Everything you need to know before The Summit 5
With the excitement of the Manila Major and ESL One Frankfurt still fresh, the next edition of The Summit promises equally captivating Dota 2 action. The tournament is shaping up as a good opportunity for players and fans alike to warm up for the upcoming International in August.
Started by media company Beyond the Summit in 2014, the fifth edition of The Summit will again be held in a house in Los Angeles from 13-17 July. The tournament format was borrowed from Star Craft’s HomeStory Cup and what makes it unique is the casual party atmosphere – both players and casters are casting and can leave or join the casting point at any time. Those who are not currently involved in playing can usually be found crashing on the couch, eating in the kitchen or playing some other video games in the living room. There is plenty of entertaining interviewing going on as well.
Despite this casual atmosphere, the players will receive enough motivation through a total base prize pool of $100,000. The fans will get their chance to contribute to this pot through crowdfunding. The organizers have prepared a vast array of opportunities for contribution, ranging from a compendium ticket to all-star match player voting, as well as various forms of merchandise. Currently, the prize pool has not increased significantly (it’s now at $101,012), but with TI 6 (which relies heavily on crowdfunding) approaching, this is not a huge surprise.
There are a total of eight teams participating – three invitees, four qualifiers and one team that was chosen by the fans through the Redemption Vote system.
The tournament format has not been announced yet, but the organizers have used various formats in the past including round robin, a group stage and direct elimination. The last edition featured a direct elimination phase starting with a quarterfinal stage. Each match was played in a best-of-three format, with the losers having a second chance in the lower bracket and the winners advancing to the semis. Similarly, two teams from the semifinals would advance to the winners’ bracket final, while the losers would drop into the second round of the lower bracket. The team that managed to overcome their opponent in the winners’ bracket final advanced to the Grand Finals, while the loser still had a chance to reach the big game by dropping to the lower bracket final, the winner of which advanced to the Grand Finals.
It was not surprising that the two best teams at present, OG and Team Liquid, received direct invitations to The Summit 5. OG seem a step ahead of every other team right now and are aiming to win their third consecutive Premier tournament after The Manila Major and ESL One Frankfurt. On the other hand, Team Liquid lost their last two clashes with OG, including in the Manila Major final, and will be looking for revenge.
Natus Vincere are the other invited outfit. This is well-deserved because they are the strongest CIS team at present. Dendi and co lost heavily to OG in the final of ESL in Frankfurt though and will be on the hunt for revenge too.
The European team that made it through the qualifiers were Ad Finem, who are one of the up-and-coming young teams trying to make an impact at the top level. The Greeks were reinstated after losing the Grand Finals of the European Qualifiers to Virtus.Pro, who were caught using a player not on their roster and were subsequently disqualified.
The Americas representative will be DC, who will be looking to build on their Manila Major performance (9-12th), where they impressed in the group stage, but were eliminated rather early in the main event. There is no surprise from the SEA region as Fnatic come into the tournament after a dominating 3-0 win over MVP Phoenix in the Qualifiers. Meanwhile, a lot more was expected from Wings Gaming during the Manila Major (13-16th), but the Chinese team showed stability in the Qualifiers and will be looking to redeem themselves on this stage.
Finally, the fans chose FDL to be the last team to take part in The Summit 5. It will be a first Premier tournament appearance for the young team that was formed at the end of April.
Although a Premier tier tournament, the different structure and the relatively lower prize pool make it easier for teams to experiment and try out new things more freely than in the higher stakes tournaments.
Given that TI 6 is only a month away, this is a great opportunity for teams to polish their strategies and learn a thing or two about their opponents’ current playstyle so expect plenty of surprises and competitive action in California.
