Noxville’s top predictions for Riyadh Masters 2024
The best teams in Dota 2.
The Riyadh Masters is just around the corner, with twenty teams fighting over a US$5 million prize pool. Many of the top teams will be going from Riyadh to a boot camp for The International, so it serves as their last public preparation before they fight over the Aegis. Some teams will, however, be attending the Elite League Season 2.
Teams have qualified either given their performance over the competitive season (via EPT points) or via regional qualifiers — and based on how they’ve qualified, they’ll start off in different parts of the competition.
The twelve Regional Qualifier teams will start in the Play-In Stage, a two-group round-robin where the top three in each group advance. The fourth and fifth teams have a do-or-die match against a team from the other group. Groups haven’t been drawn yet, but there are some favorites.
Very Very Likely To Qualify Play-In Teams:
Very Likely To QualifyPlay-In Teams:
Given how the teams are allocated across the groups, it could create opportunities for HEROIC, Virtus Pro, or nouns to step up and grab a spot. Given the lack of cross-regional play on the new patch, it’s very hard to judge some teams.
The Group Stage and Beyond
As I said above, there’s a clear stratification at the top of pro Dota – only a few teams have consistently done well throughout the season, and it’s been rare for other teams to break into the top four for any significant events.
Given how EPT points were earned over such a long period of time, not all teams that qualified via this method are in the same match form—some were great at the start of the season but ended poorly, some were poor at the start but ended well, and some were just inconsistent the entire time (with enough good patches to accrue points).
Here’s my tiering of the Group Stage Invite teams. This is the context of the team’s chance to win the event, which isn’t exactly the same as where I imagine the teams will place.
B-Tier:
C-Tier:
Where do the Play-in teams slot in? Well, there’s a lot more guesswork as we’ve not seen any performances against teams from other regions on the new patch (and many of the teams above were invited to The International, so we didn’t even see them in the qualifiers).
Overall, we have a lot to learn from the teams: how they’ve adapted to the new patch, how they’re adjusting their playstyles to handle a shifting metagame, and (especially for less experienced players) how they can handle the pressure of a massive LAN event.
Unfortunately, I think it will be a tough event for SEA, NA, and SA to do well in—there’s just a traffic jam of Western European teams at the top, with a few Eastern European and Chinese teams and one very big target in the form of Team Falcons.
READ MORE:All teams qualified for TI13: Full list of teams attending The International 2024
