Image courtesy of StarLadder
In a surprise announcement yesterday, Na'Vi were announced as one of the direct invites to StarLadder's third Minor tournament in the Dota Pro Circuit this season, alongside TI7 runner-ups Newbee.
This will be the first time the team has received a direct invite to a StarLadder tournament, the last time being SL i-League StarSeries Season 2 almost two years ago, which they won. Since then, their performance at various iterations of the tournament has been lackluster at best, rarely qualifying for the main event and never advancing for the playoffs even once.
It is all the more surprising, considering Team Liquid, who have won the past four StarLadder events over the past year, being directly invited to three of them (all in their current lineup) seem to have declined the invite, if one had to guess. This is the third StarLadder event that will fall under the Dota Pro Circuit season 2017-18 and will begin shortly after the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018. So far, only Team Fnatic have qualified for the main event through the Southeast Asia Qualifiers, as the qualifiers for the rest of the regions are yet to take place.
Surely, this also comes to the surprise to you, our readers, who were largely in disagreement over the possiblity of a Na'Vi direct invite, atleast according to the poll conducted in an article on our website just a week ago. Seems you guys need to have a little more faith in this CIS team who have also managed a top 4 spot at the GESC: Indonesia Minor, so far.
The event is scheduled to start on the 11th of April and has a prize pool of $300,000 and 300 Dota Pro Circuit points that will be distributed among the top 4 finishers.
