MegaFon Winter Clash: on the eve of the event

The tournament and the participants

From December 7 to 9, MegaFon Winter Clash will take place, a tournament with a prize pool of $ 300,000. Let's talk in more details about the event and the participants.

First of all, it should be noted that this competition is not included in the Dota Pro Circuit system: the only thing at stake here is the prize pool; its distribution will be announced later. The venue is the Crocus Expo exhibition center, located in Moscow.

The championship consists of two stages - groups and playoffs. Nobody will get eliminated after the former, though: the best representatives of the groups simply get into the upper bracket, and all the others - into the lower one. All group stage fights are best of 1. In the playoffs - the best of 3. The exception will be the grand finals - best of 5.

Six teams will take part in the tournament, 5 of which received a direct invite: Virtus.pro, Team Secret, Team Liquid, PSG.LGD and Forward Gaming. The final slot was given to the champion of EU+CIS closed regional qualifiers. NAVI.GG.BET beat NoPangolier in the finals with a score of 3:2, earning the slot.

MegaFon Winter Clash groups are already known: according to the results of the seeding, the yellow-black got into group A along with Virtus.pro and Team Secret. The second group has Team Liquid, PSG.LGD and Forward Gaming. But first, let'stake a look at the closest rivals of NAVI.

It can be said with confidence that Natus Vincere has quite a challenging group, although, at the tournament with rivals of such a high level, it was to be expected. Note that Virtus.pro and Team Secret were the 2 teams in the grand-finals of the first Major of 2018/2019 season.

The bears had a good start of the year, clearly not wanting to slow down and planning to finally raise the cherished Aegis of Champions over their heads. So far Virtus.pro can boast a victory at Autumn Brawl, the third place at ESL One Hamburg 2018 and a triumph at The Kuala Lumpur Major. By the way, the team has already enough points to take part in The International 2019, but this hardly means that it will play all the remaining tournaments carelessly.

As for face-to-face encounters, the renewed line-up of the “yellow-blacks” encountered Virtus.pro at the start of the season: the fight took place at The Kuala Lumpur Major qualification, and then the opponent celebrated the victory. In the upcoming tournament, NAVI will have the opportunity to take revenge, but this will not be easy at all. However, the Bo1 format is a great foundation for a surprise

Our guys also faced another rival in the group, Team Secret- the game was played as part of the Autumn Brawl, and we got a victory. But that match Puppey and the team were playing with a standin, so you can hardly judge the maximum strength of the team after the meeting.

As for the “secret” results, they also started this season great: winning the PVP Esports Championship and ESL One Hamburg 2018, as well as second place in the extremely tense match of The Kuala Lumpur Major. The team is in excellent shape, and the first place at The Chongqing Major qualification is a sound proof. In other words, both opponents of our team in the group look extremely menacing and will bring a lot of trouble.

In group B, the champion of The International 2017 - Team Liquid is the most notable team. This season wasn't the best one for the team, making the fans quite nervous. At first, the team failed to qualify for the first Major tournament and then pulled out of DreamLeague Season 10, which gave rise to rumors about certain differences between players and the organization.

At that moment, Heen, who coached the team for quite a while, left the squad. This fact made the fans even more nervous, but soon the team was back in action and became the second at The Chongqing Major qualifiers, letting only Team Secretahead, but still getting the slot. The crisis has passed, which means that we will see the team in its best form in Moscow.

The only representative of China at the championship is the runner-up of The International 2018, PSG.LGD. The defeat in the finals of the main tournament of the year probably had a very strong impact on the team members, however, they decided not to lose heart and continued to play together. The result is a pretty confident game in the new season, but the French-Chinese team still needs to step it up if fy still wants to be in the International finals for the third time.

The final participant is Forward Gaming - a new tag on the professional scene. This team is pretty much a new iteration of a team from the past season - VGJ.Storm with only one exception: the place of Sneyking is taken by Universe. Despite quite famous names (like Resolut1on), the teams still lacks achievements. It performed quite well at two major tournaments, stopping halfway to the trophy.

By and large, this tournament promises to be very interesting and quite tough.  Natus Vincere will be confronted by the best Dota 2 teams in the world, so our guys will have to prepare for them. We are confident that the "yellow-black" had a productive training and we will see them fully armed. #NAVINATION