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| An early showdown with Liquid awaits for Mineski in ESL One. Ivan Saldajeno (file photo) |
MANILA--Mineski got a good chance of making at least the semifinals of ESL One as the team avoided getting an early clash with either of tournament favorites Secret and EHome.
In the release of the official schedule of the tournament on Tuesday night, Secret and EHome, two of the three directly invited clubs to the DOTA 2 showdown at the Mall of Asia Arena on April 23-24, ended up joining Eurpopean qualifier Empire and Southeast Asian qualifier Fnatic in Group B, which many analysts and fans find as the "group of death".
Empire made the main tournament by stunning pre-European qualifier cinch NaVi in the finals, while Fnatic continues to gain some ground by securing a spot in the Frankfurt leg of the ESL One series earlier Tuesday.
However, Mineski, the Philippine qualifiers, will still get some tough competition as the club has the other direct invite, Liquid, in Group A. Joining them are American qualifier Complexity and Chinese qualifier Wings, which are also making some impression lately.
The tournament follows a double-elimination format for the preliminaries and a best-of-three and best-of-five series semifinal and final formats respectively.
ESL One will actually start on April 22 with the closed-door first round.
Mineski battles Liquid in a one-game showdown, while Complexity takes on Wings simultaneously at 11 a.m. at an undisclosed location.
The other preliminary pairings have Liquid versus Empire and EHome against Fnatic, both happening simultaneously at 2 p.m.
The winners of the said matches will face off later in the day for the first two spots in the semifinals on April 24.
The losing sides in the first round face off for survival on April 23, the official first day of competition, with the winners battling the losers of the two outright semis battles for the other Final Four spots later in the day.
The final day of the tournament will start with the crossover semis in which the outright semifinalist of one group battles the wildcard team from the other group.
The winners of the best-of-three semis goes on to the best-of-five finals where the champion will take home US$250 thousand.
Follow him on Twitter: @IvanSaldajeno
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