Dota 2’s upcoming competitive year is taking form and a new challenger has entered the arena in the form of BetBoom Dacha, who will host a $1 million prize pool tournament in Dubai, UAE when February rolls around.
While Dota 2 fans are glad to have another major event in a month that looked like a break period for players, another aspect of the tournament is rather surprising. Not only did BetBoom keep the newly found MENA qualifiers for the emerging region, but it also merged some underperforming regions—NA-SA and SEA-CN—together.
The reason behind such a decision remains unknown. The move to merge NA and SA makes sense with their latest results in mind, but the same can’t be said for China. Despite a horrendous start to 2023, the Dota 2 legends from the East turned the tides around, especially after the Great Shuffle of China.
The Chinese Dota 2 region improved upon its impressive TI 2023 performance and took home the ESL One Kuala Lumpur trophy earlier this month as Azure Ray reverse swept Gaimin Gladiators in the grand finals. Right now, given the state of merging regions, there’s a decent chance fans might not see SA or SEA teams at BetBoom Dacha Dubai. This will ultimately depend on the available slots for the qualifiers, but if they’re capped at one or two like in most events, the dominating pairs of the mergers might eliminate any chances of surprises.
The open qualifiers for BetBoom Dacha Dubai will start on Jan. 3, 2024. Following the open qualifiers, there will be closed qualifiers to decide the final participants in the event. At time of writing, Team Spirit, Gaimin Gladiators, BetBoom Team, LGD Gaming, and Aurora are the direct invitees to this event, and there’s still one more invitation slot remaining.
