Format for EPICENTER XL Revealed

Epic Esports Events, the organizers of the upcoming Dota 2 major tournament EPICENTER XL, announced the event’s format. It will feature a round-robin group stage and a double-elimination bracket for the playoffs.

EPICENTER XL is a major Dota 2 tournament with $1,000,000 and 1500 DPC Points at stake, which will take place on April 27th – May 6th in Moscow, Russia. The list of participants consists of five invited teams: Virtus.pro, Team Liquid, Team Secret, Newbee and Natus Vincere, as well as six teams that qualified through the regional qualifiers: OG (Europe), Team Empire (CIS), compLexity Gaming (North America), paiN Gaming (South America), LGD Gaming (China) and Mineski (Southeast Asia). The last participating team – FlyToMoon – advanced from a special open qualifier called Madness Qualifier, which was available for teams from all regions.

Recently the organizers of the tournament announced its format, and it is one of the fairest we’ve seen: in the group stage, which will be held on April 27th – May 2nd, the twelve participating teams will be divided into two round-robin groups with best-of-three series, top two teams from each group will advance to the upper bracket, the teams placed 3rd-4th will make it to the lower bracket, while the teams placed 5th-6th will be eliminated. The playoffs stage, which will be played on May 4th – 6th on VTB Ice Palace before live audience, will be held in a double-elimination format with first two round of the lower bracket being best-of-one, the other regular matches being best-of-three, and the grand finals being best-of-five.

The previous EPICENTER event took place on June 4th – 11th, 2017 at VTB Ice Palace in Moscow. Ten teams competed for their share of a $500,000 prize pool. In the grand finals Team Liquid defeated Evil Geniuses with the score of 3-1, receiving $250,000 in prize money.