Eight teams are ready to slug it out in the upcoming Dota 2 MDL Macau 2019 tournament. This will be the second tournament to carry the name and offers a total prize pool of $300,000. Unlike the first time the MDL Macau was held, this year’s tournament will not offer any Dota Pro Circuit points. Matches begin on February 20, with the finals scheduled for February 24.
Of the eight teams in contention, six received direct invites: Evil Geniuses, Newbee, Team Liquid, Virtus.pro, Vici Gaming and EHOME. Invictus Gaming and Royal Never Give Up both earned spots from the China Qualifier. PSG.LGD originally received a direct invite, but had to be replaced by Newbee due to medical issues being faced by one of its members.
One slot was reserved for the Dota 2 Professional League Season 6 winner. This was won by Vici Gaming who received a direct invite anyway, thus the slot went to runner-up EHOME.
For this tournament, English broadcast will be provided by Beyond the Summit. Commentators include Benjamin “Bkop” Kopilow, Andy “Draskyl” Lee Stiles, Grant “GrantDGrant” Harris, David “GoDz” Parker, and Trent “Trent’ MacKenzie.
One week away from SHOW TIME! English broadcast for @MarsMedia #MDLMacau will be brought to you by these folks right here from the new BTS Studio! pic.twitter.com/VqugSossNn
— BTS Dota (@BTSdota) February 13, 2019
The format of the tournament will follow a best-of one round robin during the Group Stage. The top four teams proceed to the upper bracket and bottom four teams go to the lower bracket. Matches in the lower bracket are best-of one while the teams in the upper bracket will have a better chance against elimination with a best-of three series of games. The Grand finals are a best-of five match.
The tournament has its beginning in 2014, originally named the MarsTV Dota 2 League. It was later named to the Mars Dota 2 League in 2016.
While the event happens simultaneously with the ESL One Katowice 2019, there is no doubt that the matches will excite Dota 2 fans. Virtus.pro, who currently holds the top spot of the DPC rankings alongside Team Secret, continue to have a strong showing. Fans of EG will not get to see Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan, who will be replaced in this tournament by stand-in Quinn “CC&C” Callahan.
Like the tournament in Poland, what makes the MDL Macau exciting is that Valve recently dropped Patch 7.21b. To read more about the recent patch, click on the link above.
