ESL One Katowice 2019 – Teams Announced
| Tags: Dota 2
| Author Eliana Bollati
After a successful 2018 run, ESL One Katowice returns next week.
Twelve teams are set to battle it out for a slice of $300,000 starting off with the group stages, a series of Bo2 round robins, beginning Tuesday February 19th and followed by the playoffs from the 22nd to the 24th.
Now that the participating teams have been announced and split into groups, who can we expect to see facing-off at Spodek Arena?
Group A
Chongqing winners Team Secret will join Gambit Esports, Mineski, For the Dream, OG and Forward Gaming in Group A.
After their recent performances, Team Secret will definitely be a team worth keeping a close eye on during Katowice. They’ve had a strong start to the year, with a total of 7950 points they’ve already qualified for an invite to TI9 in Shanghai later this year. Currently they’re sitting pretty in 1st place alongside CIS team Virtus.Pro.
There have been a few small roster shuffles for Group A in the lead up to the Major. Mineski announced their latest edition to their roster, Ahjit, on January 23rd. Ahjit was formerly signed to Tigers. Although he is best known to fans for his time with SEA team, Fnatic.
Russian team, Gambit Esports have also been making changes to their roster. In December last year the team benched players VANSKOR and KingR, replacing them with Immersion and fng. The new line-up performed well at this year’s Bucharest Minor, placing second against EHOME.
Group B
Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, CompLexity Gaming, Alliance, Team Aster and Chaos E Sports Club will make up our Group B.
Ninjas in Pyjamas are the current DPC leaders from Group B, securing themselves a spot in the top 5 with 1420 points earned in the season so far. They’re followed by Fnatic in 6th place, with a total of 1350 points.
Chaos E Sports Club only recently re-entered the Dota 2 Pro-Circuit after a long absence last year. The team’s new line-up includes players from the former PaiN Gaming roster alongside veterans w33 and MiSeRy.
Plenty of fans will be interested to see how Alliance perform in Katowice. They had a disappointing run during the recent European qualifiers for the Starladder IMBATV Minor, losing their chance at playing in Ukraine next month to OG in a 3-0 defeat during the last days of the event.
Who Won’t We See?
EHOME, will be absent from the event. They were forced to pull out due to a conflict with the MDL Macau schedule. The runner-up from the China qualifier, For the Dream will take their spot.
SEA qualifiers TNC.Predator won’t be making it either due to a combination of scheduling conflicts and visa complications. Their withdrawal saw them replaced by fellow SEA team, Mineski.
Tune in on Twitch from February 19th to 24th to catch all the action from Spodek Arena. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter to keep up with the latest Dota 2 news, and check out our YouTube for all the highlights.
Image via the ESL Facebook page.
Eliana is a freelance editor & journalist from Australia with a passion for esports and video games. An avid player of video games for the better part of three decades, she began following professional esports circuits during the 2010s. She brings both a player and longtime fan perspective into her commentary on the professional scenes.