The Chongqing Major Preview and Analysis

Being the 2nd Major of the season, The Chongqing Major will decide a lot of things with regards to The International 2019. The event is scheduled to happen next year, in Chongquing, China, between January 19th – 27th.

The Chongqing Major will be attended by 16 of the world’s greatest Dota 2 teams and will provide a prize pool of 1 million dollars. In addition to this hefty amount of money, the tournament also offers 15.000 qualification points for The International 2019.

Qualified teams

The Chongqing Major features most of the giants of Dota and a few other teams on top. Of the 16 available tickets, 15 have already been “sold” to the winners and runner-ups of the regional qualifiers for the event. For the most part, everyone who was expected to qualify managed to do so. The only missing team is the TI 8 champion, OG.

However, given that they’ve lost ana, I do not expect OG to be back at the top too soon. Europe is absolutely stacked right now and there are only 3 available spots for every Major. Team Secret, Team Liquid, Alliance, Ninjas in Pyjamas and OG are all fighting for these 3 spots. And arguably, 2 of them are pretty much occupied by default by the first two teams on this list in every qualifier.

The 16th ticket for The Chongqing Major will be given to the winner of the Minor that precedes its, namely The Bucharest Minor.

Here are the teams that are already qualified for the event:

• Europe: Alliance, Team Secret, Team Liquid
• North America: J.Storm, Evil Geniuses, Forward Gaming
• South America: Thunder Predator, paiN Gaming
• CIS: NoPangolier, Virtus.pro
• China: Team Aster, PSG.LGD, Vici Gaming
• Southeast Asia: TNC Predator, Fnatic

Almost all of these competitors are well-known teams with a great past behind them. However, a few of them are new and it will be interesting to see how they stack up against the others. This is, after all, the summit of professional Dota 2 and it takes a lot of skill to not get completely run over by some of the names on this list.

Prizes

The Chongqing Major offers what every Major offers: 1 million dollars in prizes and 15.000 qualification points for the season’s TI. And with just 5 tournaments of this type during the entire season, each Major has a huge impact over the Dota Pro Circuit rankings table. Remember, 12 teams qualify directly for The International based on their regular season performance, translated into the number of qualification points prior to The International.

The distribution of prizes for The Chongqing Major will be the following:

• 1st place: $350.000 – 4950 qual. pts.
• 2nd place: $170.000 – 3000 qual. pts.
• 3rd place: $100.000 – 2100 qual. pts.
• 4th place: $80.000 – 1350 qual. pts.
• 5th – 6th place: $60.000 – 900 qual. pts.
• 7th – 8th place: $40.000 – 450 qual. pts.
• 9th – 12th place: $15.000 – 150 qual. pts.
• 13th – 16th place: $10.000 – 75 qual. pts.

Current DPC standings

Currently, the teams that will be participating at the The Chongqing Major occupy the following spots in the DPC rankings table:

• Virtus.pro – 1st place: 4950 qual. pts.
• Team Secret – 2nd place: 3000 qual. pts.
• Evil Geniuses – 3rd place: 2100 qual. pts.
• PSG.LGD – 5th place: 900 qual. pts.
• TNC Predator – 5th place: 900 qual. pts.
• Fnatic – 7th place: 450 qual. pts.
• Vici Gaming – 7th place: 450 qual. pts.
• Alliance – 9th place: 225 qual. pts.
• Forward Gaming – 10th place: 150 qual. pts.
• J.Storm – 10th place: 150 qual. pts.
• paiN Gaming – 12th place: 75 qual. pts.
• Team Aster – 12th place: 75 qual. pts.

Only 3 of the 15 participants at The Chongqing Major do not have their names on this list. And that’s because they didn’t take part in the first Major of the season. These teams are NoPangolier, Thunder Predator and Team Liquid. The first two aren’t expected to do anything spectacular at this event, but the 3rd certainly is. Liquid has been missing from the scene for several months and people are longing to see its glorious return.

Main contenders

As The International 2018 already showed us, any team can win the tournament, so it is yet to be decided who the winners will be at The Chongqing Major. Even though everyone has their fair chances, the contenders analyzed below have an advantage in the competition, when compared to the rest.

Virtus.pro

Leaving the less extraordinary TI performances aside, Virtus.pro is possibly the strongest team in the world at the moment. Their recent achievements include finishing the previous competitive season with multiple victories at Majors and being ranked number 1 in the Dota Pro Circuit rankings table.

In the new season, VP exceeded all expectations by winning the title at the first Major, after defeating Team Secret with a score of 3 – 2 in the Grand Final.

As each and every other team mentioned on this list can be considered their rival, I expect Solo and the rest of the squad to get a top 4 placement overall. Keep in mind that teams such as PSG.LGD, Evil Geniuses, Team Secret and Team Liquid are somewhat at the same level of experience and skill as VP, so I am curious to see what happens in case of a direct eliminatory match.

Even though anything is possible, you’re safer to bet on VP’s chances to advance in this competition, as they have gathered quite some experience in winning Majors until now.

Team Secret

Finishing 4th last season in the Dota Pro Circuit and getting the 5th-6th place at The International 2018 was just the beginning of Team Secret’s series of achievements. Puppey and his team stood strong against Virtus.pro in the Grand Final of the first Major this season and they were very close to turn the tables on VP and win the whole event.

Once again, Puppey proved his strong leadership skills by bringing Nisha and zai to the team and the new lineup looks simply flawless. He does have a talent for bringing somewhat unknown players to be part of his roster, then helping them transform into powerful and popular competitors. In this case, zai was already a proven talent who played with Puppey as his captain before, but Nisha was basically a nobody before joining Team Secret, exactly how Topson was before joining OG and going into The International 2018.

Evil Geniuses

Currently, EG is in great shape and I can truly say that Fly and s4 managed to completely integrate into the team’s core trio after the start of the new competitive season. This powerful lineup finished 3rd at The International 2018 and started the 2018-2019 competitive season with another 3rd place at The Kuala Lumpur Major.

Taking into account the other teams who are stronger than Evil Geniuses at the moment, I expect them to finish 4th-6th at The Chongqing Major.

Team Liquid

After The International 2018, where they finished 4th, Team Liquid dismissed their participation at the first Minor and failed to qualify for the first Major this season. Moreover, the team announced that Heen will no longer be their coach and his replacement is still to be determined. Until things are settled, KuroKy seems to be in charge of his team.

The recent result in the qualifiers for The Chongqing Major, where Liquid has only lost against Team Secret (1-2) and finished 2nd in Europe gives us hope. Moreover, the team has an excellent roster, as well as a lot of remarkable achievements until now, so I do expect them to have an amazing performance and get a top 4 placement overall.

PSG.LGD

Last season, PSG.LGD had some outstanding results, finishing 3rd in the Dota Pro Circuit and coming very close to winning The International 2018. The only thing that took the Aegis of Champions away from this Chinese team was an unexpected amazing performance from OG.

If the 2017-2018 competitive season made PSG.LGD one of the strongest teams, this season brought them less motivation to succeed and their results have been far from great. The fans were disappointed to see that Somnus and the rest of the team only finished 5th at The Kuala Lumpur Major.

Going into The Chongqing Major, I expect PSG.LGD to get a 5th-6th placement overall, as the other contenders seem to be more determined to succeed than they currently are. It is possible for the team to rise again and play at their full potential, but it is best to remain reserved for now, until assessing their current form.