With the recent conclusion of the previous DOTA 2 WePlay AniMajor tournament series and a long series of tournament qualifiers leading up to the International, the official ESL One Summer series has begun.
Featuring 12 teams competing for a prize pool of $400,000, the ESL’s first major summer tournament is just short of the previous major’s $500,000 prize. With nine teams invited and three that qualified for the competition, the tournament is already looking stacked. The event features 12 teams in a double-elimination style bracket, with all rounds of competition outside of grand finals slated for best-of-three sets. The ESL One Summer 2021 tournament starting today will last through June 20th, with the best-of-five grand finals planned for an early start.
Competing Teams
The following twelve teams will be competing in the Intel ESL One Summer 2021 tournament happening this weekend, including:
- Alliance
- Team Secret
- AS Monaco Gambit
- T1 esports
- Team Nigma
- OG
- Team Liquid
- Quincy Crew
- Virtus.Pro
- Tundra Esports
- Viking.GG
- Team Unique
Most of the listed teams are scheduled to compete today for the first round of the tournament, while the four top seeds for the tournament including Virtus.Pro,Team Secret, T1, and Quincy Crew have already been seeded into the second round of the winner’s bracket. Live streams for the tournament will be available on the official ESL twitch channels, with top-broadcasting talent planned for all streams.
Day One Matchups
Day one for the event has already featured an intense amount of competition, including Tundra esport’s first round victory over Team Liquid in their first set of the tournament. Other concluded sets from the first day also include Alliance’s 2-0 win over Team Unique, pushing both them and Tundra esports further into the winner’s side of the bracket. A full schedule for the event, including match schedules for upcoming days can be found on the ESL One Summer 2021 website, which includes more information on the competing teams. The grand finals event is slated for an 11 am CEST start, which will feature two teams competing for the $175,000 first place prize.