We've had one too many qualifiers in the last two weeks and the end is almost upon us.
The final four
The ESL One Major came to a conclusion today as IG, RNG and EHOME secured their spot in Los Angeles. Another three teams were directly eliminated - CDEC Gaming, Look for Smile, Blaze. Finally, we have the remaining four standing in between which made it to the closed qualifier of the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3.
The teams in question are Newbee, Team Aster, Keen Gaming and Avengerls. All of them are quite famous in the scene with the exception of Avengerls which appears to be a newly formed squad that made it through the open qualifiers along with Blaze. While Blaze managed to defeat PSG.LGD their performance in the group stage cost them a spot in Kiev. Avengerls placed third during the group stage with a point lead above Keen Gaming.
The favourite to take the first place is Team Aster, as all the teams that defeated them are already qualified for ESL One. This leaves us with Newbee who were on the brink of elimination in the LA qualifiers but managed to take down CDEC Gaming, showing that they're not done yet.
Format
Just like the other closed qualifiers for the Kiev Minor we've seen so far, the format remains unchanged. The four teams will directly enter playoffs with double elimination. All of the matches will be Bo3 with the exception of the grand final which will be a Bo5.
The event
The StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor China qualifiers will begin at 03:00 AM CET, February 18. A live stream will be available at the official StarLadder Twitch channel. The winning team will advance and join the other 9 teams in the main event which is set for March 5 and will continue until March 8.
The Kiev Minor offers $300 000 in prize money along with 660 DPC points, but perhaps the most important bit for most is a guaranteed slot in the ESL One Major. This alone means at least another $12 500 and 100 DPC points even in the worst-case scenario.
