Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams: Notable contenders gear up for harsh Bo1 brackets

The Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams are getting ready. The race begins tomorrow, April 29th. Over 1000 teams from across three regions have registered for the first round of the Open Qualifiers. There will be two separate opportunities for teams to contend for one of the spots in the Regional Qualifiers. Two teams from each of the four regions of the Manila Major Open Qualifiers – Americas, Europe, China and Southeast Asia – will advance to the Regional Qualifiers.

With the announcement of the Manila Major, Open Qualifiers for each region were added to the mix, giving eight teams (two from each region) that were not directly invited to the event or its Regional Qualifiers the opportunity to try out their luck. Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams will compete to advance into the Regional Qualifiers.

Valve has partnered up with FaceIT to host the Manila Major Open Qualifiers. All the information on notable contenders, schedule and streams is wrapped up below.

The Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams that win will advance to the Regional Qualifiers, which will take place between May 3-6.

The Manila Major will be held between June 7-12, at the Mall of Asia Arena, in Manila, Philippines, with a set prize-pool of $3,000,000. Sixteen teams will compete in the main event hosted by PGL and Valve.

Manila Major Open Qualifiers streams

A couple of channels and casters will be covering selections of games from the European, American and Southeast Asian Manila Major Open Qualifiers. The following spreadsheet will be updated throughout the four days of the Open Qualifiers.

• LlamaDownUnder’s stream
• GuacTV’s stream
• MusicBlade’s stream
• Bkop’s stream
• ClouDx’s stream
• Rupture’s stream
• Zambrella’s stream
• rocky_x86’s stream

Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams – notable contenders

Armand “bOne7” Pittner at ESL One Frankfurt © ESL

Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams – Europe (over 400 teams registered):

• Goomba
• Enso
• HWA (Black^, Babyknight, Necroman)
• myInsanity
• PRIES
• Danish Bears
• Kaipi
• The Puck
• Rebels!
• eLab
• Aspera
• ATN
• TBE
• Elements
• Team Toast
• Team spigs (Kole, Lebron, mitch, g0g1le, -MONTI-)
• BrooDMotherS
• YeS

Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams – Americas (over 210 teams registered thus far):

• paiN
• EverNova
• Wonder Wolfs

Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams – SEA (388 teams registered so far):

• JokeR
• TnC
• Pang5
• burster
• Arcanys

Manila Major Open Qualifiers Schedule

Much like for the Frankfurt and Shanghai Major, there will be two opportunities for teams to compete in the Manila Major Open Qualifiers. Two rounds of Open Qualifiers will be hosted – the first will take place between April 29-30, while the second is set for May 1-2. Teams are able to register and participate in both sets of events.

Teams that didn’t sign up on time and solo players will be able to sign-up 30 minutes before the tournament starts if there are available slots left. All teams will be able to register five players and two stand-ins which they will be able to use in the Closed Qualifiers. Each team will only be able to use five selected players throughout the Manila Major Open Qualifiers.

The full schedule is available HERE.

Manila Major Open Qualifiers #1, Day 1 – April 29th

• SEA

  Check-in: 16:00 SGT

  Start time: 18:00 SGT

  Manila Major Open Qualifiers Registration: JOIN HERE

• EUROPE

  Check-in: 16:00 CEST

  Start time: 18:00 CEST

  Manila Major Open Qualifiers Registration: JOIN HERE

• AMERICAS

  Check-in: 15:00 CDT

  Start time: 17:00 CDT

  Manila Major Open Qualifiers Registration: JOIN HERE

Rounds played: Round of 1024 (BO1), Round of 512 (BO1), Round of 256 (BO1), Round of 128 (BO1), Round of 64 (BO1).

Manila Major Open Qualifiers #1, Day 2 – April 30th

• SEA

  Start time: 14:00 SGT

• EUROPE

  Start time: 14:00 CEST

• AMERICAS

  Start time: 13:00 CDT

Rounds played: Round of 32 (BO1), Round of 16 (BO1), Round of 8 (BO1), SemiFinals (BO3), Finals (BO3).

Manila Major Open Qualifiers China

• Open Qualifier #1: April 29-30
• Open Qualifier #2: May 1-2
• Manila Major Open Qualifiers Registration for China: JOIN HERE

Notable Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams

Some of the Manila Major Open Qualifiers teams were not directly invited to the Regional Qualifiers due to roster changes or simply did not make the cut for the already stacked regional list. Many notable teams were left to qualify in the Manila Major Open Qualifiers. Among them, there are some quite strong teams that are expected to create an atmosphere of fierce competition in the brutal best-of-one brackets.

VANSKOR

Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorokhod was originally announced to be part of Black^’s Avengers! Dota team. One day after the official announcement, it was revealed that he was kicked from the team, only two days before the Manila Major and TI6 rosters became locked. In the end, Black^’s team – Avengers! Dota – has failed to register for the Major.

VANSKOR put together a mix of Russian players, called Rebels. The team has taken first place at NXTGAME Invitational #2 and ProDotA Cup Europe #5.

The Danish Bears members have been playing together since the inception of the team in August 2015, with the exception of Jure “Pingvincek” Plešej, who joined the team in February.

The mostly Danish squad has had a very strong presence in the regional scene, participating in almost every minor tournament and qualifier. They have typically been able to place in the first three positions.

This iteration of the squad has taken first place in Rumble Town and the Go4Dota 2 March finals, as well as third in the ProDota Cup Europe #4.

Team Alternate is a German Esports organization which debuted in Dota 2 in March, 2015. The organization picked up the Polish squad formerly known as Let’s Do It.

Since then, the team has had a noticeable presence in minor European tournaments and open qualifiers.

They have been able to place second in the Gigabyte Challenge #15 and StarLadder Pro Series Season 12. They took the championship title in the Polish Dota 2 Championships and, most notably, a fourth place finish in the Defense Season 5.

The team has taken first place at Game On Invitational, ProDotA Cup Europe #4 and Legends Factory Poznań 2016, as well as second in NXTGAME Invitational #2.

At the end of August, after TI5, bOne7 put together a mix with Asuna, Bufni, Beesa, and kikoni. They went by the name of Kaipi.

Less than a month later, Alexandru “Comewithme” Crăciunescu and Antonio “canceL^^” Mihai were brought on after Kiril “Kikoni” Minkov and Salvador “Asuna” Khamis parted ways with the team.

On March 14th, 2016, the team welcomed WehSing “SingSing” Yuen and Sébastien “7ckngMad” Debs to the lineup. Since then, canceL^^ has left the team and has been replaced by Alaan “SexyBamboe” Faraj.

Kaipi’s new roster includes Cosmin “Masakary” Nechifor as a replacement for recently departed 7ckngMad.

The new PRIES roster comes on the heels of the previous roster’s departure, in January. The lineup is comprised of relatively newer and lesser known players. PRIES now includes Bulgarian mid-player Ivailo “Mastermind” Petkov who joined the team at the end of January, as well as a Danish brother combo: Kenney “KyH” Hoang and Jimmy “supercell” Hoang.

TnC Gaming, a Dota 2 team from the Philippines, was founded in 2013.

The team won first place in the Corsair Gaming Arena 2 and 3 and qualified for the MPGL Season 7 LAN finals, where they were eliminated by G-Guard in the Lower Brackets Round 2.

BTS Series 3 SEA came to a spectacular finish at the end of February in a decisive fifth game, when TnC triumphed over MVP.Phoenix in the last moments.

They were unable to surmount Fnatic’s fearsome winning streak and performances in BTS Series 4 SEA as they fell to the Malaysian squad in the grand finals, 3:0.

On April 13th, TnC brought on board Carlo “Kuku” Palad to fill in the shoes of Gio “WinterGSmallSon” de Ocampo who is now inactive due to health reasons. The change in their roster forced them to forfeit their eligibility to be directly invited to the regional qualifiers.

Wonder Wolfs pulls together Dat “Biryu” Quoc Ha, Bill Oliver “boris” Boris, Justin “justin” Rosselle, Ravidnu “Ritsu” Kodipplili and Francis “FrancisLee” Lee.