The end of the DreamLeague Season 11 Major has signaled the beginning of the next stage of competitions for the upcoming Dota 2 major. The MDL Disneyland Paris Major is set to begin May 4 with a prize pool of $1 million and 15,000 total DPC points.
The closed qualifiers for Europe, CIS and South America is expected to begin today with the qualifiers for North America, China, and Southeast Asia slated for Saturday, March 30.
In the Europe Qualifier, eight teams fight it out for three slots to the upcoming major. Top teams Team Secret, Team Liquid, and Ninjas in Pyjamas are in contention. OG has also been invited to the qualifier, which marks the return of Anatham “ana” Pham. Fans also get to see how Alliance fares with Omar “Madara” Dabachach serving as temporary replacement to Michael “MiCKe” Vu, who is out due to an arm injury. Completing the roster are The Final Tribe, Goblin Legs, and SexyAsF.
#MDLDisney groups have been released!
— OG (@OGesports) March 27, 2019
We're in Group A and our Opening Match will be played against SexyAsF tomorrow at 13:00 CET.
Stay tuned!#DreamOG pic.twitter.com/j3jZ4GCMqA
For CIS, eight teams battle it out for two slots. The region includes DreamLeague Season 11 runner-up Virtus.pro in the same group as Team Empire, Old but Gold, and CoM19SpadaNJI. The other group features Gambit Esports, Natus Vincere, Uvajenie, and FlyToMoon.
Been missing some major Dota? Well, we have #MDLDisney Major qualifiers kicking things off tomorrow! Our first opponent in the group stage will be CoM19SpadaNJI, see you on stream ?#GOGOVP pic.twitter.com/sBZj5TuRYM
— Virtus.pro (@virtuspro) March 27, 2019
Like CIS, the South America region has eight teams fighting for two slots to the major. The four invited teams are Infamous, Chaos Esports Club, Thunder Predator, and Demolition Boys. The four other teams that had to go through the Open Qualifiers are SG e-sports, Butterfly Effec, Pacific eSports, and Gorillaz-Pride.
The North America region sees the likes of Evil Geniuses, J.Storm, Forward Gaming, and compLexity Gaming duking it out for those precious slots. It will also mark the debut of Vega Academy, the North America team of Vega Squadron. Three teams are given the chance to be part of the major from North America.
China, meanwhile, has DreamLeague Season 11 champion Vici Gaming and top teams PSG.LDG and Keen Gaming. Newbee is also a part of the Qualifiers, and will see the return of Wang “SanSheng” Zhaohui to competitive Dota 2. This is also a test for EHOME, who has not been performing as expected in recent tournaments. The China Qualifier offers three slots for the major.
Finally there is Southeast Asia, with eight teams fighting for two slots. The SEA Qualifiers include Fnatic, TNC Predator, and Boom ID. Tigers will also be competing in the Qualifiers. Fans should watch out for Mineski with Ryan Jay “Bimbo” Qui and Michael “ninjaboogie” Ross Jr. returning to the team. WarriorsGaming.Unity is also set to compete with changes made to its lineup.
