The first competition of its kind, the ROG Masters will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, between 10-13 November. The idea of the organizers was to create a tournament around the Asian Dota 2 scene which would incentivize and provide opportunities for smaller teams in the vast Asian region.
Tournament Format
A total of 12 teams will feature. Two of these were invited – the most popular Malaysian team Fnatic and the only non-Asian team, Team Secret.
The rest of the participants had to fight their way through five qualifying regions – Oceania, East Asia, South East Asia, China and Rest of Asia, with each area having two representatives.
In the tournament itself, there will initially be four groups of three teams each. A round-robin best-of-three series will determine the top two teams to advance to the quarter-final stage. There will be no Losers’ Bracket in the playoffs and clashes here will again be best-of-three. The winner will be decided in a grand finale best-of-five series.
The prize pool is $150,000, but it has not yet been revealed how the money will be distributed among the participants.
The Groups
Group A
The favourites here are Execration, who came from the SEA Qualifier. They won the most recent MPGL Southeast Asian Championship in September and were one of the SEA teams that Valve invited subsequently onto the stage of the Boston Major. They were recently joined by Adam “343” Shah Hussein, but he will not play in the ROG Masters.
The other two teams will most likely fight for the second spot in the group. Natural 9 came out of the Oceania Qualifier and this is the first time they will play in an International event.
It is the same situation for the Mongolians from MOL, who eliminated MVP.Hot6ix in the East Asia Qualifiers to make it to the tournament.
Group B
Group B will contain the team that the home crowd will be cheering for – Fnatic. The new roster have been struggling to live up to the high standards from last season and have been unable to qualify for a number of events, including the Boston Major. Nevertheless, they should not have any problems getting out of this group.
MAX.X are a Chinese team who have emerged onto the International stage from the very competitive Chinese scene for the first time.
Their opponents for the second spot in the group will be Indian team Entity from the Rest of Asia Qualifier, who lastly played in the Boston Major Open Qualifiers, but were eliminated before the Main Qualifiers stage.
Group C
This group features Team Secret, the only non-Asian organization in attendance but whose line-up includes three SEA region players – South Koreans MP and Forev, as well as MidOne from Malaysia. Since the new roster was formed, Secret have shown inconsistent performances. They secured a spot in the Dota Pit Season 5 and won the small online FACEIT Invitational tournament, but failed where it mattered most – in the Boston Major Qualifiers. They are one of the favourites here though and are expected to reach the Grand Final.
One of their opponents in the group will be The Mongolz, who came through the East Asian Qualifier. The team regularly participates in lower tier tournaments on the SEA scene and most recently finished 7-8th in the ProDotA Southeast Asia #3 before failing in the SEA region Boston Major Qualifiers.
The last team in Group C is Big and Black, a relatively unknown outfit from Australia that came through the Oceania Qualifier. They have never featured in the more renowned tournaments.
Group D
The last group of the tournament brings together Mineski, EHOME.X and Aggressive 5.
Mineski are one of the strongest Philippine teams currently and qualified for the event from the Southeast Asia Qualifiers. The team started the new season with a 3rd place finish in the MPGL Southeast Asian Championship and were very close to qualifying for the Boston Major, but were eliminated rather unexpectedly in the Losers’ Finals match by WG.Unity. They are expected to progress as group winners here though.
EHOME.X are one of the subdivisions of the Chinese Dota 2 powerhouse and are composed of a pool of young and talented Chinese players. The team were one of the winners of the Open Qualifiers for the Boston Major, but were eventually eliminated during the Main Qualifiers by the much more experienced Chinese outfits.
The 12th participant in the ROG Masters will be another Indian team, Aggressive 5, who won through the Rest of Asia qualifiers. The team plays predominantly on the Indian scene and have little experience of International competition.
Conclusion
The concept behind the ROG Masters is an interesting one that caters to the needs of the vast Asian Dota scene by giving a chance to some of the smaller outfits to win a substantial amount of money. They will also gain a taste of being on the International stage and playing against pro teams. It is the first of its kind and it will be very interesting to see how teams of different skill levels compare and whether the underdogs will do the unthinkable by upsetting the favourites in the face of Fnatic, Team Secret, Execration and Mineski.
Image Credit: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/ROG_MASTERS
