WePlay Dota 2 League Season 3 – What you need to know about the final
The WePlay Dota 2 League Season 3 starts on 28th April in Kiev, with an initial $200,000 prize pool up for grabs and the tournament winner taking home $100,000.
Eight teams will be competing in the finals, with four present through direct invite, while the other four qualified via online league play. As such, several of the teams present in the finals are from the usual pool of elite squads, with a number of underdogs having earned their spot at the tournament to compete with them. Dota 2 has been unpredictable so far in 2016 and the best teams will want to play to their highest standard in order to secure victory.
The tournament format is the popular GSL or Double Elimination, beginning with a Group Stage where teams will face off to decide who goes into the Winners’ and Losers’ Brackets of the play-offs. All matches are due to be best-of-three, except the Grand Finals, which will be best-of-five.
Let’s take a look at the teams participating:
Group A
The Elite Wolves are the team who fought their way through the American qualifying league, with all of their players hailing from Peru. So far the side have largely been confined to playing at regional tournaments and they will relish the opportunity to strut their stuff on the international stage. Nonetheless, they will be heavy underdogs in every match they play.
Natus Vincere (Na’Vi) are one of three home sides. They received a direct invite to the tournament and most memorably won the International back in 2011. While they’re no longer the best team in the world, they are no slouches either and performing in front of a passionate home crowd might just give them the boost they need to return to their former glory.
Russian side Team Empire come into WePlay off the back of a relatively successful ESL One tournament in Manila, where they managed to take 3rd-4th place, losing out to runners-up Team Liquid in the semi-finals. Prior to that they have had a mixed 2016, with some poor performances seeing them knocked out in qualifiers and tournaments they would have hoped to have progressed in. Consequently, it’s difficult to tell which Team Empire will turn up to WePlay Season 3.
Team Spirit are another Ukrainian team who will hope to get the crowd behind them for WePlay. While they don’t quite have the storied success of Na’Vi, they’re something of a nearly team and this is by no means their first experience at a major tournament, having qualified for the Shanghai Major back in March.
Predictions:
Na’Vi and Team Empire to progress into the Winners’ Bracket.
Group B
Vega Squadron are another team made up of mostly Ukrainian players and were the victors of the Eastern Europe Qualifying process, where they finished above both Na’Vi and Team Spirit. Their breakthrough success came in October 2015 when they won ESL One in New York. Since then they have failed to set the international scene alight, but their strong showing in qualifying will give them hope heading into WePlay Season 3.
MVP Phoenix hail from South Korea and will be looking to continue their momentum off the back of a successful showing in the Dota Pit League Season 4 back in March, where they emerged victorious after beating Evil Geniuses in the final. On paper MVP Phoenix should make their way into the Winners’ Bracket, with EG perhaps their major competition in Group B.
Normally we would consider a side like Evil Geniuses with such consistent form as the favourites going into WePlay and after a string of 2nd place finishes in the Premier tournaments of 2016, they’ll be desperate for victory. However, the North American side will be wary of fellow Group B members MVP Phoenix, who destroyed them back in March at the Dota Pit League final, taking them down in a clean 3-0 sweep.
Ad Finem are a slight oddity here, called into WePlay to replace the Fnatic side who came first in the SEA qualifiers. What makes this particularly strange is that Ad Finem hail from Greece, rather than the SEA region and were invited after 2nd place side Mineski had to reject the invitation due to visa issues. Ad Finem were the defeated finalists in the European qualifiers and we expect this tournament to be a test of their credentials on the international stage.
Predictions
MVP Phoenix and EG to make it into the Winners’ Bracket.
Summary
Evil Geniuses and MVP Phoenix may start out in the same group, but it would certainly be no surprise to see both sides progressing all the way to the final. On the other hand, the home crowd advantage will be in full effect in Kiev and Team Spirit, Vega Squadron and Na’Vi are all capable teams on their day. We’d hope to see at least one of the three stepping up to give home supporters something to shout about.
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