Nanyang Dota 2 Championship Season 2 preview
The second edition of Nanyang Dota 2 will take place this week in Shanghai, running from 6-10 July. It is one of the biggest SEA tournaments and is organized by KeyTV (ex-LGDTV).
Unlike last year, there will be eight teams participating – four invitees and four teams that qualified through one of the four major regional qualifiers.
Due to various issues, three of the invitees cannot attend the tournament.
Fnatic will not be able to attend as the SEA invite due to visa issues associated with Philippines player DJ so LGD were invited in their place.
Similarly, the Americas invite EG withdrew because of problems with SumaiL’s visa.
The European invitee Team Secret did not have such problems, but nevertheless decided to withdraw from the tournament.
With slots to fill just before the start of the competition, the organizers decided that the second and the third placed teams from the Chinese Qualifiers will take the two remaining spots.
The current participants are therefore:
- Newbee – Chinese invite
- LGD – substitutes for SEA invite Fnatic
- Wings Gaming – Chinese Qualifier winner
- Team Empire – European Qualifier winner
- Digital Chaos – American Qualifier winner
- WarriorsGaming.Unity – SEA Qualifier winner
The last two spots will be decided between CDEC Youth, Newbee Young and VG.Reborn. The winner of the match between CDEC Youth and Newbee Young will determine the first team that will advance to the main event, while VG.Reborn will face the loser of this clash for the other spot in Shanghai.
The group format has not been announced yet, but last year the teams were divided into two groups of five teams each. Each team faced the other teams in their group in a best-of-two round-robin format. A win was awarded with 3 points, a draw with 1 point and a loss with 0 points. The first two teams from each group advanced to the winners’ bracket, where the first-placed team from Group A faced the second-placed from Group B and vice versa. Meanwhile, the third-placed team from Group A challenged the fourth from Group B and vice versa in the lower bracket. The bottom teams from each group were eliminated from the tournament.
The semifinals and the subsequent winner’s bracket finals were played over best-of-three games and determined the first grand finalist. As usual, the lower bracket path to the final was harder – the first two rounds were played in best-of-one formats and the other two in a best-of-three format. The Grand Finals were played in a best-of-five format.
The current prize pool is $200,000, but 25% of the ticket sales will be added to it. Not every participant will receive a piece of the pie as the 7th and 8th placed teams will miss out. The prize distribution will be as follows:
- 1st place: $100,000 + 12% of ticket sales
- 2nd place: $50,000 + 6% of ticket sales
- 3rd place: $25,000 + 3% of ticket sales
- 4th place: $10,000 + 2% of ticket sales
- 5th-6th place: $7,500 + 1% of ticket sales
With top Western teams absent, the competition will lose some of its charm, but the abundance of quality in the Chinese Dota scene will surely be able to compensate for that.
