DreamLeague Season 19 Preview

DreamLeague S19 has begun and will be played over the next two weeks. This is a great tournament to watch if you love Dota 2 because it features most of the best teams in the world. Its prize pool is $1 million, which is two times more than a Major offers. The winner will receive $300.000 and a ticket to Riyadh Masters.

DreamLeague takes place online, on the Western European server. If you’re interested in watching the matches, there is plenty of action to follow almost every day.

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DreamLeague S19 Format

The competitive format of DreamLeague S19 is very unusual and seems to be designed to generate as many matches as possible. There are three stages in total.

For the first stage, the 16 teams are divided into two groups of eight. Each group consists of a round-robin. Every match is a best-of-two series.

Only four of the eight teams advance to the next stage, which consists of a single group of eight teams. The round-robin format is used again. Only this time, every match is best-of-three. The best two teams advance to the upper bracket. Two more teams advance to the lower bracket. The bottom four teams are eliminated.

We rarely see such an unforgiving format being used at a $1 million tournament. Even in CS:GO, you generally get six or eight teams in the playoffs. DreamLeague S19 will have only four. But these four teams will be the best of the best.

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Competitors

Here are the 16 teams that participate in DreamLeague Season 19:

Group A

• Execration
• Gaimin Gladiators
• Shopify Rebellion
• Entity
• Evil Geniuses
• Ex-HellRaisers
• Team Aster
• TSM

Group B

• Beastcoast
• Talon Esports
• Team Liquid
• Team Spirit
• Tundra Esports
• Nouns
• OG
• Nigma Galaxy

Both groups are very challenging for all the participants. Group A may seem a bit easier at first glance, but it’s actually full of exceptional teams.

Based on statistics, Gaimin Gladiators, ex-HellRaisers, Evil Geniuses, and Team Aster should be the winners in group A. In group B, the best teams are Team Liquid, Talon Esports, Team Spirit, and Tundra Esports. It remains to be seen if they can confirm the strength they’ve shown in recent months.

For players like Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi, this tournament might be their best chance to revive their Dota 2 career. There’s a lot to fight for, so the action is guaranteed to be fun to watch.

Header: ESL