-three matches – which begin on Monday – seem like they won’t be too hard to anticipate.
iClen face Athletico and the past two weeks suggest a clean sweep for Athletico. SBBS going up against Fox Gaming may be harder to predict – Fox have thus far only gone up against the two giants of the tournament. They may be able to scrape out a win or two against a less-dominant team, though that would still leave them in a precarious position, at the very least tied for last. Lastly, N9 will be up against ISR.R – it seems hopeless for the latter. It’s hard to imagine that the more-established team would have much difficulty racking up another six points.
