Happy Weekend!
7.07c addresses Tiny & AM
Just last week, Valve released a patch, greatly improving Tiny’s and Pangolier’s viability and thus win rate. Tiny has likely grown too strong at this point, with a win rate of about 57% in the 5k+ bracket. Both him and Anti-Mage have received nerfs, most notably to their early game. Other notable heroes that have been nerfed include popular picks in the pro meta, such as Beastmaster, Brewmaster or Winter Wyvern. Notable buffed heroes include Windranger & Naga Siren.
You can find the detailed patch notes here.
Na’Vi qualifies for DreamLeague Major, OG fall short
Photo by Whatiship
The qualifiers for the DreamLeague Major are coming to a close with only South-East Asia remaining. In Europe, Team Secret grab themselves first place and Natus Vincere have managed to qualify for their first Major participation since the Manila Major. Team Liquid and Virtus.pro round out the top 4, meaning that 4 times Major champion OG have failed to qualify for the second Major in a row.
In North-America, Evil Geniuses secured their spot at the Major after a convincing run and the Chinese representative will be TI7 runner-up Newbee.
EG directly invited to Summit
North-American powerhouse Evil Geniuses has been directly invited to The Summit 8 as the 9th team. The tournament will feature a unique 9-team system, as it will split teams in three groups of three teams. All groups will be played round-robin style and instead of a traditional Bo1 or Bo3 format, teams will play each other in so called “3 Game Series”, where every game win awards a point. The highest seed of every group moves onto the semi-finals and the 3 second placed teams of every group, as well as the 3rd placed team with the highest amount of points will face each other in a single elimination, Bo3 Wild Card playoff to determine the 4th semi-finalist.
The original announcement for the format can be found here.
Ranked Season launch postponed for a week
The first season of our new matchmaking system will begin on November 22nd.
— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) November 16, 2017
Together with 7.07, Valve announced the beginning of seasonal ranked, a system in which players would have to re-calibrate their MMR every 6 months and would be awarded medals based on their ranks. The exact details surrounding the seasons have yet to be disclosed, but Valve now announced that the launch for the first season will be postponed until November 22nd.
VGJ.Storm qualify for first Minor, MDL Macau
MDL Macau, the second Chinese Minor of the season, has concluded all of its qualifiers. Last weekend, LFY secured their spot by taking the DPL Season 4 LAN title. In the following days, teams from across the world played for their spots at the event. TNC, OG, Infamous, and Natus Vincere managed to qualify in their respective regions. In North-America, newly founded VGJ Storm will look to compete at their first high profile LAN event. For many, it is the first premier LAN event attendance ever, for other players like Sneyking or Ritsu it’s the first event in years.
Two more spots have to be filled, both are however direct invites to the event, which have yet to be announced.
Fnatic win Summit qualifier, beat Mineski
Fnatic, who recently replaced Xcalibur with Abed, have promptly won their first qualifier. Taking down Mineski 3-2 in the Summit 8 qualifier, Fnatic have secured their third participation at a Pro Circuit event, though the previous two engagements were due to visa issues of other teams. The Summit 8 has thus completed its qualifiers. compLexity Gaming, Virtus.pro, Team Kinguin and Sacred will join invited teams EG and OG, as well as previously determined Chinese qualifier winners PSG.LGD and OpTic Gaming.
You can follow their run here.
Tournament Overview:
Also Noteworthy
Thanks for catching up with us. We hope you enjoy your weekend.
