WESG: The “Olympics” of Dota You Haven’t Heard About

Did you put your national pride away after the Olympics? Break it back out, the World Electronic Sports Games are on!

Yeah, I hadn’t heard about it either. Despite the fact that “National Team” style tournaments are something that fans have been asking for, the WESG event is getting very little coverage so far. Teams comprised of members from the same country will battle it out online for a shot at the big event in Shanghai this December.

National teams are the norm in China, but outside of that region most teams are pretty mixed nationalities. Alliance is an exception. Originally [A] was NoTidehunter, which featured the famous four Swedish players and EternalEnvy. He was famously kicked from NTH allegedly in favor of a 5th Swede so they could communicate in their first language (EternalEnvy is from Canada). Black^ ran into issues on Vici Gaming in China – he didn’t speak much Mandarin. There’s something to be said for streamlining communication, but the “United Nations” status of many Dota teams is part of the charm

WESG is complex. Teams have to win in online regional qualifiers (sometimes with 10+ sub-regions represented) for a chance to play on LAN at their region’s finals. Only one or two teams from those finals will play at the main event. I mean, look at this grid to the right – this is just for the European Region. All of the teams shown here had to win in their respective sub-regions. I don’t even know where or what a Benelux is!

Schedule

Americas Regional Finals will take place in Sao Paolo, Brazil, from the 21st to 23rd of September.

Middle East / Africa Regional Finals took place already (8/26-8/28) in Dubai. Results. This region is very underrepresented in Dota, so it’ll be awesome to see these teams in December. 

China’s Regional Finals are in Shanghai on October 1st to 4th. 

Europe Regional Finals are the 6th to the 9th in October, in Kiev. 

South Asia and Pacific Regional Finals have no dates listed at the moment.

Notable Entered Teams at WESG

Sweden: Although Alliance could have entered their regular roster (they’re all Swedes), Sweden’s entries for WESG includes several ex-Alliance players as well as some of their new picks.

• Team Horde: ex-[A] Akke, S4, new [A] member Limmp, Pablo, and Solitude. 
• Team_Team: Loda, EGM, new Alliance members Handsken and Jonassomfan, NinjaMicke, and Zai as reserve.

Ukraine: Team Ukraine: Caster V1lat, Dendi, GeneraL, Resolut1on, Artstyle, ALWAYSWANNAFLY. AKA totally stacked squad. 

Canada: Under the banner of Team NP (also EternalEnvy’s new team name) – XiiTuzi, Aui_2000, EternalEnvy, 1437, MoonMeander, and Febby. They will battle to bring glory to Canada.

Romania: Team Romania – ComeWithMe, Maskary, iLLusionisT, CanceL, polizayu, Pericles, bOne7

Where to watch WESG:

Beyond the Summit Studio is partnered with Starladder, who run WESG. BTS’s Twitch channel is broadcasting.

Coverage for the WESG even has been pretty light overall! The regional finals should garner more interest.

Registration for the WESG Americas Qualifer just opened.

Grab your stack and sign up!