Riyadh Masters 2023 participants

Riyadh Masters is scheduled to start on July 19 and all of the 20 participants are known at this point.

A lot of the names are quite surprising in light of the results we’ve seen in the last three months. Competitors like Team Secret and Virtus.pro are nowhere near the level of the other teams, but they were still invited because of their ETP ranking.

The event organizer prioritized Western Europe and Eastern Europe when picking the participants, in the sense that a lot more slots were allocated to these regions than to the rest.

This makes perfect sense not just because Europe is by far the strongest region in Dota 2 right now, but also because of Saudi Arabia’s long-term objective to become a bit more appealing to those who grew up in the Western world. No less than 10 of the 20 participants are from Europe.

Riyadh Masters 2023 competitors

Here are the 20 teams that will play in Riyadh this year:

• Gaimin Gladiators
• BetBoom Team
• PSG.LGD
• Evil Geniuses
• Tundra Esports
• Shopify Rebellion
• Team Spirit

These are the group stage seeds. The play-in seeds are listed below:

• Team Liquid
• 9Pandas
• TSM
• Beastcoast
• Team Aster
• Execration
• OG
• Virtus.pro
• Entity
• Xtreme Gaming
• Team Secret
• Quest Esports

This is how the #RiyadhMasters Group Stage looks so far!

Our 8 DreamLeague-qualified teams will be met by 8 teams from the Play-In Stage. After 4 action-packed days, we’ll find out which 12 teams will make it to the Playoffs! 🔥#Gamers8 #TheLandOfHeroes pic.twitter.com/PZjZ3OMusf

— Gamers8 Esports (@Gamers8GG) July 14, 2023

For the play-in teams, the battle will start much earlier and will be rough. Out of these 12 teams, eight will advance to the group stage. Luckily, the event organizer decided to split the prize pool in a generous way. And because the amount is $15 million, even the bottom four teams will receive $50.000, which is not bad at all. The 13^th-14^th place participants will get as much as the winner of the Bali Major: $200.000. The 7^th-8^th place competitors will get $500.000, which is the equivalent of winning a CS:GO Major.

For the top four teams, the rewards will be comparable to those offered by The International:

• 1^st place: $5 million
• 2^nd place: $2.5 million
• 3^rd place: $1.7 million
• 4^th place: $1.2 million

These amounts are quite spectacular and guarantee that the matches will be fierce. At previous Dota 2 events, some of the teams gave us the impression that they were holding back a little bit. But at Riyadh Masters 2023, the participants will use their best strategies in order to guarantee themselves a top result.

The teams that are most likely to get eliminated in the play-in stage are Entity, OG, Execration, and Virtus.pro. Two other teams that will likely struggle are Team Secret and TSM.

Header: Saudi Esports Federation