DreamLeague Season 19 preview

DreamLeague Season 19 is scheduled to start on April 9 and will last for more than two weeks. This is one of the biggest Dota 2 tournaments of 2023, featuring 16 teams and a prize pool of $1 million. We rarely see such Dota 2 events these days, so viewership success is almost guaranteed.

Another thing that will probably make enthusiasts tune in is the chosen location: Western Europe. But there’s a big problem: the competition takes place online.

This is probably the main reason why the prize pool is so big. The expenses are greatly reduced when everything takes place online. But the spectacle level is much smaller than that of a LAN where thousands of people are cheering for their favorite teams.

DreamLeague Season 19 format

DreamLeague S19 divides the 16 participants into two groups of eight. Only the top four teams from each group advance to the next round. The format here is Round-Robin. Every match is best-of-two.

The second stage of the tournament consists of a group of eight teams. Once again, the Round-Robin format will be used. But this time, every match is best-of-three. The top two teams advance to the upper bracket, while the third and fourth-place teams advance to the lower bracket of the playoffs.

In the playoffs, every match is best-of-three, except for the Grand Final, which will be a best-of-five series. The winner gets $300.000 and qualifies for Riyadh Masters 2023.

Participants

The 16 participants that will take part in DreamLeague Season 19 are listed below:

Group A

• Entity
• Evil Geniuses
• Ex-HellRaisers
• Execration
• Gaimin Gladiators
• Shopify Rebellion
• Team Aster
• TSM

Group B

• Beastcoast
• Nouns
• OG
• LGD
• Talon Esports
• Team Liquid
• Team Spirit
• Tundra Esports

The tournament will be intense. It starts with 16 matches per day, which is more than any Dota 2 fan can handle. The good news is that many of these matches will be exciting to watch and will likely show us what is going to happen at the Berlin Major.

Arguably, most of the best teams in the world compete in DreamLeague S19, so whoever the tournament will get a lot of credit from the community. But let’s not forget that this is still an online competition. The difference between playing from the comfort of your home and doing it in front of thousands of screaming fans is huge.

In the history of esports, there have been plenty of online champions that couldn’t handle the pressure of a LAN event.

Header: ESL