The first Major tournament of 2016, The Shanghai Major, will host sixteen of the best Dota 2 teams in the world, competing over five days. Just as The Frankfurt Major, it will be featuring a prize pool of $3 million, and a double elimination format. Eight teams were also directly invited, and another eight teams will come from the Regional Qualifiers. Each Regional Open Qualifiers will be between January 3rd and 6th, and be made up of ten teams. Following are the directly invited teams, and the teams in the Regional Qualifiers.
Directly Invited
OG
Team Secret
Evil Genius
Ehome
Vici Gaming
CDEC
Virtus.pro
Alliance
Although Alliance has had a weak few years, I have a feeling, with the return of EGM and a current meta game that suites their play style, they are the front runners of the entire Major.
Regional Qualifiers
Americas Qualifiers
Leviathan
Power Of Friendship
Archon
Void Boys
coL
Elite Wolves
Shazam
Open Qualifier Winner
Open Qualifier Winner
Now with North Americas strongest team being EG, and with a direct invite to the Major, not much talent is left in the Americas but if I had to pick, I feel coL has the best shot taking this Qualifier bracket, with Void Boys coming in at a close second. Although I am sort of bias when it comes to Void Boys, as when I used to play there were a few members of Void Boys I know and used to play against. So I always hope to see them do well.
Europe Qualifiers
Fantastic Five
Empire
Na`Vi
Team Spirit
Vega
Elements
Liquid
Hell Raisers
Open Qualifier Winner
Open Qualifier Winner
Hands down with the return of Na`vi, they will take the cake on this one. With Liquid coming in at a hard second, and to be honest, I don’t expect to see much coming out of Hell Raiders or Empire.
Southeast Asia Qualifiers
MVP.P
TNC
Sig.Trust
Fnatic
Satuduatiga
Mineski
Execration
First Departure
Open Qualifier Winner
Open Qualifier Winner
With the rise of Mineski at Frankfurt and all the hype surrounding them, they truly haven’t done much since, and honestly I feel like this was just an qualifier pity invite, since they did do very well at Frankfurt, another team I don’t expect to see much out of. Although on the other hand, expect a lot coming from MVP.P.
China Qualifiers
NewBee
IG.Vitality
NB.y
Wings
IG
Fantuan
LGD
CDEC.y
Open Qualifier Winner
Open Qualifier Winner
The group that is easily up for grabs, with big names like NewBee, IG and LGD. Though the Chinese teams did not have much success at Frankfurt or WCA, Shanghai is their home field. Expect a lot out of this bracket, these teams are going to be showing up with something to prove.