The Gigabyte Dota Masters is newest DotA 2 tournament organized by BeyondtheSummit and GosuGamers, and sponsored by Gigabyte and TwitchTV. The Gigabyte DotA Masters participant list contains many prominent teams from Asia and Oceania region. These teams will compete in the 8-week online tournament and finally, only the strongest team package winning titles with the whopping $5,000 prize pool.

The Teams

China – DK, LGD, Tongfu, EHOME, World Elite (replaced GoG), iG (replaced MSI Evo GT)

Oceania – Absolute Legends, SQL, Big Plays

Philippines – Duskbin, Dreamz, Mineski Infinity,

Malaysia – MUFC, Space Monkeys, Orange E-Sports, Invasion.my, Ice

Thailand – MiTH.Trust, Neolution E-Sports

Indonesia: Ritter Art

Singapore – Zenith, Giggles, Aeon Sports

Vietnam – StarsBoba

These matches were casted by GosuGamers’ broadcasters and DotA analyst David “Godz” Parker. Today, RGN would like to bring you some highlighted moments, which happened in the first week.

Absolute Legends vs. Chinese gaming powerhouse, DK

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The first day of the GIGABYTE DotA Masters was started with some worth-to-watch matches, like Mineski versus Big Plays, MiTH.Trust versus Absolute Legends, and Absolute Legends versus DK.

Day one was exciting as Absolute Legends faces one of the greatest team in Asian DotA scene, DK, the Chinese powerhouse, and they had been carrying the Chinese flag for years. They had been winning in most of their recent matches, so they are marked as a candidate for the champion tittle. However, Absolute Legends did not let DK steal their hype. After winning against MiTH.Trust, Absolute Legends remained hungry for victory.

DK was playing Dire, while Absolute Legends chose Radiant. The drafting phase was hot. The thousands of viewers were curious to see which heroes would be banned/picked. Absolute Legends picked Prophet, Venomancer, Queen of Pain, Vengeful and Rikimaru, while DK picked Windrunner, Magina, Lich, Crystal Maiden and Dark Seer.

After the picking phase, everybody was excited to see DK and Absolute Legends started the matches. Absolute Legends started everything smooth when aL | Shatan kept on harassing DK.Burning on mid lane.

Later on, DK showed how great they were by destroying Absolute Legends’ towers and kept on pushing forward. DK’s strategy was great, so Absolute Legends couldn’t stop the attacking wave was coming.

In the end, DK proved to Absolute Legends who the stronger one was. Yet, It was a warning message sent by DK that the other should aware the powerhouse was coming. During the match, DK has shown an excellent performance thanked to DK.Burning and his Anti Mage. DK is definitely one of the must watch teams in this tournament.

Day one was concluded. Mineski wasn’t able to play because of connection problem. Absolute Legends draw the match point over MiTH.Trust.

Dreamz versus Ice

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The matches for the second day were scheduled for Dreamz versus Ice, Absolute Legends versus AEON, and Mineski versus Giggles.

One of the most exciting matches of that day was Dreamz versus Ice, which both of them are the rising stars of their countries.

Dreamz picked Windrunner, Vengeful Spirit, Ancient Apparition, Queen of Pain and Slardar, while Ice picked Dark Seer, EarthShaker, Venomancer, Anti Mage and Pudge.

The match started easy for Ice as they continuously dominated over Dreamz in the single combat.

Ice took control most of the time while Dreamz still tried to make the impossible happen. Ice’s Anti Mage did a great performance in this match. The Anti Mage was able to buy his core items during the middle game and also earned sufficient experience.

At last, Dreamz called for GG, and the match point went to Ice. Ice has done a great job to win the valuable point. They really dominated the match from the beginning, not giving Dreamz even any chance to flip the table.

Aeon versus Ritter-ART

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The Gigabyte DotA Masters continues as Day 3 arrived. The matches for the day were Aeon vs Ritter-ART, Aeon versus MiTH.Trust, and Ritter-ART versus DK.

The match between Aeon and Ritter-Art is one of the must watch matches in the first week. Both of these teams did great in DotA 1 tournaments, and fans were looking for how they applied these experiences in DotA 2.

In Action RTS genre, the drafting phase can take the possibility of 50-50 for a team’s final result, so both teams took serious actions at the pick/ban phase. Ritter-ART picked Windrunner, Sven, Lina Inverse, Morphling and Dragon Knight, while AEON picked Leshrac, Dark Seer, EarthShaker, Crystal Maiden and Clinkz.

AEON, with their Fantastic Three, Crystal Maiden, EarthShaker and Sven, dominated entire of three lanes in initial. The combination of Crystal Maiden’s skills, EarthShaker’s fissure and Sven’s stun were the main factors helped Aeon take the leading edge.

As predicted, it was a sad story for Ritter-Art when Aeon took the point. Aeon did a great performance; especially Clinkz did 10 kills and 5 assists with only 2 deaths. Nice work, Aeon.Ken!

In the other matches, Aeon remained supreme over MiTH.Trust and DK showed Ritter-Art what they’re made of. It was probably another spectacular performance for DK when defeated Ritter-Art with a 6-27 kills in different.

Orange versus Space Monkeys

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It seemed the fourth day was set for amazing stuff. The matches were MSI Evo GT versus StarsBoba, MSI EvoGT versus Space Monkeys, MuFC versus Space Monkeys, and Orange versus Space Monkeys.

One of the hottest matches of the fourth day was the local combat between Orange E-Sports and SpaceMonkeys, which both of them come from Malaysia.

During the drafting phase, Orange picked Prophet, Queen of Pain, Witch Doctor, Tiny and Shadow Demon, while Space Monkeys picked Invoker, EarthShaker, Leshrac, Vengeful Spirit and Bat Rider.

During the early game, Orange E-Sports took the advantages first. In the middle lane, their Queen of Pain faced Invoker, and thanked for the luck, Queen of Pain was able to outsmart the Space Monkey’s Invoker.

Everything was on the side of Orange E-Sports when they continued to dominate by Mushi’’s Tiny, as well as Winter’s Prophet. Orange won the game at last, and Mushi and his mates once again proved what they got.

In addition, StarsBoba was able to defeat MSI Evo GT, Space Monkey took point from MSI Evo GT, and Space Monkeys was aslo able to overcome MUFC.

Neolution faces SQL

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Day five matches were started with Zenith versus GoG, SQL versus Neolution, and Tongfu versus Ice. More joy and surprising of DotA 2 action were expected in the last day of first week.

On this day, the match between SQL and Neolution was the most awaited.

After the long waiting, the drafting phase finally happened. Neolution picked Raijin, EarthShaker, Dragon Knight, Puck and Ancient Apparition. SQL picked Shadow Demon, Morphling, Enigma, Vengeful Spirit and Tide hunter.

The strategy of SQL was unpredictable with all of five their heroes headed down the bottom lane, and tried to kill Neolution’s heroes there, where Apparition and Drangon Knight (DK) were in charge. However, SQL managed to kill Apparition only becaue DK quickly head down to the tower for protection.

SQL was truly unstoppable. They continued to dominate the match with their unpredictable strategies, and managed to destroy Neolution towers quickly.

In the end, SQL remained dominant against Neolution. Team SQL did a great job.

Stay tuned with us on RGN. We will bring you more Gigabyte DotA Masters action of the following weeks.