Dota 2: The First Major and Minor of the 2018/2019 Season

The first 2018/2019 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Major and Minor pair has been completed, and some thoughts follow.

The Minor is pointless, except as a 2nd attempt to qualify for the Major (though the cash prize isn't bad). The winner of the Minor receives slightly more DPC points than the 13th-16th Major finalists, and less than the 9th-12th place, and the Minor winner only receives the higher point total. Tigers won the DreamLeague Season 10 Minor and was awarded 120 DPC points. They placed 13-16th at the Kuala Lumpur Major and earned another 75 points. Except they only receive the 120 to their account.

Only the top 3 finishers in the Minor earn more points than the bottom 4 finishers in the Major. Valve has planned five Majors worth 75,000 points, and five Minors worth 2,500. No that is not a typo, Majors are worth thirty times the value of a Minor. The only benefit to the Minor, is the top team earns more than ten times as much cash as the lowest place in the Major,

The controversy. The Major was in Malaysia which does not recognize Israel, and therefore does not accept passports from Israel. 33 of Ninjas in Pajamas is from Israel, and wasn't allowed to attend, so Ninjas had to replace him. According to Valve's 2018/2019 Dota Pro Circuit rules, replacing a player comes with a 40% penalty on DPC points earned in the tournament. They wisely voided this rule in this particular situation, as it was an impossibility for 33 to attend, and he was not responsible, with no way to rectify the problem.

Ninjas convinced Team Liquid's offlaner, Mind Control to play for them. Liquid had failed to secure a spot in the Major Qualifier. While allowing Ninjas to switch their offlaner with no penalty makes sense, there's something wrong about allowing a player signed to a team, substitute for another. Mind Control is a better player, if one looks at past and recent successes. A team should have to use a true substitute for a stand in, some one not signed with another team.

I already wrote how the Group Stage format is atrocious, and ppd agrees with me! There was only one surprise, Forward Gaming losing to The Alliance. Then there was the Main Event. Top teams prior to the tournament (Secret, VP, LGD) did well initially. EG was upset by Ninjas in Pajamas, but beat LGD and then won rematch.

My model predicted 27 of the 42 match-ups (both Group Stage and Main Event) correctly, and should do better at the next event as teams differentiate themselves from each other, and the model has more data.

How did the performance effect each team's ranking in my model?

Ninjas in Pajamas demonstrated the best improvement. Mind Control's substitution for 33 might have been part of their success because he might be a better player than 33, or maybe Ninjas would have performed better with 33 because he has played more with the squad. Ppd addressed this issue well, saying he doesn't know how it affected them, and I agree. We'll see, going forward, if they can earn another fourth place finish, or do even better.

Virtus Pro proved they could beat Team Secret when it mattered, winning the Major.

Secret and Evil Geniuses delivered strong performances for second and third place respectively.

And finally, Alliance's narrow victories over Pain X and Forward Gaming in the Group Stage don't make them the best team ever, but earned them a spot in the upper bracket, where they lost 2-0 to LGD and then 2-0 to TNC Predator. For a team so low in the rankings, even this is a minor victory when trying to improve one's power ranking.

Then there are the teams which didn't see improvement or decay. LGD (who won their group) could have done better in the Main Event, but losing to Secret and EG are not upsetting. J.Storm, Tigers, and Aster suffered quick losses, but this wasn't surprising. TNC and Fnatic performed to expectations with middling results.

At the bottom are the teams who failed to perform to their strength.

Forward and Pain lost to upstarts Alliance and Ninjas in the Group Stage, where Pain didn't survive its best of one with TNC.

Vici Gaming at least earned a spot in the upper bracket before losing to Secret. That Vici beat Pain X was expected, but losing to TNC was surprising.

And Pain X only won two of the eight games they played.

My final power rankings for the top 20 teams. I am only including teams who have qualified for a Minor or Major Event (and OG).

Top Tier:
Team Secret
Virtus Pro
OG
LGD
Evil Geniuses

Upper Middle Tier:
Vici Gaming
Team Liquid
Fnatic
Ninjas in Pajamas

Bottom Middle Tier:
Forward Gaming
TNC Predator
Aster
Pain Gaming

Bottom Tier:
Tigers
Natus Vincere
Complexity
Royal NGU
The Alliance
Gambit
J. Storm

The Major Regional Qualifiers for The Chongqing Major begin on the 28th of November.

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