Bucharest Minor 2019 Preview

On 9 January eight collectives will get to Romania at the PGL studio to define the winner of the second Minor tournament in this rating season and to get a prize from the prize pool of 300 thousand dollars, 500 Dota Pro Circuit points and a slot at The Chongqing Major 2019.

Holding format

The Bucharest Minor 2019 will be held in two stages - the group one and the playoff. The organizers will allocate all the participants in two groups where they will play with each other in the GSL format with matches up to two wins. Two best teams from each of the groups will get to the upper bracket of the playoff stage while two worst teams will start their way to the championship from the loser's bracket. All matches of the playoff will be held up to two wins while the grand final will be played in the bo5 format.

As the event got a “Minor” status, the winner will get a slot at the final part of The Chongqing Major, while all the participants will fight for their share of 500 Dota Pro Circuit points and $300,000 that will be shared as stated below:

1 place: $125,000 + 120 DPC points + slot at The Chongqing Major
2 place: $70,000 + 100 DPC points
3 place: $35,000 + 90 DPC points
4 place: $25,000 + 70 DPC points
5-6 place: $15,000 + 40 DPC points
7-8 place: $7,500 + 20 DPC points

Championship organization

Organizer of the competition will be PGL Studios company. There is no point doubting about success of the championship as the studio has held more than 10 big events since 2014 and this is only Dota 2. We should mark that SC PGL Esports S.R.L. company also helps to organize tournaments of The International series and recently it has finished working on The Kuala Lumpur Major 2018. The holding place was chosen to be PGL eSports studio in Romania creating a favourable atmosphere for players due to absence of spectators which can help them feel as if they were at the boot camp and can show their best.

Importance of the championship

This championship is extremely important for all Tier-2 collectives as the first position provides a slot at The Chongqing Major. It's remarkable that the big prize pool is also important for Tier-2 teams as some of the need it due to absence of an organization.

The teams’ chances

OG - win coefficient equals 3

Bookmakers think that the guys from OG are favourites of this Major tournament which is not groundless as they are current world's champions according to The International 2018. As for us, we don't agree with their opinion as they guys had a long rest after TI8 and they haven't got used to the tournament schedule yet and also the collective haven't been able to decide on their first position - after the championship at the main competition of the year Ana left the roster, while Pajkatt haven't cemented his position in the starting lineup. As a result, several days ago iLTW joined the collective but OG didn't have enough time to achieve good teamwork. Since summer the team performed at AMD Dota 2 Pro Series 2018 where they got the third place and took the second position at WePlay! Dota 2 Winter Madness.

EHOME - win’s coefficient equals 4

Finally EHOME started coming back to the professional stage after two years of awful results. At the beginning of autumn, three players joined the collective and lately the roster have won regional finals of World Electronic Sports Games 2018, become the champion of Asia Pro League and STARLUCK DOTA2 Challenge, and also got placed on the second positions at H-Cup Season 10 and H-Cup Season 11. Now the guys look pretty confident and show themselves well in China which is deservingly the strongest region in the whole world. This roster has a good chance of getting a good result and even of getting to the grand final but there are some teams that look more preferable.

Ninjas in Pyjamas - win's coefficient equals 5

We think that NiP is the main favorite of winning Bucharest Minor 2019, as the last time when the roster changed happened after The International and the guys managed to get the fourth place at The Kuala Lumpur Major and WePlay! Dota 2 Winter Madness, and also to win GG.Bet Invitational Season 1. We should mark that the roster showed bad results at the tournaments in January, but PPD and the team managed not to show their progress before the upcoming Minor tournament as getting to The Chongqing Major is a top priority.

Gambit Esports - win's coefficient equals 5

The roster of the organization Gambit eSports looked pretty strong during the current season, but the management weren't satisfied with the collective's getting was tournament of the Major series and they decided to make changes - a few weeks ago Fng and Immersion joined the team. This decision looked pretty questionable as the guys didn't play together and there wasn't much time before Bucharest Minor 2019, but the collective played well at WePlay! Dota 2 Winter Madness, where they took the first place leaving the thoughts about absence of teamwork behind. We should mark that the roster won over all the main favourites of the win at the upcoming Minor tournament and we should hope that the guys haven't shown their best strategies.

Keen Gaming - win's coefficient equals 7

The roster of Keen Gaming is pretty experienced and each of the players managed to visit at least one Major tournament. The collective was created in September last year and it was getting stronger and stronger, but for last couple of weeks the roster has been having strange results due to unexplained reasons - Dark and the team won The China Hope Series #2 and H-Cup Season 12, but at the qualifiers for MDL Macau 2019, the guys didn't win any map. Maybe they were getting prepared for upcoming The Bucharest Minor 2019 and didn't want to show their strategies. The team had big chances of good performance and they are to enter best four players, but if we look at the position above, the competition is too big.

BOOM ID - win's coefficient equals 45

BOOM ID team looks as one of the outsiders of this competition as they have never been big championships and they look very unconfident at the competitions for Tier-2 collectives. In autumn the team took the third position at the regional finals of World Electronic Sports Games 2018 and took the sixth position at PVP Esports Championship. In our opinion, BOOM ID will get to the competition to get some experience and a result of more than the fifth place will be unbelievable success for the Indonesian collective.

Team Team - win's coefficient equals 50

Ixmike88 and the team made it to The Bucharest Minor 2019 through the qualifiers in North America there the collective didn't have any opponent as all the strong collectives overcame the qualifiers for the Major, while compLexity signed three players a week before the qualifier. Team Team can't boast about big achievements at Dota 2 championships, and the guys’ best result was the first place at the regional finals of World Electronic Sports Games 2018.

Playmakers - win's coefficient equals 75

The guys from Playmakers Esports haven't had any difficulty overcoming the qualifiers for this Minor tournament, but they perform in the weakest region on the professional Dota 2 stage. The collective can't boast about any achievement on the professional stage, but there are some players in the team that have visited big tournaments. The bookmakers think that Playmakers Esports are the main outsiders, but we will call then a dark horse as we suppose that they can surprise us.