Dota Major at IEM Katowice

Earlier this week, ESL announced the details surrounding their second Major of the season. From February 20th-25th, Dota will, for the first time, be part of the Intel Extreme Masters circuit with a 16 team tournament. For the past years, IEM has been home to League of Legends and CS:GO events, with Katowice being an iconic location. Dota has actually been in Katowice before, but that was for ESL's EMS One Series. Now, the Dota 2 competitive scene will have its first live event at the Spodek Arena, with over $1,000,000 USD in prizemoney on the line.

The original announcement can be found here.

BTS confirm Summit 8 Minor dates

The Summit 8 has been formally announced for December 13th-17th. While it was an open secret that BeyondTheSummit were to host a Minor, it was not officially announced yet. That said, the previously hosted King's Cup America served as an online qualifier for North-American teams for The Summit 8, meaning that Optic Gaming is the first team confirmed to compete in Los Angeles at The Summit house. More teams and the format have yet to be announced.

Mineski claim PGL Open Bucharest title

South-East Asian powerhouse Mineski has continued their impressive form from StarLadder and took home the PGL Open Bucharest title. Bringing down LGD Gaming 2-0, Mineski showed that they are a force to be reckoned with. Winning the event secured Mineski a total of 720 Qualifier Points. LGD may have been the runner-up of the event, but being forced to used a stand-in due to Victoria's health issues, the team was penalized by Valve's official rules and only received 75% of the QP, earning only 67.5 points instead of 90 per player. Evil Geniuses and Immortals came in 3rd/4th and took home 30 points per player each.

An overview of the event can be found here.

Abed officially out of DC, replaced by Qojqva

Digital Chaos has officially parted ways with Filipino youngster Abed. The mid player has tweeted out that it was a mutual split. He was supposedly set to be replaced by former Iceberg player Bryle, but according to former DC player MoonMeander on stream, Bryle decided against moving to the DC team house, leaving DC to choose former DeMoN and Bulba teammate qojqva as the final replacement.

Tournament Overview:

The DotaPit Minor is set to begin on Thursday. Team Liquid, Newbee, OG, Virtus.pro, Immortals, SG e-sports team, Vici Gaming and Ascent Esports will compete for 300 QP and $300,000.
The ESL One Hamburg Major is well underway. Team Secret and Virtus.pro have already qualified for the semi-finals on Sunday, earning 150 Qualifier Points per player. Ascent Esports is the first team to be eliminated. Three more teams will be eliminated on day 3. The schedule can be found here.

Also Noteworthy

ESL announced that the MVP of the ESL One Hamburg Major is set to receive a Mercedes Benz.
OurPro Circuit overview page has been updated with meta data, showing the most successful picks and bans from the entire Pro Circuit.
The Clip of the week goes to Evil Geniuses who staged quite the comeback against VGJ.Thunder.

Thanks for catching up with us. We hope you enjoy your weekend.