ESL One Raleigh Viewer’s Guide – Everything You Need to Know

There are just over 24 hours left now until the start of ESL One Raleigh, the first premier Dota 2 tournament to take place in North America in almost two years. The last one was The International 2023, when Dota 2 developer and publisher Valve brought the competition home to Seattle, Washington after a few years away from the city.

As the name would suggest, this one will take place in Raleigh, North Carolina — specifically at the Raleigh Convention Center. The venue itself is no stranger to esports events, with tournaments like MLG Raleigh being held there way long ago. If you’re a North American Dota fan, you definitely don’t want to miss seeing ESL One Raleigh.

When is ESL One Raleigh Happening?

ESL One Raleigh is set to start tomorrow, April 7th, with the group stage starting at 12pm ET/9am PT. The tournament itself will be held in a LAN setting, which sees the teams facing each other in person as opposed to playing online.

The group stage will be held from the 7th to the 9th, with all but the final day featuring six matches for each of the two groups. This will be followed by the playoffs starting on the 11th, with the grand finals taking place on the 14th.

What is the Format?

The group stage will take on the classic round robin format, with all teams in each group facing each other once in a best-of-two series. The top two teams from each group will earn seeds in the upper bracket of the playoffs, while the next two will start from the lower bracket. All remaining teams are eliminated straight away.

Who's taking #ESLOne Raleigh this week? pic.twitter.com/X1wyZnRhs9

— ESL (@ESL) April 5, 2025

Likewise, the playoffs will be a simple double elimination bracket, with all matches leading up to the grand finals being best-of-three. The grand finals themselves will be best-of-five.

How Much Money is in the Prize Pool?

$1 million will be up for grabs at the event, with the winners taking 25 percent or $250,000. The full prize pool distribution is as follows:

• 1st place — $250,000
• 2nd place — $130,000
• 3rd place — $100,000
• 4th place — $70,000
• 5th/6th place — $40,000
• 7th/8th place — $25,000
• 9th/10th place — $20,000
• 11th/12th place — $15,000

It’s great to see that even those that place outside of the top 6 will earn prize money, and even the two teams that place joint last will earn something here. FISSURE Universe Episode 4 didn’t give out prize money below the top eight spots, but that was an online tournament and not a LAN. Still, it’s nice that the distribution isn’t overly top-heavy.

Which Teams Will Play at ESL One Raleigh?

12 teams, four of which were invited via the ESL Pro Tour Leader Board and the rest determined through regional qualifiers, will participate at ESL One Raleigh:

With regards to AVULUS, they were promoted to second place coming out of the Western European qualifiers after Na’Vi Junior were disqualified for bug abuse. As for Team Tidebound, the original winners of the Chinese qualifiers Xtreme Gaming were unable to field a full roster in time for the event, and so have been replaced by Tidebound.

Where Can I Watch the Games?

You can see all the games live on ESL’s official YouTube and Twitch channels.