Dota Summit 12: Everything you need to know

With the StarLadder ImbaTV Kyiv Minor 2020 now over, Beyond the Summit’s Dota Summit 12 will give fans a peek of the action before the ESL One Los Angeles Major from March 10-13.

On top of being a sort of undercard event to the Major, Dota Summit 12 should also serve as practice for the three teams, Evil Geniuses, Thunder Predator, and Fnatic, who qualified for the LA Major out of the six participants.

What’s at stake

Dota Summit 12 features a prize pool of US$150,000, though Beyond the Summit has not yet released the distribution of winnings for each placement in the event.

While Dota Summit 11 was a Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) event, Dota Summit 12 is not and as such will not be giving any DPC points to the winners. It should provide some much-needed practice for the three Major-qualified teams participating in the tournament, however.

Format

Dota Summit 12’s four game days will be split evenly between a Round-robin Group Stage and a double-elimination bracket playoffs.

The Round-robin Group Stage will have all teams in one group taking each other on in best-of-two matches. The four teams with the best records at the end of the Group Stage will proceed to the Playoffs, while the bottom two teams will be eliminated.

All four playoff teams will start in the Upper Bracket, with the first seed from the Group Stage taking on the third seed and the second seed taking on the fourth seed.

All playoff matches will be a best-of-three except for the Grand Finals, which will be a best-of-five series.

The teams

Dota Summit 12 features six invited teams, with two each coming from Europe and North America while both South America and Southeast Asia will have one representative. Three of the six teams in the tournament will also be playing in the Los Angeles Major.

Dota Summit 12: Everything you need to know

Evil Geniuses (North America)

Evil Geniuses (EG) come in as favorites to win the tournament as they are clearly the strongest team in the field. The top dogs of North America will be looking to flex their muscles here in the Dota Summit 12 before they defend home soil in the Los Angeles Major.

Roster:

Artour “Arteezy” Babaev
Abed Azel “Abed” Yusop
Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev
Andreas “Cr1t-” Nielsen
Tal “Fly” Aizik

Cloud9 (North America)

Cloud9 (C9) didn’t make it out of the Los Angeles Major’s Southeast Asian open qualifiers with its initial roster, which prompted a roster shakeup that saw the arrivals of Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao, Jingjun “Sneyking” Wu, and Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard. The team has now moved to North America with its new roster and will be making their LAN debut in the Dota Summit 12.

Roster:

Jacky “EternalEnvy” Mao
Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard
Jingjun” Sneyking” Wu
Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen
Johan “pieliedie” Astrom

Thunder Predator (South America)

Thunder Predator were the biggest surprise of the Los Angeles Major’s South American closed qualifiers. The Peruvian squad went on an almost perfect run to qualify for their first Major this season, notably dominating the region’s top team in Beastcoast in the qualifier playoffs to book their ticket to Los Angeles. Look to them to upset lax teams both at the Dota Summit 12 and the Los Angeles Major.

Roster:

Alonso “Mnz” León
Leonardo “LeoStyle-” Sifuentes
Frank “Frank” Arias
Farith “Matthew” Puente
Romel “Wu” Quinteros

Team Liquid (Europe)

After finishing in the Top 6 of both the MDL Chengdu Major and DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major, Team Liquid unexpectedly crashed out of the Los Angeles Major’s European closed qualifiers and failed to qualify for both the Major itself and the accompanying Kyiv Minor. Dota Summit 12 will be a good opportunity for Liquid to get out of its current slump and prepare for the next Major cycle.

Roster:

Michael “miCKe” Vu
Maximilian “qojqva” Bröcker
Samuel “Boxi” Svahn
Tommy “Taiga” Le
Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi

OG.Seed (Europe)

Two-time The International champions OG first announced that they have created a secondary Dota 2 squad called OG.Seed last November. OG.Seed notably came out of the Los Angeles Major’s European open qualifiers alongside their organization’s main roster. However, they failed to advance through the closed qualifiers while the main OG squad easily qualified for the Major. Dota Summit 12 will be a good opportunity to gain more experience and growth for the still-budding OG.Seed.

Roster:

Omar “Madara” Dabachach
Rasmus “Chessie” Blomdin
Andreas “Xibbe” Ragnemalm
Zakari “Zfreek” Freedman
Petu “Peksu” Vaatainen

Fnatic (Southeast Asia)

Fnatic will be carrying the banner of Southeast Asian Dota in the Los Angeles Major after Chengdu Major champions and the region’s presumed top team in TNC Predator crashed out of the qualifiers. Fnatic has only managed 9th-12th place finishes in both Majors this season thus far, and Dota Summit 12 should help them get into shape for Los Angeles.

Roster:

Nuengnara “23 Savage” Teeramahanon
Kam “Moon” Boon Seng
Daryl “iceiceice” Koh Pei Xiang
Djardel “DJ” Mampusti
Anucha “Jabz” Jirawong

Expectations

EG should definitely win the tournament, though how they will fare here and in a new patch will be very telling for their performance in the Los Angeles Major. Liquid stands as the second-best team after EG despite failing to qualify for the Major, though Fnatic should still have the chops challenge their position.

Thunder Predator are a bit of a wildcard here, though they could definitely take a game or two off all the better teams in the competition. As for C9 and OG.Seed, Dota Summit 12 should, at the very least, provide some valuable experience for their relatively new rosters.

Aside from the Dota, Dota Summit 12 should also continue in the Dota Summit tradition of a casual, LAN party-esque tournament atmosphere catered to both the players and the viewers. Expect to see players cast some of the games alongside the talent as well as some fun player-related content from Beyond the Summit.

How to watch

Dota Summit 12 will be streamed on Beyond the Summit’s Twitch channel.