On April 29, the open qualifier begins for the Dota 2 Manila Major.
If recent form holds, Valve will announce eight invited teams just a few days beforehand. With just over a week to go until invites come out, we take a look at the top finishers from Shanghai and a few other teams with a chance to qualify for Manila.
Unlike CS:GO, where the top eight teams at the previous major automatically qualify for the next, Dota 2 has no stated policy on how performance at Majors, or other tournaments for that matter, determine Major Invites. Evaluating teams is further complicated by scheduling. Many of the top teams take extended breaks between majors. In this case, only three LAN events fall between the end of the Shanghai Major and the announcement of invites for Manila.
The first of these events, last month's Dota Pit Season 4 Finals in Croatia, saw MVP Phoenix cement its case for a Manila invite, defeating Evil Geniuses 3-0 to win the title. In last weekend's StarLadder/i-League Invitational, Vici Gaming Reborn's newly assembled roster pulled off a string of upsets, taking down OG, LGD, and Na'Vi in back-to-back series to put itself at the center of the invite discussion.
This weekend's ESL One Manila event, starting Friday and held at the same site that will host the Manila Major in early June, will likely determine at least three of the eight teams on the direct invite list.
Locks (99-90%): Team Liquid, Team Secret, Evil Geniuses, MVP Phoenix
While there are no guarantees, the top four finishers at Shanghai all appear to have cemented their case for direct invites to Manila.
Team Liquid answered plenty of questions with its runner-up finish and is perhaps the safest bet. Liquid has the highest win percentage (71.2%) of any team on the current patch (6.86), but was only 2-4 against the top six teams prior to the Major (at that time, EG, OG, Alliance, EHOME, VG, LGD).
With Shanghai playoff series win against EG (2-0), Secret (2-0), and Alliance (2-1), Liquid erased any doubt. With the team's full roster returning, it's probably the safest bet here for an invite. Despite Artour "Arteezy" Babaev and Saahil "Universe" Aurora's unexpected departures from EG to join Secret, both teams still might be locks for direct invites to Manila. Secret reassembles three of five players from its Shanghai Major Championship roster. Only ten Western players have 200 or more career match wins at pro Dota 2 LAN events, and four of them currently play for Secret.
For EG, Peter "ppd" Dager, Clinton "Fear" Loomis, and Syed "SumaiL" Hassan form a three-player core, who have finished in the top three of four consecutive $3 million Dota 2 tournaments, starting with a landmark win last February at the Dota 2 Asia Championships and ending with a third place finish in Shanghai. With the return of Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling, EG features 4/5 of the roster that won The International 2015, plus veteran offlaner Sam "Bulba" Sosale, who coached the team at the event.
MVP Phoenix returns with its top four lineup from Shanghai, where it dominated for much of the tournament--averaging a tournament-best 24.9 kills, 45.1 assists per 35 minutes, and sweeping Secret 2-0 in the group phase before bowing out in the lower bracket to EG. Mid/carry player Kim "QO" Seon-yeob averaged 14.7k damage to enemy heroes per 35 minutes, more than 2k ahead of the next closest player at Shanghai. The team followed this up with a statement win at the Dota Pit Season 4 Finals in Croatia, taking out OG and Comeplxity and sweeping EG 3-0 in the Grand Finals.
MVP have shown some weakness in online matches since Dota Pit, being dismissed in the first round of the ESL One Manila Qualifiers and a two straight lopsided losses to Fnatic that cost the team a place at EPICENTER: Moscow in May. It was the only one of eight teams at StarLadder/i-League last weekend that failed to win a single match. However, it's hard to see a scenario where Valve would leave a top four team at the previous major off the direct invite list.
Contenders (70-30%): Vici Gaming Reborn, Complexity, OG, Alliance, Fnatic
Vici Gaming Reborn vaulted onto this list with its StarLadder/i-League Invitational win last weekend. The team's new roster boasts a solid pedigree, featuring young phenom Xu "fy" Linsen, who reportedly left Vici Gaming's main squad voluntarily to lead this team. Carry player Yang "Zyf" Pu played as "YJ" on EHOME and served as a substitute player for Vici Gaming for the Frankfurt and Shanghai Majors. Last weekend's win was arguably his breakout performance: He had seven of the nine 700+ GPM games at the event. Valve set an important precedent in directly inviting Vega Squadron to the Frankfurt Major after its win at ESL One New York, which suggests VG.R is in a strong position for a Manila Major bid.
Complexity appeared to finally get over the hump in Shanghai. In spite of a brutal group featuring both EG and Liquid, Complexity won its lower bracket match against Spirit and LGD, following a playoff match against Alliance, before falling 2-0 to EG. The team followed up with a semifinals showing at Dota Pit 4, defeating Virtus Pro in the quarterfinals. It's also won more pro Dota 2 matches on the current patch than any other team.
OG and Alliance are in similar situations. Both teams have big wins that Complexity lack. Alliance stormed back onto the world stage after reuniting its TI3 Championship roster after the Frankfurt Major, with wins at the World Cyber Arena Finals and the StarLadder/i-League Season 13 Finals. OG is the Frankfurt Major champion. After an extended break, the team came back to finish third at an extremely competitive MarsTV Finals in February, losing to EG.
Unfortunately, both teams have little to show since Shanghai.
OG bowed out in its first series at Dota Pit 4, losing 2-1 to MVP Phoenix in its first official match since the previous major. Alliance, in action for the first time since StarLadder/i-League last weekend, looked strong initially, but lost in head-to-head elimination series against OG. Ultimately, both teams failed to reach the tournament's final day, and both are vulnerable to being bumped off the direct invite list depending on events at ESL One Manila.
Fnatic is the most difficult team here to evaluate.
It finished fifth/sixth at Shanghai, defeating OG in a dramatic 2-1 lower bracket series. Critics, however, are quick to point out that the team began the event in the weakest of the four groups. The team clearly benefited from coaching at the event, with its drafts dramatically improving. The team boasts the second most wins on 6.86, and the second highest win percentage (71.1%) right behind Liquid, displaying the consistent dominance in regional online matches that has eluded MVP.
However, there are serious concerns that the same inconsistency that led to bottom four finishes at seven straight international LANs prior to Shanghai(including TI5 and the Frankfurt Major) may continue to plague Fnatic.
The Wildcards (15-5%): EHOME, Wings, Mineski, Team Empire, Na'Vi, LGD Gaming
The final four teams competing at ESL One Manila, along with Na'Vi and LGD Gaming, form the remaining teams in the invite discussion.
Wings, Minseki, and Empire likely need to win this weekend's tournament outright to earn a Manila Invite. But with Secret and Liquid competing, the field looks substantially less open than StarLadder/i-League. EHOME may be able to vault itself into consideration by reaching the Finals on Sunday. Complexity is playing in the weaker group, and its direct invite case is built around consistency and steady improvement.
Meanwhile, if Fnatic could advance out of a group that includes both Secret and EHOME, that would put to rest questions regarding its roster. Both teams need to advance past the GSL-style group phase to at least Sunday's semifinals to feel completely safe when direct invites are announced.
Ultimately, with Secret and Liquid already locked in, there are most likely between one and three direct invites still up for grabs at ESL One Manila.
Let's break this down into four cases. For convenience, we assume that Vici Gaming Reborn is ahead of Alliance and OG in Valve's internal rankings based on StarLadder.
Case 1: Both Fnatic and coL look look at least decent (e.g., both reach Sundays semifinals, or at least look solid and win at least one series in the group phase) and one of Secret, Liquid, Fnatic, or coL win the event. In this case, one of Alliance or OG (most likely Alliance) gets bumped from the Contenders list above and the remaining four teams join the Locks as direct invites to Manila.
Case 2:One of Fnatic or coL struggles badly (say, is eliminated without winning a series), and either the other, Secret, or Liquid wins the event. In this case, it is very likely that the eight direct invites to Manila will consist of the Locks and Contenders above, less whichever of Fnatic or coL goes home first.
Case 3: At the other extreme, if coL and Fnatic both look at least decent and a Wildcard team (say, EHOME) wins the event, its possible that three teams could punch their tickets to the Manila Major this weekend, with both OG and Alliance left off the direct invite list. In this case the Manila Major European Qualifier will arguably be as loaded as any Dota 2 tournament field this year outside of the four Majors.
Case 4:Fnatic and coL both look absolutely abysmal (e.g., both are eliminated without winning a series) this weekend and Liquid or Secret win the event. This fairly unlikely scenario is the only reason Na'Vi and LGD survive at the extreme outer edge of the invites discussion. Should this occur, theres an outside chance Valve will reward either NaVi for their solid recent online play and second-place finish at StarLadder, or LGD for their 3rd place finish and the perceived potential of this roster based on legendary captain Zhang zhao8 Nings return, and one of these two teams would join VG.R, OG, and Alliance as the last four direct Manila invites. Obviously both are extreme long shots, as in this case invites will come down to subjective judgements about potential and the significance of online matches vs. LANs.
Regardless, the stakes this weekend are incredibly high. Starting Friday, we find out which two to five of the eight ESL One Manila teams will return to the same site to compete in the $3 million Manila Major in June.