ESL One Germany 2020 Has Just Been Announced

ESL One Germany 2020 is an important online Dota 2 tournament that offers $400,000 in prizes and features 16 of the best teams in Europe and CIS. With such a large prize pool, such an impressive set of participants, and so little action due to the ongoing global crisis, this will likely be one of the biggest events of the next 4 months. If you’re a Dota 2 fan, you definitely don’t want to miss the competition.

ESL One Germany 2020 Details

ESL One Germany 2020 is scheduled to take place between October 5^th – November 1^st. As usual, the Luxembourg server will be used. And since the tournament will take place in Europe, the matches will be played somewhere between 10 AM CET and 22 PM CET.

The Group Stage will last from October 5^th until October 20^th. Then there will be several days of pause, followed by the Playoffs (October 23^rd – November 1^st). The Swiss-system format will be used, so you should expect this to look like a CS:GO event.

If you’re familiar with CS:GO Majors, you will probably know what this system looks like in practice: for each round, teams with identical win-loss records compete against each other. When a team achieves 3 wins, it qualifies and stops playing. If it reaches 3 losses, it gets eliminated and stops playing. It’s not yet clear if matches will be Bo1 or Bo3. Most likely, they will be Bo1. In the Playoffs however, the Bo3 format will be used for each match except the Grand Final (Bo5).

The Playoffs Stage uses the usual double-elimination format. And because the Swiss-system is used for the Group Stage, everyone will start in the Upper Bracket. In other words, each team gets two lives.

Participants

ESL One Germany 2020 features 16 amazing teams, which have proved themselves over the last year. These are easily the strongest competitors in Europe and CIS and 11 of them have already been revealed.

• Team Secret
• OG
• Team Nigma
• Team Liquid
• Alliance
• Ninjas in Pyjamas
• Virtus.pro
• Natus Vincere
• Vikin.gg
• HellRaisers
• FlyToMoon

All of these teams have received direct invitations. Only one last direct invite remains. The final 4 participants will need to qualify.

The big favorites are the ones we’ve already gotten used to: Team Secret, OG, and Team Nigma. Others may pose a real threat as well, but these 3 are the ones you should be watching if you want to see high-level action.

Prizes

For a mere online event, ESL One Germany 2020 offers a huge amount of money: $400,000. The prize pool will be divided among the 16 participants in the following way:

• 1^st place: $150,000
• 2^nd place: $80,000
• 3^rd place: $45,000
• 4^th place: $25,000
• 5^th – 6^th place: $15,500
• 7^th – 8^th place: $12,000
• 9^th – 11^th place: $7,500
• 12^th – 14^th place: $5,500
• 15^th – 16^th place: $3,500

We don’t often see this way of splitting the money. But if the organizers didn’t mind remembering all those unrounded numbers, I won’t mind either.

 

Photo credit: Valve