The Bucharest Minor Regional Qualifiers wrapped up last night, giving us eight teams who will compete in January at the LAN event. There’s a lot at stake, including a $300,000 (USD) prize pool, 500 Dota 2 Pro Circuit (DPC) points and a spot for the winner at the Chongqing Major.
The Bucharest Minor Regional Qualifiers wrapped up last night, giving us eight teams who will compete in January at the LAN event.
If the changes to the DPC this season were meant to spread tournament opportunities across more teams, we might consider that goal achieved. Not one of the teams that will attend the Bucharest Minor was at DreamLeague Season 10, the first Minor of the year. Only two of the teams, Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) and Gambit Esports, were at the Kuala Lumpur Major, meaning we have six teams that will make their season two debuts in Bucharest, Romania.
The Teams:
EHOME is making a return to Valve tournaments, finally. Their last appearance was at MDL Macau, in early December 2017. Joining them from China is Keen Gaming. This organization’s last significant event was in May when they took second place at GESC: Thailand, a Minor in the first DPC season.
There was only one qualifier from the CIS region: Gambit Esports. The squad came in 13-16th place, effectively last, at the Kuala Lumpur Major. They’ll be hungry to take first place at the Minor and then put in a stronger showing at the following Major.
OG will join NiP as the European representatives. The International 8 champions played with stand-in Igor “iLTW” Filatov in place of Per Anders Olsson “Pajkatt” Lille due to illness. After a shaky performance in the Chongqing Major Qualifier, OG didn’t drop a single game in the Bucharest Minor qualifiers. They were also the only team that NiP lost to during the qualifier.
The North American qualifying team is the team, TEAM TEAM. This all-American squad will also represent the US at the WESG 2018 finals in early 2019. Hopefully, they will be picked up by an organization prior to the event or else we can expect casters to be tripping over their tongues!
From South America, we have Playmakers Esports. Disqualified from the Chongqing Major SA Qualifier because they concealed the identity of a stand-in, Playmakers have brought in Jose Andree “Sword” Nicosia, formerly of Thunder Predator, to round out their all-Peruvian roster.
Finally, Southeast Asia will be represented by the Indonesian team, BOOM ID. This is the organization’s first time qualifying for a Valve event and is their first big event outside of the SEA region since their formation in early 2017.
Best of luck to all of the teams and their fans!
The Bucharest Minor will take place from January 9-13, from the PGL Studios in Romania.
