Eight Dota 2 teams are all ready to give it their all in order to get the win at the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor. At stake is a prize pool of $300,000 and 660 DPC points. However, being the third minor of the 2019-2020 Dota Pro Circuit season, a more important prize for being the champion is a spot at the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 Major.
For the SLi Minor, there's going to be a total of eight teams heading out to Kyiv, Ukraine. Two teams are taken from the CIS and North America regions while one team each come from Europe, China, Southeast Asia, and South America.
The Group Stage has divided the teams into two groups, with best-of three matches. The bottom two teams are eliminated with the top two teams moving directly to the Playoffs. Speaking of, the playoffs are going to have a double eliminated bracket with all games being best-of three, except for the Grand Finals, which is a best-of five.
So let's go meet the teams.
Over at the CIS region it was Gambit Esports all the way, as the team managed to beat Cyber Legacy and forZe eSports. The second spot then went to the two teams that Gambit defeated, in a match that went the distance. Cyber Legacy took the first two games against forZe, but the latter did not take it sitting. This forced a fifth game. ForZe Esports dominated this final match to get the second spot for the region.
Over in North America, the business associates suprised everyone by beating Team Xolotl 2-0 and then Fighting PandaS, also at 2-0, to grab the first spot allotted for the region. The second one eventually was taken by Fighting PandaS.
Going down to South America, it was a battle between four strong teams. In a surprising turn of events, that honor would go to NoPing e-sports, who claimed the spot from the Lower Bracket.
Going across the sea, the Europe region also saw some of the best teams duking it out. Eventually it would come down to Alliance and Nigma. With Nigma in the lead, a misplay resulted in an almost team wipe and gave Alliance's Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov a double Rapier on his Medusa. This gave Alliance the win and the spot at the Major.
Moving to Asia, we head over to Southeast Asia where top ranked team TNC Predator had another chance to get into the ELS One Major. However, TNC's problems with the patch remained evident as the squad was eventually eliminated. This led to a Grand Finals match between Reality Rift and BOOM Esports. Despit a good attempt by Reality Rift, the spot for the SEA region goes to BOOM Esports.
Finally there's the China region, which was the last one to hold qualifiers. There were a lot of expectations for Newbee, but in the end it was Team Aster that gets to represent the region.
The SLi Minor is set to start on March 5, with the Grand Finals happening on March 8.
So what team are you rooting for? Let us know in the comments below!
