The Pre-Tournament Favourites For Dota 2’s The International 2016 This Week In Esports Betting
[toc]It offers the biggest ever prize pool in the history of competitive esports, with currently $18,778.391 up for grabs between the 16 teams that have qualified.Perhaps more motivational is the fact that the winning team of The International 2016 will go down in history as the first mega-prize winners in esports history and it all kicks off next week on the 3rd August in Seattle, Washington.
Over the past few months, a total of twelve qualifiers have joined the six pre-invited teams to the event, which promises to be one of the esports gaming and esports betting highlights of the summer.
Looking ahead to The International
The sixteen Dota 2 teams participating in the tournament for a chance at immortality are as follows:
Invited teams
- OG
- Team Liquid
- Newbee*
- LGD Gaming
- MVP Phoenix
- Natus Vincere*
Qualifiers
- Evil Geniuses*
- Wings Gaming
- Team Secret
- TnC Gaming
- Digital Chaos
- Vici Gaming Reborn
- Alliance*
- Fnatic
Wild card qualifiers
- compLexity Gaming
- EHOME
- Escape Gaming
- Execration
*Denotes a previous winner of the event.
The tournament begins with an initial Wild Card stage. Here the four teams in the Wild Card qualifiers will compete against each other to earn a place in the Group Stage. Two of the four Wild Card qualifiers will make it through this initial opening phase and take their place alongside the 14 other teams that have already been pre-seeded in the group stage.
In the Group Stage, the teams will be drawn into one of two groups, Group A and Group B, with eight teams in each group. The top four teams in each group will make it through into the upper bracket of the Main Event section of the tournament following the group phase.
The bottom four teams will progress into the bottom bracket of the Main Event.
In the Group phase, teams play over a best of two format with three points awarded for a win, one point for a draw and zero points for a loss. Each team will play the other team in their group once over the Group Stage to decide their final positions in the league table.
In the Main Event section of the competition, the Upper Bracket will be a straight knockout with a best of three format deciding the winner of each match up. The winners of the Round 1 in the Upper Bracket will progress into the Semi Finals (Round 2) and then the Upper Bracket Final.
The winner of this then progresses into the Grand Final.
The eight teams that qualify for the Lower Bracket will face off in the Lower Bracket Round 1 before the winners of those ties face the losers of the Upper Bracket Round one in the Lower Bracket Round 2. The four winners of this game will then face each other in the Lower Bracket Round 3, before the winners take on the two losers of the Upper Bracket Semi Final in the Lower Bracket Round 4.
The two winners of Round 4, then face off in Lower Bracket Round 5, with the winning team taking on the loser of the Upper Bracket Final in the Lower Bracket Final. The eventual winner of this tie will be the team that makes it through to the Grand Final.
All matches are best of three in both Upper and Lower Brackets with the exception of the Grand Final, which will be played over a best of five format.
Previous winners
The International has been held every year since 2011 and the previous winners of the competition are as follows:
- The International 2011 – Natus Vincere
- The International 2012 – Invictus Gaming
- The International 2013 – Alliance
- The International 2014 – Newbee
- The International 2015 – Evil Geniuses
In the best of the pre-tournament esports betting at Bet365 Esports, you can back which team will win the competition outright, with OG the current 5/2 esports betting odds favourites ahead of Team Liquid (9/2) and Wings Gaming and Newbee (6/1). Rank outsiders are compLexity Gaming , Escape Gaming (both 300/1), TnC (400/1) and Execration are the 2000/1 outsiders.
The International 2016 gets under way on Wednesday 3rd August with the initial Wild Card stage and will continue for ten days, coming to a close with the Grand Final, to be held on Saturday 13th August.
CS:GO ELEAGUE Season 2 reaches its climax this weekend
The first esports tournament ever to be shown live on cable television in the United States over the past few weeks, the CS:GO ELEAGUE Season 1 has proven to be as big a hit in its first 
season as its organisers could have hoped for.
After weeks of tough gaming, the results of last week’s playoff quarterfinals are in and the makeup of this weekend’s semi finals are known.
Fnatic claimed the first place in the semi final with a 2-0 win over Team EnVyUs and they will face off against Natus Vincere who defeated Cloud9 2-1 in the second quarter final.
The second semi final saw something of a surprise with the two last chance bracket qualifiers, mousesports and Virtus.pro coming through their clashes against Astralia and Ninjas in Pyjamas respectively, both by 2-0 scorelines.
That means Friday night’s semi final line up pits Fnatic versus Natus Vincere and mousesports versus Virtus.pro with the two winners of these clashes going on to compete in Saturday’s live final.
With a prize pool up for grabs of $390,000 for the winning team, $140,000 for second place and $60,000 apiece for the two losing semi finalists, there is plenty of financial incentive for the teams to try and complete the dream of becoming the ELEAGUE’s inaugural winner.
The bookmakers Bet365 Sport have installed Fnatic as the 5/4 favourites to win the event with Virtus.pro a 5/2 shot. Natus Vincere are 3/1 to win, while mousesports are the 7/1 outsiders. You can also bet on which team will be the winner of the two semi final matches with Fnatic and Virtus.pro both strongly fancied here at 4/9 apiece, while Natus Vincere and mousesports are 13/8 to win their semi final match up.
You can enjoy plenty of other CS:GO gambling on this big televised event at Bet365 Sports over the weekend including betting on the final which takes place on Saturday.
Since: August 10, 2015
