What an extraordinary year has been for Dota 2! After many tournamnets which were held this year it is time to have some Christmas spirit and to enjoy the last tournament of the year – Summit 8

The highly anticipated tournament always draws a big following not only because of the high quality games, but also because of the entire atmosphere in which the tournament is held.

There are always numerous of interactions between teams and personalities, including players or even entire teams taking the role of casters.

For these reasons Summit is becoming more and more popular up to a point where now even Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Super Smash Bros now have their own Summit events.

Dota Summit 8 will take place from the 13th to 17th of December, just before Christmas. This means that there will surely be some Christmas-themed stuff going around, which makes it even more interesting. You can follow all the actions on the official livestream of the event. Here is also the offical teaser that was released on twitter.

This tournament is also the last chance of our fellow eSports bettors to try their luck, so we suggest you to use it.

Despite the fact that this tournament is generally friendlier in terms of competition, meaning that the teams usually play with different heroes or try different tactics, this year the competition might be more serious, because Summit 8 is a minor tournament so the teams will be fighting for $300,000 and 300 Pro Circuit Points.

Teams, Format and The Prize Pool

Format

The format of the tournament is going to be a group stage. There will be three groups consisting of three teams each. All games during the group stage will be played in round-robin, meaning that the teams will play versus each of their opponents in the group and each win will equal to one point. In a case of a tiebreaker there will be extra games to determine who goes further.

There are also going to be wild cards – three runner-ups from the group stages and the 3rd place team with the most wins will fight in a single elimination.

The playoffs will also be played in a single elimination. Four teams (3 group winners and one wild card winner) will fight in order to determine who will be the Summit champion. The semifinals will be played in a BO3 format and the Grand Final itself will be a BO5.

Prize Pool

Like we already mentioned, the prize pool will be $300,000 and 300 Pro Circuit Points. First place will take $120K + 150 points, 2nd 60k + 90 points and 3rd and 4th place will get $36k each + 30 points. The teams that finish from 5th to 9th will not earn any Pro Circuit points.

The Participants

There will be nine teams which will be playing in the Summit, two of them are invited, six are regional qualifier winners and one is the winner of King’s Cup:America. Here is a list of the teams as follows:

Invited Teams – OG & Evil Geniuses King’s Cup:America winners – OpTic Gaming NA Qualifier – compLexity Gaming SA Qualifier – Sacred EU Qualifier – Team Kinguin CIS Qualifier – Virtus.Pro China Qualifier – LGD Gaming SEA Qualifier – Fnatic

Our Favorites

Evil Geniuses

Evil Geniuses have been a stable team throughout the entire year, and their recent performance at DreamLeague Season 8 proved it once again.

They played really well in the tournament, despite their somewhat underrated position that they were in. The 2-0 vs VP and Na’Vi in the lower bracket of the tournament were pretty impressive, considering the fact that both teams were in really good form and VP was even considered as one of the favorites to win the entire tournament.

In the end however, they lost 0-2 to Team Liquid in a really dominant performance by Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barqawi, especially in the 2nd game where he absolutely demolished them with his outstanding Morphling plays.

They also lost to Team Secret in the beginning, which pushed them in the lower bracket. If we consider the fact that they lost to arguably the best teams in the world right now, their overall performance was really solid so in my opinion they are definitely capable of winning the tournament and also win you some cash if you decide to bet on them.

OG

OG have been in a really good form recently and their results at the MDL Macau speak for themselves. They lost only two games in the group stage and managed to finish first.

After the group stage, their domination continued as they won 2-0 againt Na’Vi and 2-0 against TnC in the final.

The whole team played flawlessly through the entire tournament and as we all know, Dota is a game where the team is as good as his last game. Therefore, OG is considered as my personal favorite to win the Summit 8 and if it was up to me, I would definitely bet on them. However, we have to keep in mind that Summit is a “friendlier” tournament, so anything is possible.

Final Thoughts

Since the Summit 8 is the last “bigger” tournament of the year, it will be interesting to see how it will turn out. There are also going to be 3 standings this tournament, which will make it just a little bit more exciting –

ArtStyle will be standing in for Solo for Virtus.Pro

DeMoN will be standing in for Masoku for Sacred

QQQ will be standing in for Victoria for LGD Gaming

Who do you think will finish the year as the champion of Summit 8?

Let us know in the comment section below!

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