Dota 2 Tournament Preview – ESL One Summer 2021

Except for the TI 10 regional qualifiers, ESL One Summer 2021 is the last Dota 2 tournament of the season. The event takes place between June 16^th – 20^th and features many of the world’s best teams.

ESL One Summer 2021

Even though it’s not a Major, ESL One Summer 2021 offers $400,000 in prizes and brings together 12 teams from 4 of the 6 DPC regions. Its only weak point is that these 12 participants differ in skill by a lot. Instead of having a balanced competition, we may end up having a lot of one-sided matches that aren’t fun to watch.

Teams

ESL One Summer 2021 has in attendance the following teams:

• Alliance
• AS Monaco Gambit
• Team Secret
• OG
• T1
• Team Nigma
• Quincy Crew
• Team Liquid
• pro
• Tundra Esports
• gg
• Team Unique

Some of these teams are here simply because better ones decided to withdraw and focus on the TI 10 qualifiers. But their presence will still decrease the hype quite a bit. The only thing we can hope for is to see them perform better than they usually do.

Competitive Format

The competitive format of ESL One Summer 2021 offers the stronger teams a slight advantage by allowing them to start the race in the second round of the Upper Bracket. The 4 privileged participants are Virtus.pro, Team Secret, T1, and Quincy Crew. Arguably, instead of Team Secret they should have offered Nigma the spot. But KuroKy and his crew will most likely get there anyway.

Another interesting fact about the event’s competitive format is that the first round of the Lower Bracket will be played between the losers of the first two round of the Upper Bracket. We don’t see this very often.

Prizes

The $400,000 will be divided among the 12 participants in the following way:

• 1^st place: $175,000
• 2^nd place: $85,000
• 3^rd place: $45,000
• 4^th place: $25,000
• 5^th – 6^th place: $15,000
• 7^th – 8^th place: $10,000
• 9^th – 12^th place: $5,000

Favorites

ESL One Summer 2021 has 4 big favorites: T1, Nigma, Quincy Crew, and Team Secret. I’ll analyse each of them below.

T1

T1 proved to be a highly skilled team at WePlay AniMajor, where they finished 3^rd. With 23savage at the peak of his powers, the SEA crew is expected to get important results in the upcoming tournaments. Since there won’t be any significant patch changes in the next few days, T1 is arguably the strongest team in this tournament because they’ve mastered the current meta more than the rest.

Nigma

After failing to secure a top 12 DPC spot and a direct invite to The International 10, Nigma needs to prepare for the regional qualifiers. And this tournament will be a great opportunity for them. Other teams declined to participate invoking the need to train harder for TI. KuroKy’s team decided that it would be best for them to learn via a live action exercise. And their decision makes perfect sense. Nothing prepares you better for a tough tournament than another tough tournament.

Nigma’s main opposition here will be T1 and Quincy Crew. They might also have a hard time against Secret, but KuroKy knows Puppey very well and seems to always have his number.

Quincy Crew

All things considered, Quincy Crew had a great run at the recent WePlay AniMajor, where they finished 5^th – 6^th. The team got eliminated after facing T1 (1 – 2) and Vici Gaming (1 – 2). And they weren’t far from winning these matches.

Prior to their WePlay AniMajor result, Quincy Crew won the Upper Division of North America’s DPC Season 2. Overall, they sit at number 4 in the global rankings with 1100 points. This statistic is not entirely relevant because of how the points are awarded (most of them come from regional battles) but it still signifies that QC is a great competitor.

Team Secret

Puppey is known to keep his best strategies secret until it really matters. Given that a $40 million event is right around the corner, I don’t expect him to reveal too much at ESL One Summer 2021. Even if he must lose because of it, he’s not going to use any highly effective novel strategies, assuming he’s got some. Because it’s not about winning, it’s about studying your opponents and preparing for the real battle. When you think about it, $400,000 is only 1% of $40 million.

Given the level of opposition they will face, Secret is likely to finish in the top 4 but it’s unlikely that we’ll see them in the Grand Final.

 

Photo credit: Valve