Two weeks into the competition, Dota 2 League Western Challenge has been a mesmerizing event filled with intense and exciting battles so far.
Dota 2 League Western Challenge has come mid-way through it's round robin stage. The $50,000 online event created as a result of cramped schedules of the teams on both online and LAN tournaments, has given us a reason to be glued to our monitor screens.
Sixteen games in, we have the revamped North American powerhouse Evil Geniuses sitting on top of the table with five wins and one loss; the lone defeat coming at the hands of Natus Vincere. EG has managed to put forth strong results despite the absence of Clinton 'Fear' Loomis, who has been sidelined due to an elbow injury. Standing in for Fear is Mason, a consistent top rated player in IXDL America.
The Ukrainian giants Na'Vi are trailing behind EG at second place with four wins and one loss. Na'Vi were looking a bit off-game versus Cloud9, thereby, falling a step short for an unbeaten record. However, Na'Vi reiterated the el'classico against Alliance yesterday in two different tournament games. Although Alliance came out victorious in DreamLeague, it was Na'Vi who swept off the series in D2L and claimed vengeance.
Cloud9 and Team Empire occupy the third and fourth spot, respectively. EternalEnvy and company have displayed promising results with two huge victories coming against Na'Vi and Alliance, but have failed to overcome their American compatriots in EG. Meanwhile, Empire is looking shaky with only two victories registered to their name in four games, with the only big victory coming against Alliance.
Sitting at the bottom half of the table are Alliance, Fnatic, RoX.KIS and Liquid. Alliance have a good chance to climb up the rankings chart along with Fnatic and RoX.KIS just starting out in the tournament and having plenty of games in hand. Although, the situation for Team Liquid look blurred as they are out of contention for the play-offs, but might have a minor chance to fight for 5th/6th place.
The games will resume tonight with Fnatic going up against Team Empire at 18:00 CET followed by Alliance versus Fnatic at 21:00 CET. The English stream will be available on D2L's twitch channel and will be casted by Aaron 'Ayesee' Chambers and Mark 'Tralf' Seidi. If you want to contribute towards the prizepool, you can purchase a ticket here.
