DreamLeague Season 19 potential dark horses

DreamLeague Season 19 is a $1 million Dota 2 tournament that features most of the world’s best teams. On top of that, its format is unforgiving, so it won’t be easy for the underdogs to reach the playoffs. But there’s still a chance that some of the participants, despite being overlooked by everyone, will turn into dark horses.

In Dota 2, such teams usually appear at The International. The prize pool of the tournament makes all the participants train extra hard for several months, which results in the discovery of novel strategies that can yield spectacular results. But DreamLeague Season 19 has a lot of potential as well.

Teams to keep an eye on at DreamLeague S19

Here are two teams that don’t look scary but could easily turn into dark horses.

Evil Geniuses

This South American team finished Tour 2 of Dota Pro Circuit in second place, after losing to beastcoast. The same thing happened in Tour 1. However, EG clearly proved at the Lima Major that they know how to play at a big international tournament.

Some of EG’s members finished in the top eight at The International 2022 and had numerous good results over the years, so the team as a whole has the potential to repeat the Lima Major performance and perhaps even finish in the top four.

Ex-HellRaisers

This team is led by Alexey “Solo” Berezin, who is considered to be one of the best captains in the history of Dota 2. He’s won numerous trophies and half a dozen Majors with Virtus.pro. Then he struggled for several years. But now he seems to be back and his roster is very strong, despite the fact that most players are not well-known.

The addition of Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev to the roster at the end of Tour 1 greatly enhanced the capabilities of the team, propelling them to the number one position in the region. On top of that, ex-HellRaisers won Tour 2 without losing a single match.

Right now, people still underestimate them and think that their victory in Tour 2 over opponents like Team Spirit and BetBoom Team was a fluke. But they are likely to be proven wrong at DreamLeague Season 19.

Fortunately for ex-HellRaisers, their group opponents are not unbeatable. This leaves a lot of room for them to cause upsets and secure a top four result in the first stage of the tournament.

Header: Evil Geniuses