Prediction: Teams most likely to advance to Group Stage at Riyadh Masters

The Play-in Stage begins today with twelve teams battling it out for a spot in the Group Stage. Only six will advance. 

The Play-in Stage at Riyadh Masters is set to begin. There is $5,000,000 up for grabs. The stakes are high. Almost half of the competition will be eliminated, the others will advance to the group stage. 

So who is most likely to advance and who is most likely to pack their bags so early in this three-week event?* Let's take a look:

_{^{*disclaimer: This is solely speculation and for fun. No flamerino or requests for compensation on lost bets*}}

Play-in Stage Teams 

Group A

Group A features:

• 
  beastcoast - SA
• Blacklist International - SEA
• Entity - WEU 
• G2 x iG - CN 
• LGD Gaming - CN
• Virtus.pro - EEU 

Of the six teams, beastcoast, Entity, and G2 x iG are all heading to The International 2024. While that should weigh heavily in their favor, the formula and equation for success isn't as straightforward. 

Upsets aside, which seem to always happen in Dota 2, the impact of regional competitiveness and difference of regionalized gameplay culture has a big effect. 

For example; while LGD might not be TI-bound and struggled in their regional qualifiers, there is certainly reason to believe that they can take down beastcoast, beating them with experience, and methodical execution and planning. 

G2 x iG and Entity seem to be a sure favorite in this group though. Between their success in the season and lineups, it would be safe to say they will advance. For the last spot, we are most likely to see it go to either blacklist or LGD. 

Group B

Group B features:

• 
  MOUZ - WEU
• PSG Quest - MENA
• Azure Ray - CN
• Aurora - SEA
• Heroic - SA
• nouns - NA

This group of six looks a lot more competitive. Heroic, nouns, Aurora and Azure Ray are all standing out as the top of the class here. Of these four, Azure Ray is the only one not going to The International but that might be due to Team Zero's big upset. With China being so competitive, Azure Ray is still a solid favorite. Their lineup is fearsome. They participated in all of the big events for the season and narrowly missed out on enough qualifying points for Riyadh Masters. 

nouns is an instant favorite and expected to take one of the slots, even if NA lags behind in almost every aspect of Dota 2 otherwise. 

Aurora and Heroic might be neck-and-neck in terms of which one of these could topple over the other for a spot. Then again, if home-town representation means anything Quest might be able to pull out all the stops and give the locals something to cheer about in groups. It isn't entirely impossible either as they are also on par with Aurora and Heroic. 

Sadly, we don't see as much hope for MOUZ except through some dark horse, entirely plausible underdog storyline. 

For all intents and purposes, we'll look to Azure Ray, nouns, and Aurora as the three moving on. 

Riyadh Masters/ESWC 2024 Play-in Stage

Play-in stage dates: July 4-7

Play-in Stage Format  

• Two groups of six teams each
• Single round-robin
• All matches are Bo2
• Top three teams from each group advance to the group stage
• 4th to 5th place team from each group will be matched
  • Matches are played from opposite groups
    • Winners will advance to group stage
    • Losers are eliminatedPlay-in Stage Groups

Riyadh Masters/ESWC 2024 

Esports World Cup 2024 will feature 19 different competitions, most of them with a million dollars on the line. Dota 2 has the largest prize pool to offer, 5 million dollars, followed by PUBG Mobile with 3.8 million and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang with 3.5 million.

Although this is the largest prize pool of all 19 tournaments at Esports World Cup, the $5,000,000 is just a quarter of last year’s Riyadh Masters edition, which had $15,000,000 to offer.