The International 8 & a UK Dota 2 Major Announced
On March 15th, Valve announced that The International 8 will be held at Rogers Arena, in Vancouver, Canada for the first time. It will run from Monday, August 20th until Saturday, August 25th. Tickets go on Sale March 23rd. For all the details, read Valve’s official announcement.
Earlier in the week, on March 13th, ESL announced their ESL One Birmingham tournament. It will be the first Dota 2 Major in the UK, and the penultimate event on the Dota 2 Pro Circuit, running from May 23-27th. Tickets have already gone on sale, and reportedly sold out the faster than ESL Dota 2 event ever has. ESL is working with the venue to make additional tickets available.
The Bucharest Major Results
Virtus.pro won their third Major on the Dota 2 Pro Circuit with a 3-0 victory over VGJ.Thunder. With this win, Virtus.pro secured themselves enough qualifying points to lock in a direct invitation to The International 8. VGJ.Thunder advance up the board the sixth place.
Multiple Tournaments On the Go
Two significant tournaments started this week. World Electronic Sports Games 2017 runs from March 13-18th, with a prize pool of US$1,500,000. WESG draws teams from different areas of the world on a national basis. Teams representing Russia and Brazil are in the grand finals. The former is primarily composed of Virtus.pro players, while the latter usually competes as paiN Gaming.
The second tournament of interest this week is GESC: Indonesia, a Minor on the Dota 2 Pro Circuit worth US$300,000 and 300 qualifying points. GESC runs from March 15-18th; the last day of competition will see the semi-finals with best-of-three series featuring Evil Geniuses versus Natus Vincere and VGJ.Thunder versus Infamous. Infamous will be the first South American team to earn qualifying points this season.
Roster Swaps
The last roster lock before The International happened on February 5th, and any roster changes after that point disqualify a team for a direct invite to The International and to the regional qualifiers for The International. Teams will be required to win open qualifier spots, a much longer route.
This week, two teams with Dota 2 Pro Circuit points made roster changes. The first was compLexity Gaming. In a statement released on March 16th, VP and General Manager of compLexity, Kyle “Beef” Bautista, stated that Kyle “melonzz” Freedman had been removed from the team. Bautista spoke at length about Freedman’s commitment to the team, stretching back to 2014, and cited severe personality conflicts as the reason for the decision. No word on who will fill the hole in compLexity’s roster.
OG issued their own statement on March 17th, stating that Roman “Resolut1on” Fomynok was being released. Despite being a well-hyped team roster, OG has failed to live up to expectations in the current season, which many speculate is the reason for the roster change. Current OG coach Sébastien “7ckingMad” Debs will compete with OG temporarily.
To watch GESC: Indonesia finals, at 11:30 pm EST on March 17th tune in to https://www.twitch.tv/GESChampionship . For WESG finals, check out https://www.twitch.tv/wesg_dota2 at 10:00 pm EST on March 17th.
Photo Credit: Valve