Elite League Stage 1 Favorites

Elite League is a massive Dota 2 event organized by FISSURE and ESB. Its prize pool is around $1 million and its number of participants is 24, which is not something we see very often in Dota 2. The high number of participants makes it possible for almost every important Dota 2 team to be part of the competition.

The only downside of Elite League is that it takes place online. This means that the level of spectacle won’t be as high as it is at tournaments like The International, Riyadh Masters, or Majors.

Elite League will be played in three stages and the first of them uses a modified Swiss System format, with best-of-three matches instead of best-of-ones.

Stage 1 Competitors

¡Congrats to @nounsesports, @BLACKLISTINTL, KEV and REST FARMERS for qualifying to the Elite League S1! 4 more teams to go! Follow the action at Twitch at ESB_Dota2_EN! pic.twitter.com/L59HtK0b39

— ESB_Dota2 (@ESB_Dota2) March 15, 2024

Here are the 16 teams that will compete in stage 1 of Elite League:

• OG
• BOOM Esports
• Nouns
• Tundra Esports
• Talon Esports
• Team Secret
• Virtus.pro
• Blacklist International
• PSG Quest
• KEV
• Aurora
• HEROIC
• Nigma Galaxy
• 9Pandas
• Rest Farmers
• Entity

Most of these teams are well-known at this point. The exceptions are KEV, Rest Farmers, and to some extent 9Pandas. But even in their case, some of the players should be familiar to Dota 2 fans who have been following tournaments for at least a few years.

KEV is a Chinese team and on their roster is none other than old eLeVeN. Rest Farmers have Handsken, Pablo, and Xibbe. And 9Pandas have Solo and kiyotaka.

Favorites

There are many strong teams in this race. Luckily, the competitive format offers half of the participants the chance to advance to the next stage. But who will those eight teams be?

For obvious reasons, the favorites list must include these teams:

OG

OG recently failed to qualify for DreamLeague S23. They finished 3^rd in the WEU Qualifier for the tournament, and that should make them more motivated to prove themselves and make the best of Elite League. Ceb is known to be a fierce competitor and he will certainly try to get at least a top-six result at this event.

OG’s first match of the tournament will be against Blacklist International. This will be a tough opponent to beat because TIMS, Abed, and Gabbi are very experienced players

Tundra Esports

Tundra’s roster includes players like Topson and Pure~, so there’s no shortage of superstars on this team. With them in the mid and carry roles and MoonMeander as the coach, this team could easily surprise everyone and finish in the top-four. At the recent qualifiers for DreamLeague S23, Tundra finished 2^nd in Western Europe.

The team’s first match of the tournament will be against HEROIC. This is a South American competitor whose roster has players like K1 and Scofield. For those who are not familiar with these South Americans, they both finished The International 2022 in 7^th – 8^th place while competing for beastcoast.

Team Secret

Team Secret keep trying to make a comeback. After The International 2022, a tournament in which they finished 2^nd, Puppey’s team collapsed completely and fell into obscurity. It seems that Nisha was far more important than we originally thought.

At the end of the 2023 season, it looked like the reunion between Secret and MidOne would be beneficial for both sides. But unfortunately, the Malaysian player only competed for two months before being benched.

At the moment, Puppey is trying to succeed with players like ah fu, BOOM, Crystallis, and Kordan on his roster. The only one who is certainly worthy of Puppey’s team is Crystallis. The other three still need to prove themselves.

In the recent qualifiers for DreamLeague S23, Team Secret failed. But perhaps they can perform better at this event. In the first round, they will play against Virtus.pro. The two teams know each other well because they played many matches.

Historically, these organizations used to compete at big events. Secret’s most epic win against VP happened in 2019, in the Grand Final of the Chongqing Major.

PSG Quest

Recently, PSG Quest won the MENA Qualifier for DreamLeague S23. However, there was only one serious opponent to beat in that tournament: Nigma Galaxy. And as we all know, Nigma have been struggling to make a comeback for more than three years.

Despite having one of the most successful captains in the history of the game (KuroKy), and former number 1 players like Miracle- and SumaiL, this team can’t seem to find a winning formula even against regional rivals.

This makes PSG Quest’s victory a bit less relevant for Elite League. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be regarded as one of the best teams in the tournament.

For Quest, the first match will be a major test because BOOM Esports have players like Pakazs, who finished 5^th – 6^th at The International 2022 while competing for Thunder Awaken.

Aurora

Aurora have three members who are among the best in the world at their respective roles. The carry is 23, formerly known as 23savage. He was the first player in the world to reach 12.000 and then 13.000 MMR. Another one is Jabz, whose captain skills are held in high regard in the SEA region.

The coach of the team is SunBhie, who is highly accomplished in this role. He is best known for his Team Secret years, but the truth is that he can achieve great things with just about any decent team. In 2023, he helped Talon Esports finish 3^rd at Riyadh Masters. Most of Talon’s former roster is Aurora’s current roster. SunBhie stayed with that roster and continues to coach them.

Nouns

Nouns may not have the world’s best players, but they do have one of the world’s best captains. Fly won four Majors in his career and finished The International in 3^rd place once, while representing Evil Geniuses.

In recent years, he competed in the tournament with varying degrees of success. In 2019 he was 5^th – 6^th. In 2021 he was 9^th – 12^th. In 2022 he was 9^th – 12^th. And in 2023, he was 13^th – 16^th. He finally parted ways with Arteezy and the rest of the crew after TI12.

Some of the players joined the current Team Falcons roster and became the best in the world. He joined nouns, a much more modest organization. But he still managed to obtain some important results with them.

For instance, nouns qualified for BetBoom Dubai and finished 9^th – 12^th. They were very close to qualifying for DreamLeague S22 and ESL One Birmingham as well. Both times, they finished the regional qualifier in 2^nd place after losing to Shopify Rebellion 2 – 3 in the Grand Final.

Nouns will start Elite League with a match against KEV, which might prove to be more challenging than it looks. The Chinese squad consists of very good players, so Fly’s abilities will be seriously tested. He’s quite experienced himself, especially against Chinese teams, but we’ll have to see how far nouns can go at this event.

Header: FISSURE, ESB