Preview of WePlay! Tug of War: Mad Moon
Lord MatusGeneral information
The championship will be happening on 19-23 February in the Expocenter of Ukraine in Kyiv. The prize pool will consist of $300,000 and it will be divided between eight teams. Half of the contestants got direct invitations and the others gained their invitations at the preliminary events. The winner of the tournament will receive the main monetary award of $130,000.
WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon will start from the group stage where the teams will fall into two groups with four teams in each. All the contestants will pass to the playoff but the placement in the group will affect the final seeding in the double-elimination bracket at the final stage. The leaders of the quarters will make it to the semifinal and the teams holding the 2-3 places in their group will be performing at the quarterfinal. The contestants representing the fourth places in their groups will be sent to the lower bracket and will have to fight for their further participation in the championship.
Teams that have a chance to win
Nigma
Win odds: 5.00
At the end of November last year, KuroKy reported that he was going to found his own esports club where he would be performing with his teammates. On the one hand, we could not say that the performance of the European team is bad as the victory at the second minor is a pretty good achievement. On the other hand, as we know what the German legionary is capable of, we can conclude that now their results have become worse than we are used to. The 9-12 position at DreamLeague Season 13 and the unsuccessful attempt to make it to the major can be considered to be a decline of Nigma’s gaming shape. At this championship, the Europeans are not the main favorites in our opinion but the players are unlikely to finish their participation after the group stage. The team got to Group B together with Aggressive Mode, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Virtus.pro. They are not to experience any problem with NiP, but we cannot say the same about the representative of the CIS region with confidence. The latter can make an unexpected surprise thanks to the factor of their home arena. In total, if we try to predict the outcome, we will settle on the opinion that Nigma will take the 3-4 place in the tournament bracket. Even though the prize pool of WePlay! Tug of War: Mad Moon consists of $300,000, it is not included in the Dota Pro Circuit series, so KuroKy may prioritize saving some energy for the upcoming minor to duplicate his recent success. As a reminder, Nigma made it to the major thanks to their win at the second Minor tournament.
Nigma roster:
Amer ‘Miracle-’ Al-Barkawi
Aliwi ‘w33’ Omar
Ivan ‘MinD_ContRoL’ Ivanov
Maroun ‘GH’ Merhej
Kuro ‘KuroKy’ Salehi Takhasomi
Virtus.pro
Win odds: 6.00
Before the last rating qualifiers, Virtus.pro had been involved in a scandal connected with the changes in the roster. The new-comers Zayac and Cooman did not help the team to pass to the Major tournament, however, the players made it to the minor which deserves credit and proves the fact that the team has already achieved appropriate teamwork. This tournament may be a good first test for the recently assembled roster as there is something to fight for here. The prize pool, as it has already been mentioned, will consist of $300,000, so the VP players will be trying to show themselves in the best way. But we also do not ignore the fact that Virtus.pro may prioritize StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3, and WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon, as it is possible to get to the Major championship through the minor. The WePlay! tournament will give a chance to fight for rating points and the method of holding the tournament will make VP relaxed. We think that the esportsmen are likely to take the 2-3 place in their group and pass to the upper bracket and the tournament bracket will keep the 3-4 position for the players. Virtus.pro has a big advantage over almost all their opponents: VP players speak the same native language while the others have to speak English apart from B8 and Gambit.
Virtus.pro roster:
Zaur ‘Cooman’ Shakhmurzaev
Vladimir ‘No[o]ne’ Minenko
Roman ‘Resolut1on’ Fominok
Bakyt ‘Zayac’ Emilzhanov
Alexei ‘Solo’ Berezin
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Win odds: 8.0
Another attempt to return to the international arena of the professional Dota 2 led Universe and ppd to some difficulties while trying to make it to StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 through European quals. The players got some help from the newbie Daxak. Only three weeks have passed since the moment he joined the roster and it means that in comparison to some participants in the upcoming championship by WePlay!, NiP looks quite insecure. The players got to Group B together with Aggressive Mode, Nigma, and Virtus.pro. In our opinion, ppd and his teammates will take the 3-4 place in the tournament bracket in the best-case scenario.
Ninjas in Pyjamas roster:
Nikita ‘Daxak’ Kuzmin
Jason ‘TANNER’ Connor Weedon
Rodrigo ‘Lelis’ Santos
Saahil ‘Universe’ Arora
Peter ‘ppd’ Dager
Gambit Esports
Win odds: 11.0
Gambit has a good chance to win the championship as the tournament is going to happen in Kyiv. This city may have many Gambit fans who will amp their favorites up. Besides, Gambit played pretty well at the recent qualifier for DPC tournaments. The esportsmen were not able to qualify for ESL One Los Angeles 2020 but they showed a confident performance at the elimination tour at StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 and it helped them to make it to the minor that will happen in the same city where the WePlay! championship will be taking place. Due to the fact that fn has recently joined the team for the second time, we cannot treat this team as a favorite of the competition. Our opinion is cemented by some other contestant of the championship, for example, Team Secret or Nigma. Gambit is to make it to the playoff as Group A has a weaker participant, Infamous. If everything goes right, the latter will definitely fail their performance in the tournament.
Gambit Esports roster:
Kiyalbek ‘dream`’ Tayirov
Rostislav ‘fn’ Lozovoi
Maxim ‘Shachlo’ Abramovskikh
Danial ‘XSvamp1Re’ Alibaev
Artiom ‘fng’ Barshack
Outsiders of the championship
Infamous
Win odds: 34.0
Infamous is the only main outsider in the competition. The team from South America may not claim the victory as the gap between the game of the Peruvians and the rest of the participants in the championship is too big. The team plays so poorly that the players could not defeat NoPing e-sports at the recently finished qualifier for StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3. The esportsmen got to Group A together with Gambit, B8 Esports, and Team Secret. In our opinion, the only contestant that the team from South America may try to fight with is only B8. In total, we are sure that Infamous will be the first to leave the competition. Weak gaming shape, acclimatization, jet lag, and other factors will not let Infamous make it higher than the 5-6 place in the tournament bracket.
Infamous roster:
Enzo ‘Timado’ Gianoli
Sebastian ‘Robo-Z’ Cerralta
Rafael ‘Sacred’ Yonatan
Alexis ‘slad1n-’ Cepeda
Mariano ‘Papita’ A. Caneda
Dark horses
B8 Esports, Aggressive Mode
Win odds: 80.0 and 50.0
B8 Esports and Aggressive Mode may be called outsiders of the tournament as well, however, we will treat these rosters as dark horses because of the attitude of the CIS spectators towards the Ukrainian representatives of these teams. Dendi and Lil are famous and legendary esportsmen who are going to play at home, in the capital of Ukraine. This one fact is enough for the teams to make it to Top 4 of contestants of WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon.
Nevertheless, we lean towards the idea that Aggressive Mode will make it Four Best as B8’s performance is limited by only five matches that were held at the open qualifier at ESL One Los Angeles 2020. There Dendi and his teammates lost. Meanwhile, Aggressive Mode managed to pass to the closed elimination round at ESL One Los Angeles 2020 in the most difficult region - the European one. There Lil and his teammates were not able to succeed and got to the closed round to the third minor where they performed in the same way. As a reminder, Aggressive Mode was able to pass through the European quals for Hainan Master Spring Invitational 2020 with the prize pool of $200,000 that was canceled later. These facts revealed that Aggressive Mode is in rather competitive shape and the audience in Kyiv may help Illya feel confident. The roster is also represented by Ad Finem who has a huge experience in both playing Dota in total and with each other in particular.
B8 Esports roster:
Alexandr ‘pio65’ Zalivako
Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishutin
Andrey ‘Ghostik’ Kadyk
Rinat ‘KingR’ Abdullin
Nikola ‘LeBronDota’ Popovic
Aggressive Mode roster:
Oliver ‘Oliver’ Lepko
Duško ‘BoraNija’ Boranijaševic
Haris ‘SkyLark’ Zafiriou
Illya ‘Lil’ Ilyuk
Giorgos ‘SsaSpartan’ Giannakopoulos
Favorite
Team Secret
Win odds: 1.90
The only main favorite is Team Secret for sure. Clement ‘Puppey’ Ivanov and his teammates are the only roster whose participation in the grand final is not doubtful. Secret got to the easiest Group A where, apart from them, they will face B8 Esports, Gambit, and Infamous. It means that Secret is likely to make it to the semifinal and after that, they will be only one won match away from the final. All the participants in the tournament look pretty weak in comparison with Puppey and his teammates and that is why we definitely put Team Secret on the first position in the list of the contenders on the victory at WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon.
Team Secret roster:
Lasse ‘MATUMBAMAN’ Urpalainen
Michał ‘Nisha’ Jankowski
Ludwig ‘zai’ Wåhlberg
Yazied ‘YapzOr’ Jaradat
Clement ‘Puppey’ Ivanov