From April 27th to May 6th, Moscow will host EPICENTER XL Dota 2, featuring Russia’s largest ever esports prize pool of $1m (£739,000), as well as being Russia’s first ever esports tournament to be given Major status.
Starting on January 20th, there will be open and closed qualifiers for the event across the CIS, Europe, North America, South America, China and South-East Asia regions. A total of 12 teams will attend the event, be it from qualifying tournaments or direct invites, with the playoff stage of the tournament being held at Moscow’s VTB Ice Palace sports arena on May 4-6th.
Two teams have already been invited to the tournament; current world champions and two-time EPICENTER XL winners Team Liquid as well as Virtus.pro.
With official support from Valve, teams will also be battling it out for their share of 1500 Pro Circuit points at EPICENTER XL as well as the luxurious prize pool, all gearing towards teams seeking a spot at Dota 2’s headline annual event, The International.
National mobile carrier Yota will once again be the title partner at EPICENTER XL, continuing a long tradition of sponsoring EPICENTER events.
This news comes following the recent Major status removal of the Galaxy Battles event, due to be held in the Philippines on January 19-21st. Though the tournament will still go ahead, Valve has detached its support of the tournament with the game developer citing “unreasonable infringements on the privacy of the players”. Galaxy Battles management released a statement earlier this week regarding the issue.
Esports Insider says: After the breakdown of the Galaxy Battles II major, it’s good to see a new major announced shortly after. Though it doesn’t quite make up for the late changes made to the Philippine event, it at least gives players and fans something to look forward to in the meantime.