This weekend, esports bookmaker 1win’s $100,000 (~£78,500) Dota 2 tournament, the 1win Dota 2 Series, will kick off.
The first matches start on March 16th and run through to March 19th, with several notable teams are scheduled to take part.
The 1win Dota 2 Series was announced on March 12th. The series will see 1win host a number of esports tournaments, with this Dota 2 tournament being the inaugural event in the series.
1win has announced that the tournament will be broadcast on Twitch and YouTube. CIS streams are also available for both platforms. The tournament’s full talent lineup has also been revealed.
In total, eight esports organisations from across Europe are taking part in the tournament, consisting of the following:
- Team Liquid, a major global esports organisation with headquarters in both the US and the Netherlands. Team Liquid’s Dota 2 roster consists of a Swedish core alongside one Pole and one Israeli player.
- MOUZ, a European esports organisation based in Germany that fields a mixed European roster.
- Virtus Pro, an Russian organisation now based in Armenia, which fields a Russian-majority Dota 2 team.
- L1ga Team, a team comprising three Russian players and two Belarusian players.
- PSG.QUEST, a joint-venture team between French football club PSG and Qatari organisation Quest Esports. Its Dota 2 roster also comprises three Russians and two Belarusians.
- Team Spirit, a Belgrade-based Russian organisation featuring a mixed Russian-Ukrainian team.
- Entity, an Indian esports organisation fielding a mixed team of mixed CIS players.
- 1win; last but not least, 1win’s esports arm (which has also competed in Counter-Strike in the past) is fielding its own team in the tournament, made up of five Russian players.
The format will see the eight teams divided into two groups. Matches are scheduled to be played using the GSL system, a form of double-elimination bracket. Essentially, teams will have three attempts to qualify for the next round. If a team loses twice, the organisation is faced with elimination.
The top two teams from each group will qualify for playoffs, with the four teams seeded into a single-elimination format. Matches will be in best-of-three (Bo3) format except the final, which will be a Bo5 series.
The group stage schedule will kick off on March 16th with Group A where 1win faces off against Entity to start the day. That match will be followed by L1ga Team vs Virtus Pro, then Team Liquid vs PSG Quest and finally Team Spirit vs MOUZ.
March 17th will see the teams face off against each other again to determine which two teams advance to the playoff stage. The playoffs take place across March 18th-19th with kickoff scheduled for 3pm CET on Tuesday 19th.
The winner will walk home with $50,000 (~£39,300) of the $100,000 prize pool. Second place will receive $30,000 while third place gets $15,000 and fourth place receives $5,000.
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