This Week In eSports Betting: Valve Announces The Next Dota 2 Major
Published: Nov 25, 2015 - Last Updated: Jul 14, 2023
We already knew that Valve had lined up three tournaments to stand alongside The International as the pinnacle of DOTA 2 gaming. The first of these was the Frankfurt Major, which saw something of a shock as European qualifiers OG bounce back from losing two of their three group games to win the Grand Final.
They certainly took the long and tortuous route to the final having to beat Fnatic, Mineski, Virtus.pro, CDEC Gaming, EHOME.cn and Evil Geniuses just to reach the Grand Final. This having already played three games during the league phase, too.
There OG then defeated the favourites Team Secret 3-1 to take home the $1,100,000 first prize.
Shortly after events came to a close in Frankfurt, Valve announced that the second in their three Major series of events to sit alongside The International would be contested between March 2nd and March 6th 2016 at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai, in what is known as the Shanghai Major.
There are no details as yet on the size of the prize pool, although it seems somewhat reasonable to assume that a figure around the $3m available for the Frankfurt Major will be on the cards.
Experts are predicting that this event could replace the Dota Asia Championship. This original event was one of the tournaments that inspired the creation of The Majors series and it would seem unusual to have two championships for the same region.
There’s still no news on where the third tournament in the Major series will take place, though if Frankfurt is any indication, an announcement about that venue will likely be made just after the final games at the Shanghai Major in March.
ASUS ROG Dream League Season 4 Playoffs kick off in Sweden
Speaking of Dota 2 tournaments, the playoffs of the ASUS ROG Dream League Season 4 will be played out over the coming weekend with the eight remaining teams in the competition battling it out for the lion’s share of the $150,000 prize pool.
The finalists were decided after an online qualifier (which saw two teams qualify for the league section) and then an online league section which saw OG come out on top of the table with 10 wins and Alliance second on nine, that put both teams through into the Final Bracket.
Four other teams, Vega Squadron, Monkey Freedom Fighters, 4 Clover & Lepricon and Team Empire will enter the Round of 6 bracket with the winners of both the winners and losers bracket qualifying for the Final Bracket.
These two teams will join Alliance and OG in the final bracket and play off (with losers entering the loser bracket) until two teams remain for the Best of Five Grand Final on Sunday 28th November.
Following their success in Frankfurt, OG have been anointed by the eSports betting sites as the odds on 8/11 favourites to win the Playoffs this weekend with Alliance and Vega Squadron, both 7/2 shots.
The other three teams remaining are considerably longer odds with Team Empire around 11/1, 4 Clover and Lepricon 14/1 and Monkey Freedom Fighters around 22/1 (those prices courtesy of Bet365 Sports).
StarCraft 2 punters look to Sweden for DreamHack ROCCAT Legacy of the Void Championship
Sweden certainly seems to be the centre of the eSports betting universe this week given that the country is hosting several major eSports tournaments across a number of different eSports platforms. The DreamHack ROCCAT Legacy of the Void tournament takes place in Jonkoping from the 26th until the 29th November with $50,000 prize money up for grabs.
This is an individual event which will see 24 of the top Legacy of the Void patch players facing off against each other firstly in Groups and then secondly via a playoff system to decide who is the overall champion and which other players make up the top four.
Unlike some other events, which are dominated by South Korean players, this event has a more intenational flavour with only four South Korean players qualifying and other players competing from a wide range of countries including Russia, France, Spain, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, Poland and Italy.
The first day of action will see the Group phase completed with each of the four groups consisting of six different players. The winner of each Group will enter the Winners Round to face another group winner before the winner final decides who is the Grand Finalist.
The second and third place teams in each group, along with the losers from the Winners Round, will enter the Losers Round at various stages, with the one team making it through the Losers Round final, also claiming a Grand Final spot.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the four South Korean finalists dominate the betting for the event with Solar a 5/2 favourite, PartinG is a 9/2 shot, TY an 11/2 and Bomber a 13/2 shot. The first non-Korean at the top of the betting is French player Lilbow who is a 9-1 shot.
CS:GO FACEIT 2015 Stage 3 Finals See Eight Top Teams Battle It Out
See if you can guess where the FACEIT 2015 Stage 3 finals for Counter Strike: Global Offensive players is going to take place, if you said Sweden then you are bang on the money.
In this $250,000 premier tournament, eight of the best CS:GO teams in the world will compete for the $100,000 first prize, with $50,000 for the runner up and $25,000 apiece for the two teams finishing 3rd and 4th in the event.
The action gets under way on Thursday 26th November in Jonkoping with the Group Stage. The eight teams have been drawn into two groups and the top two teams in each group only will qualify for the play off stages, which comprise of a semi final and a final.
The teams have been drawn into the following groups:
- Group A – Virtus.pro, Team Liquid, Legacy eSports, Team SoloMid
- Group B – Team EnVyUs, Luminosity Gaming, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic
First up in the Group A is the match between Virtus Pro and Legacy eSports followed by Team SoloMid taking on Team Liquid. In Group B, Team EnVyUs face off against Ninjas in Pyjamas while Fnatic tackle Luminosity Gaming in their opener.
Those matches will be played, along with another game from each group on the 26th November, with the four remaining group games taking place on the 27th November. The semis and the final will take place on the 28th November.
The bookies have Team EnVyUs as the 3/1 favourites just ahead of Fnatic, Team Solomid and Virtus Pro all of whom are priced at 7/2. Ninjas in Pyjamas are 6/1 shots with Team Liquid a 10/1 chance. The outsiders are Team Luminosity at 20/1 and Legacy who are the 25/1 outside bet.
Since: August 10, 2015
