Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary Show - Format, Schedule, Prize Pool, and Predictions

What is the Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary show?

The Esports betting company, Pinnacle, is celebrating its 25 Year Anniversary, and what better way to do it than with a Dota 2 tournament? The tier-2 organizer has supported the esports scene, especially with up-and-coming teams.

Prize pool

A prize pool of $100,000 will be split between the top 8 Teams with 1st place taking a hefty sum of $50,000.

The winning team will also get a Dota2 Bootcamp for a week in a five star hotel in Malta.

Schedule

The Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary Tournament will take place from November 20 to December 6, 2023. Day 1 will start off with Alliance vs. Nemiga Gaming at 11:00 am CET and end with D2 Hustlers vs. Klim Sani4 at 8:00 pm CET.

The games will be broadcast live on Twitch in both English and Russian.

Pinnacle 25-Year Anniversary Prize Pool Credit: @PinnacleDota2

Being a post-TI tournament, the Pinnacle 25th anniversary tournament will be a testing ground for teams to build new strategies and bonds. The participating teams are:

• Natus Vincere
• Team Tickles
• Level UP
• B8
• KZ Team
• Nemiga Gaming
• Atlas Burden
• SIBE Team
• Team Falcons
• Virtus.pro
• D2 Hustlers
• MoneyMakers
• Alliance
• Keyd Stars
• Team Klee
• BOOM Esports
• Yellow Submarine
• NAVI Junior
• Klim Sani4
• MarsBet Team

Tournament Format

Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary Tournament Format Credit: @PinnacleDota2

Group Stage

• 20 Teams will participate in the Group Stage.
• Four groups with five teams each will face off against each other in a round-robin style.
• Each series will be a best-of-3s, with the top team from each group moving to the Upper Bracket of playoffs.
• The team placing 3rd in each group will move to the Lower Bracket of playoffs, while the remaining teams are eliminated.

Playoffs

• The twelve qualified teams will participate in the Playoffs, with eight teams in the Upper Bracket and four starting in the Lower Bracket.
• All matches will be single-elimination determined by best-of-3s.
• The Grand Finals will be best-of-5s.

Group Stage Predictions - Top 4 Teams

B8

The face of Dota2: Dendi Credit: @DendiBoss

• Tasos "Focus" Michailidis
• Danil "Dendi" Ishutin
• Denis "StoneBank" Korzh
• Nikolay "CTOMAHEH1" Kalchev
• Vladislav "Mary_y" Krivtsov

B8 did not find success initially when Dendi founded the organization in 2020. However, moving to the NA region in 2023 and reaching the finals during The International qualifiers surprised the community. With Focus from Brame and Mary_y from UALEIKUMNIHAO joining the team, B8 will have a fresh start.

Team Falcons

• Oliver "skiter" Lepko
• Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak
• Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf
• Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen
• Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu

This stacked Falcons squad of TI & Major winners came together at the start of November. Though these players are individually skilled, they had a disappointing TI run, with ATF and Malr1ne not even making it to TI. But with new perspectives and ideas, we are looking at a potentially Top-tier team. The Falcons have already won the MENA qualifier for ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 by defeating PSG Quest in the finals.

Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro Squad Credit: @virtuspro

• Ilya "Kiritych" Ulyanov
• Ilya "squad1x" Kuvaldin
• Evgeniy "Noticed" Ignatenko
• Oleg "sayuw" Kalenbet
• Artsiom "Fng" Barshak

One of the surprising teams to enter The International 2023. After failing to qualify for all three Majors during the DPC, the community had lost hope in VP. But with a clean Upper Bracket run at the Regional Qualifiers, they joined TI.

Defeating TSM for the Upper Bracket spot and then Entity, VP secured a Top 8 finish at TI. Fng's presence as a captain has positively impacted the team, and hopefully, VP as a whole will gain momentum.

Keyd Stars

Keyd Stars at The International 2023 Credit: Valve

• Guilherme "Costabile" Costábile
• João "4nalog" Giannini
• Gustavo "fcr" Ribeiro
• Danylo "Kingrd" Nascimento
• Matheus "KJ" Diniz

The current Keyd Stars squad has been together since June of this year. Their performance did not improve during the DPC, even dropping to Division II at one point. However, during the TI 12 Regional Qualifiers, they had a clean Upper Bracket run. At TI's group stage, they drew the matches against TSM, PSG Quest & Tundra Esports. Securing Top 16 in TI, they would have gained some experience with the International teams to reflect on.

Though these four may be the top teams in their groups, some teams can still surprise us. Team Tickles, Natus Vincere, Boom Esports, and D2 Hustlers can potentially win the tournament. Valve has also announced a 7.34e patch update, which will be released on the 20th of November. This will play a huge role in unexpected results and a possible new meta to evolve during the tournament.

Read more on the New Dota2 Patch Update Here!

Featured Image: @PinnacleDota2