The dust has settled on the tumultuous post-International period in Dota 2. Valve’s annual flagship event in Seattle marks the end of a season in the Dota 2 world as teams chop and change personnel in their bid to become the next champions of The International.
There is a lull in competitive action whilst teams confirm their new rosters. With the roster lock deadline passing on September 18, Mars Dota 2 League have wasted no time in organising the first premier LAN tournament of the new season. The event is to be held in Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center, China.
MDL will kick off LAN Dota for this season starting in just over a week. Can't wait. https://t.co/P3qjJDBGyE pic.twitter.com/nUSp6qyIM6
— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) September 19, 2016
The event is spread across five days and brings together eight of the biggest names in the scene to battle it out for their share of the $250,000 prize pool.
As shown above, the invited teams include the new Evil Geniuses, MVP Phoenix, OG, Team Secret, Newbee and Vici Gaming rosters and the numbers are to be completed by two qualifying teams from China. Team Liquid, Digital Chaos, Wings Gaming and LGD Gaming all declined invites to practice with their new-look rosters.
Dimitri Vallette, a man heavily involved in MarsTV took to social media to outline the format of the upcoming tournament. Firstly, the eight teams will battle it out in two groups of four to determine seeding. The top two teams per group will enter the winner bracket whilst the bottom two will still get a chance to progress; but life will be considerably harder from the lower bracket.
For more detail, please see Mars Media’s Facebook page here.
Header image: Mars Media.