The Dota 2 World Electronic Sports Games 2018 tournament is over, and TNC Predator has taken home the championship and $500,000 in prize money. Even without any Dota Pro Circuit points, the tournament is considered premier by many players given the size of the prize pool. Not all are happy with the competition, such as Dota 2 commentator Paul "Redeye" Chaloner. Chaloner thinks something needs to change with WESG, particularly its format and the composition of the teams.
Organized by AliSports, the WESG was established with the goal of morphing the tournament into the Olympics of esports. This is why teams that want to compete in the tournament need to have members coming from the same nationality. The first WESG held offered four game competitions, with the most recent one now with six different games. For Dota 2, TNC won the first WESG, with the second tournament going to Team Russia.
The opening ceremony at the Chongqing Olympic Sports Center was ?. Here are a few photos to show you how it looked like.#WESG pic.twitter.com/pnyeRZvYcU
— WESG (@WESGcom) March 16, 2019
In an episode of The Luckbox Podcast, Redeye describes the WESG as peculiar and that every time it is held, it always blows his mind. While he does appreciate the fact that WESG is indeed a big tournament, he says the organizers need to "pick what you are, but figure out what it is" while calling it a "mad-scientist hybrid." For Redeye, the WESG has the appearance of a World Cup tournament, but the national teams aren't really national teams in the strictest sense.
In essence, according to Redeye, the WESG is saying "screw you to every team in Dota outside of China, because they don't play with five nationalities from one country." In the recently held tournament, the Chinese teams that participated include Team Aster, Keen Gaming, EHOME, Room 310, and Mr Game Boy, for a total of five Chinese teams. It is also worth noting that aside from EHOME, the four other teams received a direct invite to be part of the tournament. Redeye argues that the format of the WESG gives Chinese teams some advantage as all other players need to leave their current respective teams and form hybrid rosters in order to be part of the tournament.
Redeye goes on to say that the WESG missed the opportunity of inviting the biggest names in Dota 2. Considering the size of the prize pool, these teams would definitely be interested in joining the tournament.
You can view Redeye’s rant in the video below:
