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.
With that, we bring to you these six teams participating on the
finals. These are all high caliber squads, as all of them will be
competing in the upcoming The International 4. Coincidentally, these are
also the top six western teams based on the GosuGamers rankings (if you
pair mouz' rating with Team Dog).
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.
Visit our coverage page for more information on Dream League!
