EPICENTER’s BEYOND EPIC online Dota 2 event is here for the EU/CIS region. Don’t miss the opening series between Alliance and Team Empire Hope.
The EPICENTER Major was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, but that’s ok. The organizers switched to an online format with BEYOND EPIC. The event is rather limited in regions, but makes up for it with a nice prize pool and plenty of teams. China still has one more team to add through closed qualifiers, while the EU/CIS region is starting in less than an hour. The tournament will run for two weeks and come to an end on June 28 with teams competing for the $200,000 prize pool. For China it’ll be a total of 8 teams and $50,000.
The groups
We already know the groups from a few days back when EPICENTER announced them on Twitter.
Here is the group breakdown for Beyond Epic Dota 2 tournament!2 best teams in each group will advance to the upper bracket, 3-4th places will make up the first-round matchups in the lower bracket, and the 5-6th places will be eliminated from the tournament.It will be epic! pic.twitter.com/hTAi7G144k
— EPICENTER (@epicentergg) June 12, 2020
Who are the favorites?
Group A is seriously stacked when compared to group B. Team Secret and OG clashed on Saturday in BLAST’s Bounty Hunt. Clement “Puppey” Ivanov and his squadmates came out victorious once again, burying OG with 3:0 in the grand finals.
Team Nigma are also part of Group A and despite the fact, the team had a shaky performance in the last few events they’re still not to be underestimated. After all they were one of the few teams to beat Team Secret in recent months.
Then there’s group B where at first glance there’s one top team and that’s Alliance. Team Liquid are also to be considered as a possible leader of the group but their performance is rather inconsistent lately. Vikin.gg have been on the rise from the Tier 2 scene and might have some surprises in store during this event.
Format
The group stage will feature the twelve teams split into two groups of six. Each of the teams will play a series against the rest in the respective group. Points will be rewarded as follows:
- 2-0 awards 3 points
- 2-1 awards 2 points
- 1-2 awards 1 point
- 0-2 awards 0 point
The top two teams will advance to the upper bracket of the playoffs, the 3rd and 4th places will go to the bottom bracket while the bottom two performers will be eliminated. The group stage starts today and will come to an end on June 24. Playoffs begin the day after on June 25 with the grand finals scheduled for June 28. All of the series will be Bo3, with the exception of the finals which will be a Bo5.
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BEYOND EPIC is a trio partnership between Epic Esports Events, Beyond The Summit and RuHub so streams will be available by all three. Don’t miss the opening series between Alliance and Team Empire Hope which will officially start the event.
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