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With all of the major tournaments out of the way until the major invites are released, I figured now would be a good time to talk Winter Major invites as well as regional qualifier invites!
Direct Invites: OG, EG, Team Secret, VG, EHome, CDEC, LGD, VP
All of these teams are probably locks except for VP, but they've played well enough to keep their spot over up and coming teams Team Liquid and Alliance. Alliance performance before the WCA Lan was still rather average, and while Team Liquid won the Defense LAN finals, VP finished second at the Summit 4. There's just not enough justification to remove VP for any of those other teams, and the 4/4 east west breakdown should be maintained from last time.
Regional Qualifiers: This is the most fun part for me! I've been keeping track of relative Elo rankings for teams since the last major, and while I won't solely use these to inform my analysis here I will refer to it on occasion. If you would like to view the Elo rankings, they are available here: http://elorankings.com/rankings.aspx?id=2329&all=0
One more caveat here is that while a team might be better than some teams I mention, they may not have registered for the winter major on valve's site. To see the list of registered teams, please go to this link: http://www.liquiddota.com/forum/dota-2-general/499814-winter-transfer-window-closes
Alright, with that out of the way, let's get to the easy ones first:
SEA Region: Locks: Fnatic, MVP. Phoenix, Mineski, TnC, Execration, Team 123 On the bubble: Team Underminer, MVP. Hot6six, FD, Who2Bet, RRQ
This region..... really suffers from a lack of registered teams for this major. Teams like PewPewVietnam and Signature.Trust would have a good shot at making this qualifier if they had registered, but as it stands this is what is available. My guess for the last two are Underminer and Hot6, but holy shit are these teams bad. FD is even worse, and is the worst performing competitive dota team since the new patch with 10 or more games.
As a side note, the top 6 teams here are all actually pretty good, and I could see any of Fnatic, Phoenix, Mineski, and TnC qualifying for Shanghai. My guesses are Fnatic / MVP, but we will see! Should be fun to watch once we get to the final four. If a team like Signature Trust makes it through the open qualifier shredder, they could potentially challenge for a playoff spot but are unlikely to do much beyond that.
China Region Locks: iG, Newbee, Newbee.Young, Wings, CDEC.Y, iG.Vitality On the bubble: FTD.A, FTD.B, FanTuan, Tongfu
My guess is that the last two spots probably go to Tongfu and FanTuan just based on their players, but it would be nice to see FTD.A make it after an upset win over iG earlier in the major cycle. China hasn't played many games, so the big name teams and players are safest here when in doubt.
Newbee, iG, and Wings are all strong; iG.Vitality, Newbee.Young, and CDEC.Y all provide upset potential. Strong group of teams here, and it's hard to pick the two teams going to Shanghai out of this group with any degree of certainty.
EU Region Locks: Team Spirit, Elements Pro Gaming, Alliance, Team Empire, Na'Vi, Team Liquid, Vega On the bubble: HellRaisers, London Conspiracy, Arcade, No Logic Gaming
This qualifier makes me sad. Lots of good teams in EU right now, but they probably aren't as dominant as you might guess at first glance. No Logic has been pretty bad recently; I'd put my money on HellRaisers or London Conspiracy getting that final invite slot.
As for the winner here, who knows? They all beat each other consistently. I would probably say that Team Liquid is the most likely team to make it to Shanghai, but after that Elements, Team Spirit, Empire, and Alliance are all gonna be killing each other. Vega could recapture their old form and win the whole thing outright. Tough bracket, teams that go to Shanghai here are gonna earn it!
Americas Region Locks: Complexity, Power of Friendship, Digital Chaos, Elite Wolves, Slayers, Team Leviathan, Shazam On the bubble: paiN Gaming, Archon, TShow, Voidboys
That last spot is a cluster-f of teams, all of which have had some bright moments as well as some terrible ones. My guess is Archon gets the last invite slot.
As a side note, this qualifier is actually deceptively strong. The teams here are all pretty decent, and besides Complexity (who in my opinion is pretty much an absolute lock to win this qualifier) all the teams can beat each other on any given day. I think you'll see Complexity winning this qualifier, with Elite Wolves, Digital Chaos, Power of Friendship, and Slayers fighting for second. Shazam isn't bad, and Leviathan could do well so soon after a new patch too. Tough to call.
So, at the end of the day, just as a fun exercise, here's my predicted field for Shanghai:
OG EG Team Secret VP CDEC VG LGD EHome Fnatic MVP.Phoenix Wings Newbee Team Liquid Team Spirit Complexity Elite Wolves
This field imo is stronger than the Frankfurt Major! As for how they do there, well... we have another 3 months or before we need to start guessing that!
I hope you enjoyed this read, and please leave some comments so we can discuss our predictions!
-MM
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Missing Ehome on Direct Invites.
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I'm not sure that CDEC deserve an invite over TL
Since the major CDEC have only managed to beat a really, really weak group at WCA and then promptly lose once they made it to the playoff bracket
before the major they lost in a bunch of Chinese qualifiers as well
Meanwhile TL have won a LAN against the previous major champions, got a strong showing at TS4 after a difficult bracket draw, and taken 3rd place at WCA coming out of the hardest group of the tournament
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here are my predictions
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Alliance or someone should get one of chinas slot. Just because they got four does not mean they still deserve four because they dont
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I really doubt fnatic will make it to china based off their current performance
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Surprised you don't have Vega qualifying.
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Vega have fallen off quite a bit, they can still easily beat a good opponent but they're nowhere near as consistent or as dominant
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EU is definitely the problem region right now, in terms of predictions. I feel like there are several teams there that could pretty easily clinch a slot if they were in any of the other three regions, but who seem more questionable in an EU setting. Liquid, Empire, and Alliance immediately spring to mind, with Vega also being a strong contender. It seems like the results of the EU qualifier are going to be disappointing one way or another, as strong teams end up being left behind while lackluster teams end up at the main event.
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China probably will still get 4 invites... i mean how would it look if you have a home major but get one less spot?
But yeah I agree, at current form, they don't deserve 4...
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I think Valve have been pretty good about mirroring the teams'/regions' strength with their invites while still maintaining a healthy regional mix. Anything but 4 EU 3 CN 1 NA would surprise me a lot.
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On December 22 2015 02:39 Qody wrote:here are my predictions
The only problem here is that you have some teams that didn't officially register for the winter major on this list:
As1- isn't registered in the America's Region, 4C&L isn't registered in EU, Dream, Wayyy, and Enigma aren't registered for China, and Signature Trust and 4Hate aren't registered in SEA.
The registrations make it a much harder list to come up with, especially in SEA.
I'll be interested to see the invites, especially since you could have a compelling argument for leaving out VP or CDEC if you really wanted to (though I personally thing CDEC is unlikely to be left out of a China Major).
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Got to talking about the invites during the WCA event thread, and of the top 8 at Frankfurt, it's really just a question of LGD getting an invite. They are the true "bubble" team. All of the rest of the top 8 have performed well enough since or placed high enough at Frankfurt that they'll get an invite.
TI5 -> Frankfurt ended up being 7 of the top 8, but it was really the top 6 + New Secret & Vega, who were top 2 at ESL. (It was also the right set of invites) This is what made the LGD/Team Liquid/Team Empire side of the WCA bracket so interesting. It really did become a potential play-in bracket for Shanghai. (If Team Empire had run the slate to a victory @ WCA, they'd get a direct invite. They'd have had 2 LAN wins and 2 2nd places in decent tournaments, having just beaten Team Secret, LGD, Team Liquid and Alliance for WCA. It was a massively missed chance for them.)
Though the biggest missed opportunity at WCA was Team Liquid. They really were a Bo3 win over LGD away for an invite to Frankfurt. But LGD held serve well enough that I think their invite is a given. This should make the EU Qualifiers the best one to watch. It's all down to who is playing the best over those days, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of the 6 Stage 2 Qualifier invites qualify. That should be some great Dota.
On a longer range topic, I'm kind of curious if Valve would consider expanding the Field to either 20 or 24 for the Spring Major. (Leave TI @ 16 teams) The Majors exist very much to "spread" Dota and increase the competition, so maybe giving the Tier 2 teams a larger chance at top flight LAN competition could be a really good thing. Yeah, that would mean 1 or 2 more NA/SEA teams at the Major, but providing the opportunity alone could produce more CDEC stories. (Or even Mineski, who played out of their minds at the Frankfurt.) Granted, it would add another 2 days to the tournament, and you would need something like a 4 Group Bo2 Round-Robin system rather than GSL Groups. But I think it would serve the purpose of the Major system better to expand the field a bit more. (It also wouldn't be that much trouble with the Brackets.)
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If you look at the gap between Frankfurt major, the roster locks and Shanghai invites, there are actually few events which justify inviting one team over the other. My take on different teams:
EU: OG - Frankfurt champions so an obvious choice Secret - They have dismal performance post major but a runner-up place at Frankfurt all but guarantees their return VP - 7/8th in Majors; 2nd in Summit. One roster change but they should still be a fairly safe bet Alliance - They are at a unique place. WCA 1st place is a good showing but that is somewhat marred by the fact that it might just be post-patch chaos. Apart from that, they don't have much to show for it. VP deserves the spot over there as they faced tougher competition in Summit. Team Liquid - DNQ for Majors; D2CL champions; 3rd WCA; 5-6th Summit. Reasonable performance but weaker than others above them
NA: EG - Summit champion + 3rd place Frankfurt. They are the only logical NA invite
China: China only had WCA so it makes tougher to rate the teams over there. VG - 5/6 Frankfurt; 3rd Summit EHome - 4th place; 5/6 Summit LGD - 7/8 Frankfurt; 2nd WCA CDEC - 5/6 Frankfurt; 5/8 WCA
I think VG & EHOME get the invites as all teams above team are lock-ins for invites so they didn't lose to teams weaker than them.
SEA : No one deserves a direct invite at this point
In summary, I think Valve should go for 6 invites (OG, EG, Secret, VG, Ehome, VP) and 10 qualifiers as it doesn't seem to make sense to invite 8 people teams based on extremely limited tournament performance. It made sense for TI as you looked at year-long performance but the same model shoudln't be applied for Majors.
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