PGL Dota 2 Arlington Major: Road to The International

May 8, 2022

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Dktruman

The Dota2 Major returns and will be held in Arlington Texas USA. 500k USD are up for grabs with 4570 DPC points to collect. For a lot of the teams this is their last chance for direct placement towards The International so a lot is on the line here.

‍What? The Arlington Major

The last chance for teams to qualify directly for The International

‍Where? Arlington,Texas,USA

Teams will be competing at the Esports Stadium Arlington.

‍When? August 4, to August 14, 2022

10 Days starting with a group stage into a double elimination playoff bracket.

‍Teams Involved: 17 Teams Unfortunately Xtreme are not able to attend due to Visa issues.

Teams competing include PSG.LGD, Evil Geniuses, OG, Beastcoast

‍Markets available: There will be a host of live bets available to bet with crypto.

What is on the line?

‍TI Qualification:

‍The participating teams have this last tournament left to get enough points to get directly invited to The International. The International is the holy grail in Dota2. Last year it had a prize pool of over 40 Million Dollars USD. That is what all the teams are trying to aim for and this is the last chance for direct qualification.

Even if a team does not make it directly, there are still closed qualifiers and even wildcard tournaments planned but those are going to be very competitive.

‍Substitutes:

‍The tournament is riddled with Visa issues. That does make it a massive upset potential tournament. In the previous major OG did win with their sub Ceb. So they actually have the champions roster with them this time around. Will they manage to become champions again?

From the teams that are competing

Xtreme Gaming will not participate

Fnatic will have 3 subs

Entity has a sub

Talon has a sub

Thunder Awaken has a sub

Beastcoast has a sub

RNG will have a sub

And the reigning champions OG will have a sub

Due to these subs a couple of the favorite players will not be competing. Pure and DarkMago, both super important players for their respective teams Entity and Thunder Awaken will not be joining. Ramzes in Outsiders and Ame from LGD are probably the 2 most dangerous players to watch out for that can carry their team to the top. And Ammar from OG is another player that you can never count out because even if he gets heavily countered he still tends to be a dominant force in the game.

The Key Teams

‍Tournament Favorite PSG.LGD (2.60 betting odds)

There is a clear favorite for all the bookies out there and it is the Riyadh Masters victor PSG.LGD.

The Chinese team has been one of the most dominant teams for several years now.

And because of Covid in the previous Majors the Chinese teams have not been able to attend so they did not compete but with this major that will all change and LGD has been looking superb in the buildup to this tournament.

‍Possible upset OG (5.54 betting odds)

OG is the team that won the previous major. They did it with a sub as well then. Luckily enough it is the exact same sub that they are using right now. Ceb will be standing in but that was a tournament without the Chinese teams and also with a team that I personally deem one of the biggest upset potentials.

‍My personal favorite: Outsiders (5.54 betting odds)

My pick for the winners would have to be Outsiders. They are a Russian team that due to some unfortunate circumstance was not allowed to compete in the last Major. They replaced their safe lane player Pure for Ramzes and have been looking indestructible in the Eastern European region. Personally I peg them as my favorites to win the entire tournament.

‍The Dark Horse EG (6.54 betting odds)

Playing on home turf the American powerhouse org that is Evil Geniuses will have the crowd behind them. That in itself is a massive boost especially after the disappointing performance they had the last major. A team that went back to their original roster with Fly as their support looks hungry for the cup and are not a team to be underestimated.

Cloudbet offer and popular markets:

Some of the most bet on offers are the amount of kills happen in a game. That differs a lot per region but also per team. There are statistic websites to figure out the details exactly but for the most part it tends to be the Easter European teams that like to brawl (Outsiders, Team Spirit and Natus Vincere).

So games that go over a certain amount of kills are heavily favored with those teams involved.

There are also teams that like to drag out games as much as possible which makes the map duration a popular betting option. One such team is Team Liquid mainly because they tend to forget to draft into pushing power and stagnate the game. RNG is another team that runs into the same problems occasionally.

What to look at?

In Dota2, the draft has to be the most important event every game that determines the strategy in the game to come. That does include counter picks hero matchups and cheese picks (picks that rarely happen but can be a big surprise)

Nightstalker is probably going to be one of the strongest heroes together with Clockwork and Tiny.

Keep an eye on teams that secure those heroes because they are currently very hard to counter.

The panel tends to know a lot about the matchups as well so most of the time listen to what the experts have to say but always draw your own conclusions because not everyone knows everything.