Why “Supermajor”? Can the last tournament in the Dota 2 Pro Circuit live up to its own hype?
This is it, Dota 2 fans! We’ve watched 21 tournaments on the Dota 2 Pro Circuit (DPC) this season, each crowning their own champions, featuring competitive and entertaining gameplay. We’ve observed teams form, shuffle, rise, and fall. We’ve seen beautiful trophies, impressive stage pieces, and entertaining content. Over the next nine days, PGL and Perfect World have one last opportunity to dazzle us.
The China Dota2 Supermajor will run from June 2-10th. This is the final Major, and event, in the inaugural DPC season. The prize pool is (US)$1,500,000, with 2250 DPC points awarded to the top four teams. Perhaps more important, sixteen teams have this last opportunity to put their mark on the DPC. There are a few key storylines to follow:
The real headline is that there a few teams with genuine opportunity to make the most of this tournament and earn themselves a direct invitation to The International 8 (TI8). TNC Pro Team, OpTic Gaming, and The Final Tribe are the only teams eligible to earn DPC points that are not in the top eight already. They could play spoiler for VGJ.Thunder and maybe even Newbee. The two latter two teams sit in eighth and seventh place respectively in the DPC rankings.
Virtus.pro will be on hand to defend their top seat in the DPC. Coming off of their dominant performance at ESL One Birmingham 2018, Virtus.pro have to be the favorites to win the Supermajor. The biggest question for this team is will they be serious about winning from day one or will we see a more laidback Virtus.pro, as we’ve seen at the beginning of their last few events.
Two teams are debuting new rosters: Evil Geniuses, who dropped Clinton “Fear” Loomis and Rasmus “MiSeRy” Filipsen for Tal “Fly” Aizik and Gustav “s4” Magnusson; and Natus Vincere, who removed Nikola "LeBron" Popovic for Fedor "velheor" Rusihin. While Navi, and particularly Danil "Dendi" Ishutin, still excite fans, there are probably higher expectations and hopes for EG to fill, despite coming together less than a week ago.
Rounding out the sixteen teams are PSG.LGD, Team Liquid, Team Secret, Mineski, Vici Gaming—all five of which round out the top eight alongside Virtus.pro, Newbee, and VGJ.Thunder—with VGJ.Storm, Infamous, and Team Spirit competing despite being ineligible. The bottom line for all sixteen teams is that they want to perform well at the last DPC event of the year to pick up momentum heading into TI8.
In addition to all of the Dota 2 action, the Supermajor has already set to impress with a comprehensive theme based on, you guessed it, superheroes. Shots of the players wearing capes and posing majestically have already been floating on social media, and the draw for groups featured a caped Jorien “Sheever” van der Heijden and PGL Admin, “Kensai”. The talent announcement and all graphics related to the event have been comics-based. Check out the PGL twitter feed for comics based on iconic Dota 2 moments. Look for more superhero imagery to feature in the broadcast.
The tournament has also adopted an extensive format, making the most of its scheduled nine days. There’s been a lot of criticism about formats this season, especially regarding single game series, seeding, and single-elimination brackets. The Supermajor aims to please those critics. Teams were drawn into groups of four that will play best-of-three series in a GSL-format for seeding into the double-elimination playoff bracket. All series will be best-of-threes, except for the Grand Finals, which will be a best-of-five. No teams will be eliminated before the playoffs, so fans will see all of their favorite teams on the main stage. For information about all of the teams and the groups, please check out this article.
WIth great potential for team storylines, a well-developed theme, and a format featuring a ton of Dota 2, it’s clear that the Supermajor wants to really own the “super” part of its name.
The group stage starts in a matter of hours, so we’ll know soon how well the tournament delivers on the promises it’s been making. Come back here daily for our recaps of the China Dota 2 Supermajor, and let us know in the comments what you’re most looking forward to about this final DPC tournament.
