DreamLeague Season 11: closed qualifiers opponents

The qualifiers will go from the 1st to 3rd of February

From February 1 to 3, there will be closed qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 11. Based on the results, 2 teams will make it to Sweden to fight for a share of $ 1,000,000 prize pool, as well as 15,000 DPC points needed to qualify for The International 2019.

In total, eight teams are going to play: four have been invited directly, four coming from the open qualifiers. “Yellow-black” made it into the closed qualifiers via the latter way, and are ready to show their best game in order to win the coveted slot. In this article, we'll talk about our opponents in the coming event.

First of all, let's check out the teams that have received a direct invitation. Among them are both well-known teams and some unexpected guests.

Virtus.pro at The Chongqing Major

First on the list is, of course, Virtus.pro . "Bears" are a srong team not only in the CIS region, but on the world stage as well - this is proven by them reaching the finals of 2018/19 season Majors twice. In addition, Virtus.pro has already secured a spot in the main tournament of the year, which once again speaks of its strength.

As for the composition of the team, every fan is familiar with it. Aleksey “Solo” Berezin is captaining some of the best players out there: Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev, Vladimir “No[o]ne-” Minenko, Pavel “9pasha” Hvastunov and well-known player for NAVI fans Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosyan All things considered, the bears are surely looking strong in the coming tournament.

The Pango lineup at The Chongqing Major

The Pango, called NoPangolier until recently, has also received a direct invite. The team gained some financial support from the Winstrike Team, but at the same time preserved its individuality. By the way, The Pango played at The Chongqing Major, where they settled on the 13-16th place.

The reason for that is obvious for many fans, since the game of the team is built around the position 4 support - Bakyt "Zayac" Emilzhanov. He is the perfect example of a playmaker, so The Pango had a rough time in China, despite being replaced by such an experienced player as Rinat "KingR" Abdullin. Frankly speaking, there was a missing secret weapon, called Techies: Zayac is famous for playing this hero to the limits of his capabilites.

As for the other team members, almost all of them are well-known to a lot of fans. Aibek “Naive-” Tokayev and Andrei “Ghostik” Kadik for a long time stood under the banners of Team Empire, and Semyon “CemaTheSlayeR” Krivulya was a long-time captain of Vega Squadron. The least known is the mid player Alexander “Ceyler” Popov, who has not previously played for major tags.

Gambit Esports roster at The Bucharest Minor

Gambit Esports, who made it into the finals of the most recent Minor, also received an invite. The team stepped up recently, winning at WePlay! Dota 2 Winter Madness and finished second at The Bucharest Minor. One of the reasons for this transformation is the replacement at the end of 2018: Alexander “Immersion” Khmelevskiy and Artyom “fng” Barshak picked up the support positions. The young player, already called one of the best in the CIS in his role, and an experienced captain gave Gambit Esports the necessary boost, which led to the specified results.

One can't tell how long the team will be able to hold out at this level, but its composition, where you can notice Andrei “ Afoninje” Afonin, Nikita “Daxak” Kuzmin and Vasily “Afterlife” Shishkin, speaks about its strength. In other words, Gambit Esports will do everything to make it to DreamLeague Season 11.

Nikita "Palantimos" Grinkevich

The last team that received an invite to the closed qualification, somewhat unexpectedly for the Dota 2 community, was the representative of Belarus — Pavaga Gaming. The tournament organizers decided to go the other way and looked at the latest results of the teams - and Pavaga Gaming won the LOOT.BET Winter Masters tournament, beating Alliance 3-2. Thus, the invitation is quite justified and there is no point arguing about it.

In addition,there are some quite famous players on the team. So, Pavaga Gaming is a mix that includes representatives of Ukraine and Belarus: the colors of the organization are protected by Nikita “ Palantimos” Grinkevich, Yaroslav “Pikachu” Vasilenko, Yevgeny “chshrct” Kastrama,  Danil “Bignum” Shekhovtsov and Alexey “j4” Lipay. The composition is ready to fight and can deliver problems to each opponent.

Ilya "Illidan" Pivtsayev

Now let's check the winners of the open qualifiers. The winner of the first qualifier, aside from Natus Vincere, was the mix under the sounding tag Old But Gold. As the name implies, its members have been playing competitive Dota for a while. The composition is really remarkable: Ilya “Illidan” Pivtsayev, Sergey “G” Bragin, Stanislav “633” Glushan, Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorokhod and well-known to NAVI fans Fedor “velheor” Rusikhin.

At least on paper, this mix looks very dangerous, but it is still too early to judge its strength, because at the moment, it only took part in the open qualifiers. Still, both NAVI and the fans know all players well, so everyone is confident that the yellow-black will be well prepared for the encounter with this opponent.

Winstrike Team roster

Another winner of the open qualifiers is Winstrike Team. Our guys met them quite recently - at the finals of the first qualifier. The match was quite intense, ending with 2:1 our way.

Notably, Winstrike Team has undergone some reshuffles recently. First of all, the coach changed: the place of Evgeniy "Sh4dowehhh" Alekseev was taken by someone known to NAVI fans - Ivan "Artstyle" Antonov. Before the qualifiers the current team has changed its lineup: Andrey “ALWAYSWANNAFLY” Bondarenko was replaced by Mikhail “Misha” Agatov. The short-term results are obvious, but the ling-term effect of the reshuffles is yet to be seen.

Pavaga Junior players

The main "dark horse" of DreamLeague Season 11 closed qualifiers is the final team — Pavaga Junior. This team doesn't have too many achievements behind its belt, and it's mostly known thanks to unusual nicks of the players. Their first big hit was its victory (back then known as Real Noobs) over Odium. Now the guys are the second roster of Belorussian team Pavaga Gaming, and it's got all the chances to surprise the opponents in the coming fights.

Surely, our guys will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of all possible opponent, and will have an effective performance in the closed qualifiers. Support Natus Vincere in the closed qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 11, which are to start on the February 1st and last until the 3rd. #NAVINATION