The LAN playoffs for Dream League are just around the corner, and here you will find everything you need to know about the tournament. Included are the competing teams, the tournament format and schedule, as well as the streams.
The $260,000~ plus ASUS ROG Dream League playoffs will be held this coming 14-16 June at Jonkoping, Sweden. The biggest tournament prizepool-wise outside of The International will rightfully be held during the summer installment of the biggest LAN party in the world, DreamHack. This finale will be the culmination of the tournament which started more than three months ago, featuring the best teams from the west.
Participating in this LAN playoffs are the top six teams from the twelve-team, ten-week season wherein teams played best-of-one matches against each other. Many would notice the absence of last DreamHack Winter (also known as the DreamLeague kick-off season) champion Natus Vincere on this stage, as they missed the sixth place mark after finishing with a mediocre 7-7 record. The Ukrainian team could have forced a three-way tie with a win in their last game against Evil Geniuses, but they forfeited that match after (third-party inflicted) latency issues during that match.
Group stage results
The first two teams we mention will have an advantage, and we will expand on this later on.
Cloud9
Cloud9 will enter the playoffs as the top seed after finishing with a 12-2 record. They are also the only team throughout the whole season play to defeat ten out of eleven opponents. They have avenged their loss against mousesports (then known as Team Dog), and the only team they have failed to defeat (RoX.KiS) in this tournament is already out of the competition.
They have been playing LAN tournaments all over the world this year, having participated in various events such as WPC-ACE, DreamHack Bucharest and the Monster Energy Invitational. But despite strong performances on many of these tournaments, the team has yet to repeat the success they had back MLG Columbus when they were playing as Speed Gaming. Their achievements are no small feat though, and their best ones include runner-up finishes in the Dota 2 Champions League S2 and DreamHack Bucharest.
Empire
Empire was at a point earlier this year the hottest team in the world. Their strong play was seen in the season play, finishing at an impressive 12-2. Despite falling into second place because of the head-to-head defeat, the Russian team has still put themselves in a very favorable position in this tournament.
They have been aching for a big win, but those have so far eluded them. Empire finished with an honorable second place at MLG TKO, and a third place finish at the Dota 2 Champions League S2. The biggest achievement for them, however, should be the first place finish at Techlabs April and a runner-up finish at Starladder IX - both of which are LAN tournaments.
Evil Geniuses
Speaking of hot teams, Evil Geniuses had probably the best winning streak so far in 2014 when they (then known as 's a d b o y s') rampaged through their opposition early this year. The curse is indeed broken as the team had already won several titles including LAN victories at the Monster Energy Invitational, and recently at The Summit.
The latter was big, as the team bounced back from a mediocre first day and finished with a string of wins against the tournament favorites. The addition of Mason 'Mason' Venne as Clinton 'Fear' Loomis' replacement was but a mere formality, and the team had no trouble whatsoever with their 'new' lineup.
The #1 ranked (via GGnet rankings) western team at the moment finished third in the season play, tallying a 10-4 record. They were able to defeat every team in this tournament except for the top two teams, even losing to Cloud9 twice.
mousesports
Mousesports (known as Team Dog for the entirety of the season play) started DreamLeague very strongly, but they faded into fourth place and finished with a 9-5 record. Having a serious chance to place within the top, they blew their last three games including losses against eventual leaders Cloud9 and Empire.
They were picked up by mousesports after the group play. Since then, the team has amassed a 14-3 record including an almost flawless run in The International 4's European qualifier and and a blemishless victory on the second season of American Dota League.
Fnatic
Fan-favorite Fnatic enters the playoffs as one of the bottom seed after they finished with a 8-6 record. As long-time teammates and LAN tournament regulars (dating back from their HoN days), this team has become one of the teams to watch out for at offline tournaments. Well, they will not be playing with the full crew as their carry Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu will be missing this tournament (and likely a few more after that).
While no stand-in / replacement has been confirmed yet, it is highly possible that Steve 'Excalibur' Ye will again be taking the carry position in Era's stead. Excalibur played with Fnatic during the recent The Summit at Los Angeles, California, wherein he performed reasonably well. His team finished a joint second-fourth in the group stage, but unfortunately exited as one of the two bottom teams.
Despite this change, Excalibur seems to be a good fit for Fnatic's exciting playstyle as we saw him operate heroes such as Tinker, Tiny and Meepo comfortably. Because of that, expect the winner of the DotaCinema Captain's Draft Invitational and MLG TKO Europe to be a strong contender.
Alliance
Allliance is the final team to enter the playoffs, and is also the last team to finish with an positive score as they tallied an 8-6 record. Despite entering the tournament as one of the bottom seeds, it is highly unlikely that the Swedish boys will be fazed as they have proven time and time again that they are very comfortable in this tournament.
The homecourt advantage has shown to be of big importance for this team. Alliance (then known as No Tidehunter) of course first entered superstardom after winning DreamHack Winter '12. Aside from winning the latest installment of DreamHack which was held at Bucharest, this team is also the defending DreamHack Summer champion.
Tournament Format
As mentioned earlier, the top two seeds will have an advantage heading into the finale. The playoffs are actually divided into two stages, and the two best teams from the season play will be placed straight into the second stage. That means Empire and Cloud9, both finishing with a 12-2 record, are already assured of a top four finish.
The stage 1 playoffs will be for the teams who finished fourth-sixth after season play. They will be having a double-elimination tournament, with only the top two teams moving on to the next stage. The first round of this stage is best-of-one, but all succeeding matches will be best-of-three.
Those top two teams will then be joining the seeded teams in the stage 2 playoffs. Its another four-team, double-elimination tournament. The second day's matches will all be best-of-three, while the last day will have both the loser's bracket finals and the grand finals on best-of-five format.
Prizepool Distribution
The current prizepool now stands at almost $260,000, more than doubling its base prize pool of $100,000 from Compendium sales. This pool makes it the best paying tournament outside The International, besting tournaments such as WPC-ACE ($245,000~) and Star Ladder IX ($230,000~).
Dream League is the first tournament outside of The International to have an interactive Compendium. For comparison, the prize pool for last year's Dreamhack Summer Dota 2 tournament was $45,000~.
The distribution of the prize pool is as follows (figures accurate at time of publication):
1st: $40,000 + $32,000~ (20%)
2nd: $25,000 + $16,000~ (10%)
3rd: $15,000 + $16,000~ (10%)
4th: $10,000 + $16,000~ (10%)
5th: $6,500 + $16,000~ (10%)
6th: $3,500 + $16,000~ (10%)
7th-12th: $8,000~ (5%)
Location
DreamLeague will be one of many events at DreamHack Summer, taking place at Jönköping, Sweden. The largest LAN party in the world boasted more than 16,000 unique connected devices the past two years, and the indications are pointing to a possibly bigger event this year.
As an interesting trivia, DreamHack once held the record for fastest internet in the world when they had a 120 Gbit/second connection last DreamHack Winter '11. This year's will most likely have a 'slow' 40 Gbit/second internet speed.
Where to watch online
It will be familiar faces handling the English cast for DreamLeague. DreamHack Studio's James '2GD' Harding and Bruno 'Statsman' Carlucci will be co-hosts, while Andy 'Draskyl' Stiles, David 'Luminous' Zhang and Shane 'Shane' Clark will walk us through the games. They will be broadcasting the games via DreamLeague's English channel.
There will also be a Russian cast, led by Vitali 'V1lat' Volochai via the tournament's Russian channel. The tournament will also be broadcast in Sweden's national TV through TV6, which will include mainstays Fredrik 'Slop3' Wahlstedt, Kim 'Drayich' Larsson and Eric 'Bogdan' Olsson.
Fnatic, Location and Caster photo from Dreamhack's Flickr, Alliance photo from Surf Gamers, Evil Geniuses photo from onGamers, mousesports photo from Facebook, Cloud9 photo from Twitter, Empire photo from Facebook
Visit our coverage page for more information on Dream League!
Post a Comment