Let’s learn more about the Dota 2 DreamLeague Season 20: the last big tournament before the Bali Major.
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Dota 2: DreamLeague Season 20 Overview
DreamLeague Season 20 will be the last big tournament before The Bali Major 2023. Once the matches from Tour 3’s Division I are over, the best team in the world will gather in Bali for the last Major, and we will learn the names of most teams that will attend The International 12.
With that said, there will be a big online tournament before that called DreamLeague Season 20. It will include 16 pre-invited teams, and the Dota 2 event will have a jaw-dropping prize pool of $1,000,000. Considering the stakes, this will be an important competition, so this DreamLeague Season 20 review will show you what you need to know.
General Information and Format
DreamLeague Season 20 will be an online event organized by ESL that will take place on European servers. The tournament will have 16 invited teams based on the popular EPT ranking systems. Six participants are from Western Europe, whereas each region has two representatives.
The event itself will have two group stages. The first one consists of two groups of 8 teams each, and they have to play in a single round-robin format with Bo2 matches. Once the group is over, the best four from each will advance to the second group stage. After that, every clash there will be in a Bo3 format, and in the end, the top 2 will go to the Upper Bracket of the playoffs, whereas the 3rd and 4th squads will go to the Lower Bracket.
Once the DreamLeague Season 20 playoffs arrive, we will have a Double Elimination bracket with Bo3 matches. Besides winning the big prize, the team that wins this tournament and the one that finishes second will receive slots for the Riyadh Masters 2023.
We’ve already mentioned the prize pool, but knowing that the winner will get “only” $300K is worth it. DreamLeague S20 will occur between June 11-25 and be broadcasted in several languages. Of course, the event will have all the popular Dota 2 talents, such as Jorien “Sheever” van der Heijden, Neal “Tsunami” Khandheria, Mira “Ephey,” and more.
DreamLeague Season 20 teams
Regarding the teams at DreamLeague Season 20, we will have access to some of the best in the world. ESL released the Group Stage a few days ago, so let’s learn more about each.
Group A
By the looks of it, Group A will be more competitive than the other one because the teams here are clearly some of the favorites. We will have the chance to watch the following names:
- Team Secret
- Tundra Esports
- Evil Geniuses
- Team Spirit
- Talon Esports
- PSG.LGD
- Team Liquid
- TSM
At first sight, Tundra Esports and Team Liquid are the two big names people must pay attention to. However, if we look at the results from WEU’s Division I, we can see that Tundra didn’t lose a single match. Leon “Nine” Kirilin’s squad has figured out how the meta works and will use it to its advantage to win DL S20.
On the other hand, Team Liquid is always one of the big favorites in those kinds of events. Although the squad had some hiccups in Division I, it remains one of the best in the world.
Team Spirit is another Dota 2 team at DreamLeague Season 20 that people will pay close attention to. The latter finished first in Eastern Europe, and the squad will be eager to prove it is still one of the best in the world.
Lastly, we have PSG.LGD: the team with almost no competition in China. Although it will be hard for Guo “shiro” Xuanang and the rest to defeat the powerful Western European squads, the team’s results in Division I prove that it has what it takes to beat almost everyone.
Group B
After addressing some of the favorites in our DreamLeauge Season 20 overview from Group A, it’s time to do the same in Group B. The latter will allow you to watch the following teams:
- Entity
- Gaimin Gladiators
- Shopify Rebellion
- OG
- Team Aster
- Execration
- Beastcoast
- 9Pandas
Gaimin Gladiators is the name that stands out from the rest and for a good reason. Besides qualifying for the Bali Major, this team won the last three big tournaments. This also includes DreamLeague Season 19, which was the last online event.
Even though the North American Dota 2 scene is not in its best state, we must include Shopify Rebellion on the list. Artour “Arteezy” Babaev’s team was flawless in Tour 3 of the 2023 DPC, so it is one of the big favorites to win this event.
Lastly, the Chinese powerhouse Team Aster has some of the most consistent results in the international Dota 2 stage. Unfortunately, Du “Monet” Peng and the rest are yet to win a big tournament, so it will be interesting to see them against some of the best from other parts of the world.
DreamLeague Season 20 – The Underdogs
Even though all the teams participating in this event have received a direct invitation, not all have been in good form recently. Starting with TSM, the NA squad’s most recent results are nowhere near as good as before. It failed to qualify for the Bali Major and couldn’t do anything in the last big international event.
The same applies to Execration. The SEA squad had some reasonably good results several months ago, but the team’s current state doesn’t allow it to defeat any of the big Western European teams. It will be interesting to see whether it will surprise us because Execration achieved fairly good results in SEA’s Division I.
