Recently, the Dota 2 community has gone through a small period of downtime following the cancellation of The International. Accordingly, Epic Esports Events and WePlay! Esports have come together to host an incredible event. Namely, the OMEGA League: Europe Immortal Division puts $500,000 up for grabs for the best European Dota 2 squads. Read on for details on How to Watch!
Hosting Tier A Dota 2 competition for the other regions of Americas and Asia, we’ll be focusing on Europe. OMEGA League: Europe is clearly the largest of the three regional events. By the same token, the European region is further split up into tiers. Accordingly, here they are:
- Immortal
- Divine
- Closed Qualifier
- Southeast EU
- Northwest EU
Immortal is the highest division and the one we’ll be tackling.
Format
Running from August 14th to September 6th, the entire event is set to run online entirely. Playing exclusively on patch 7.27c. the community is anxious to figure out the new meta. Overall, the event makes use of a familiar format. Firstly, let’s take a look at the teams involved:
Direct Invite
- Team Secret
- Natus Vincere
- Team Liquid
- Virtus.pro
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- FlyToMoon
- Evil Geniuses
- OG
- Alliance
- Team Nigma
Closed Qualifier
- 5men
- Vikin.gg
Evidently, there are 10 invited teams besides the two teams earning a spot through closed qualification.
As a result, the 12 teams will be sorted into two groups of six. From here, a single round-robin will take place. Accordingly, BO3 matches will seed the teams as follows:
- Top 2 – Upper Bracket R1 of Playoffs
- Third – Lower Bracket R1 of Playoffs
- Fourth and Fifth – Play-In Stage, from which they may end up Lower Bracket R1 of Playoffs or drop to Divine division
- Sixth – drop to Upper Bracket R1 of Divine division
Furthermore, the groups have been divided as so:
- Group A – Alliance, Evil Geniuses, Natus Vincere, Team Nigma, Virtus.pro, 5men
- Group B – FlyToMoon, Ninjas in Pyjamas, OG, Team Liquid, Team Secret, Vikin.gg
Groups will run-up to August 30th. Following which, Playoffs will take place from September 2nd-6th. Here, a BO3 double-elimination bracket should conclude the event. Altogether, it will all conclude through a BO5 Grand Final.
Schedule
A full schedule is available here. As an example, the following is how the first three days of competition look like from August 14-17th:
August 14th
- Na’Vi vs 5men
- OG vs Vikin.gg
- VP vs Alliance
August 15th
- NiP vs Vikin.gg
- EG vs 5men
August 16th
- OG vs NiP
- Secret vs Liquid
- VP vs Na’Vi
Roughly two to four games will take place on each day.
Streams
Without a doubt, the $500,000 will be streamed through a high-quality broadcast. Indeed, all the action will be streamed through multiple Twitch channels:
- English – https://www.twitch.tv/weplayesport_en
- Russian – https://www.twitch.tv/dota2ruhub
- Portuguese – https://www.twitch.tv/beyondthesummit_pt
- Ukrainian – https://www.twitch.tv/weplayesport_ua
Watch the OMEGA League: Europe Immortal stream on esportsguide.com
You can also watch the OMEGA League: Europe live stream via our very own website. Providing an extensive list of the biggest esports together with streams for each esports match live today or upcoming matches.
Predictions
Naturally, although there is some serious talent in the qualifying teams, everyone looks to the invited top dogs for a champion.
Usually, when making such predictions, it’s wise to look to the most recent event where most competitors played previously. The best European teams of the continent competed at the BEYOND EPIC: Europe/CIS event. Here, the teams stacked up as follows:
- 1 – Team Secret
- 2 – Team Nigma
- 3 – Team Liquid
- 4 – FlyToMoon
- 5-6 – Virtus.pro
- 7-8 – Alliance and OG
- 9-10 – Ninjas in Pyjamas
What does mix all of this up is the addition of Evil Geniuses – the North American giants who haven’t faced the Europeans in a while. Also, since that last event was on a different patch, the results don’t hold as well. Placing third at the BTS Pro Series Season 2: Americas, Evil Geniuses still remain a threat.
Overall, my prediction has the majority of the $500,000 going to either Evil Geniuses and Team Secret with lower possibilities for the likes of Team Nigma and Team Liquid. In addition, the online environment doesn’t help with the predictions either – will Evil Geniuses playing from North America affect their gameplay?
