Two weeks after the Arlington Major and a dozen teams from across the globe face off for a total prize pool of US$400,000 in Malaysia.
Pinnacle certainly favors top 4 major placers in Team OG and Chinese powerhouse Team Aster with outright odds to win it all at 4.69 and 4.31, respectively.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: August 22th, 12:00 A.M. (EST)
After a strong Arlington Major run, Team Aster looks to raise their first international trophy as a squad ever since coming together more than a year ago. Meanwhile, OG will be playing with another hard support to stand-in for Misha. Instead, taking the place of Ceb as Misha’s replacement is Chuvash who is actually their coach.
Other front-runners are Team Secret, Entity Esports, and Nigma. The revamped rosters of these European squads have proved fatal, especially Entity Esports who put on quite a show in the last Major despite missing pubstar carry Pure.
The addition of Resolut1ion to pair up with Zayac in the off-lane for Team Secret to replace veteran off-lane iceiceice was a very good move for the team. In their last tournament appearance, the chemistry between the two carried Team Secret in some of the matches they played. And with Pure back on the roster for this event, Entity Esports will be back at full power and should be firing on all cylinders.
Contrary to the upgrades these two teams had, Nigma will be playing without their star player Miracle, who will be unable to fly out to Malaysia due to undisclosed health issues.
Representing Southeast Asia are the region’s finest in BOOM Esports, Talon Esports, and Fnatic. These three teams have proven themselves to be the top three teams and are the home crowd favorites in Genting, Malaysia. Outside of Fnatic who will be missing Raven as their position 1 due to health issues, the SEA teams present are in full strength and will be trying their best to make Dota fans from their own region proud.
Rounding out the teams are America’s representative TSM and Thunder Awaken. After their dream run to get second place at the ESL One Stockholm Major, TSM has certainly been on the way down and this will be the perfect opportunity for them to bounce back and showcase their talents once again.
Also attending the event is Team Liquid, who were directly invited to participate in the event. This will be the second to the last tournament for veteran carry Matumbaman. He announced that he will be retiring from competitive Dota after the current season is over after The International this coming October.
ESL One Malaysia will be the last event before the new patch starts where the The International qualifiers will be played on. This means that no teams will hold back and save strats as they have nothing to lose. Expect strong performances and high level Dota in Genting, Malaysia.
Will the favorites retain their strong tournament placements or will another team come out on top and snatch away the victory?
