ESL One Birmingham announced that it is returning in 2020. This is going to be the third time this Dota 2 tournament has been held. A total of 12 teams are expected to join the tournament, with eight getting direct invites and four coming from the qualifiers to be held in North America, Europe, China, and Southeast Asia. For this year, the tournament is going to take place from May 29 to May 31 with a prize pool of $300,000. However, this is a third-party event and is not part of the new DPC Season.
So far the tournament has announced that two-time TI Champion OG was the first team to be invited. The second team to get an invite is TNC Predator, who currently holds the top position in the DPC 2019-20 Ranking.
So far, no other details have been revealed such as who the hosts are going to be. Chances are that Paul "Redeye" Chaloner is going to be part of the tournament, though.
The first ESL One Birmingham was in 2018. Back then, as part of the DPC Season, it offered a prize pool of $1 million. It was also held in May of that year and had a total of 12 teams participating. The champion that year was Virtus.pro, who made the record of dropping a single game during the entire run of the tournament.
By 2019, ESL One Birmingham was still considered a Major Tier tournament, but was no longer part of the DPC Season. The prize pool also dropped to $300,000. There were still 12 teams participating, but the tournament had a new format. What made this tournament significant was that champion Team Secret worked its way from the Lower Bracket. The Grand Finals were just as exciting, with the series going the distance and Team Secret exchanging wins against Evil Geniuses. Team Secret eventually secured the win on game five.
The two teams that received the first invites are rather expected. While OG is indeed a two-time TI champion, the roster has three new members with only Team Captain Johan "N0tail" Sundstein and Topias Miikka "Topson" Taavitsainen remaining.
For TNC, after winning ESL One Hamburg 2019 and the MDL Chengdu Major the team has been in a rut. TNC finished 9th-12th during DreamLeague Season 13 and wasn't able to make it to the ESL One Los Angeles Major 2020 or even the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor.
Keep a lookout for future articles as we continue to keep you updated on this tournament.
