Come on, Megafon! Give us some images to work with! (Photo courtesy of Pexels.com)
With the Regional Qualifiers for the next DPC Major and Minor behind us, the MegaFon Winter Clash is here to fill up your calendar!
From December 7-9, only six teams will compete for a $300,000 (USD) prize pool. The Winter Clash is the perfect, weekend-sized holiday gift for Dota 2 lovers. There will be eleven best-of-three series and one best-of-five Grand Finals in which the team coming from the Winners’ Finals will have a one-game advantage.
The teams attending the Winter Clash are all top-notch. Five of the six teams will compete at the Chongqing Major. Only the open qualifier, Natus Vincere, is missing out on the next round of DPC events.
The teams have been split into two groups. Group A is Natus Vincere, Team Secret and Virtus.pro. Group B will be Forward Gaming, PSG.LGD and Team Liquid. The groups will play round robin best-of-threes, with the team with the best record moving directly into the Winners’ Final, and the other two teams seeded into the Lower Bracket of the playoffs.
Obviously, the top team in each group has a huge advantage, so the group stage games should be very competitive.
Team Secret will be playing with Nico “eyyou” Barcelon of the SEA team Lotac in place of Yazied “YapzOr” Jaradat, who reportedly is taking an end-of-year break. The team will meet Virtus.pro in the second series of the group stage, the team who beat them 3-2 to win the Kuala Lumpur Major. That will definitely be the must-watch series for this group.
In Group B, the PSG.LGD versus Team Liquid series should give viewers a good sense of how these two titans are going to face-off under the current patch conditions. Now that Team Liquid captain, Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi has completed the “all hero challenge” in professional matches, expect the team to really focus on winning.
Meanwhile, Forward Gaming withdrew from the Dota Summit 10 (probably causing that tournament’s delay to 2019) in order to compete at the Winter Clash. Cheer for the team according to how you feel about that decision.
With six teams, Winter Clash seems like a small event. But there’s a huge amount of talent here, and the prize pool is massive for a non-DPC event. Also, keep in mind that Epic Esports Events is the organizer, and they’re responsible for Epicenter. If you’re looking for a way to stay entertained this weekend, MegaFon may just have you covered!
