Quest Esports win Riyadh Masters 2023 MENA Qualifier

Riyadh Masters 2023 MENA Qualifier was a tournament that featured four teams and offered one of them the opportunity to qualify for the upcoming Riyadh Masters 2023, which will take place in July.

This event offers $15 million in prize money, so it’s almost as important as The International. It doesn’t have the same prestige, but it’s still the biggest tournament in the history of Dota 2 if we exclude TI5 – TI11.

The competition will feature 20 of the world’s best teams. Eight of them got invited based on their DreamLeague results in 2023. Twelve more teams get invited based on their EPT ranking, which is the organizer’s ranking system for each of the six official regions.

The highest-ranked team from each region gets invited to the tournament, as well as five other teams from around the world. These teams are also picked based on their EPT ranking but the region is no longer taken into consideration.

The 12^th team is the MENA Qualifier winner. And that team will be Quest Esports.

Congratulation to @questesports_ who have won MENA qualifiers for Riyadh Masters 2023 to join the fray in the Saudi Arabia capital next month and fight for a shot at the title and a share of the $15M prize pool.#Dota2 #RiyadhMasters https://t.co/YSWiiudY0d

— GosuGamers (@GosuGamers) June 25, 2023

How Quest Esports won the MENA Qualifier

Quest Esports finished Tour 3 in 3^rd place in WEU’s Division I, which makes them a very strong competitor. Even before the qualifier began, everyone knew that they were the team to beat.

Even though Nigma Galaxy and Team Secret ME were also in the race, neither of them were seen as being strong enough to contest Quest. So when Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf’s team won, nobody was surprised.

Quest Esports started the tournament with an easy match against Dota Enjoyer. This was by far the weakest team in the race and Quest dismantled them in two quick games that lasted 22 and 19 minutes respectively.

The upper bracket Final was much harder. Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi might not be the same formidable player he used to be back in 2017-2019, but he’s still one of the most knowledgeable Dota 2 players in the world. Quest needed three games to win the series.

In the Grand Final, all three games were dominated by them and there was simply no hope for Clement “Puppey” Ivanov and his boys. Despite picking Morphling twice, and other strong meta heroes, Secret lost each time because Quest’s map movements and tactical decisions were a lot better.

Thanks to this victory, Quest will finally have the opportunity to show us what they’re capable of at the international level. But before Riyadh Masters 2023, they will compete in the Bali Major.

Header: OG