ESL One Bangkok Megapost: All you need to know (2024)

The ESL One Bangkok is the last tournament of the year that will award teams with EPT Leaderboard points. These points are necessary to be directly invited to the next ESL One and DreamLeague tournaments. But most importantly, the top eight teams by the end of the DreamLeague S26 will directly qualify to Riyadh Masters 2025, the highest paying tournament of the year, and one of the Esports World Cup main events.

The best four teams from the past DreamLeague S24 earned a direct invitation to Bangkok. Therefore, the remaining eight had to go through regional qualifiers. These teams, and their rosters, are the following:

The event starts on Dec. 9 with the Group Stage, and the Grand Finals will be played on Dec. 15. The format won't vary compared to last editions, featuring two groups of six teams each. The Group Stage goes from Dec. 9 to 11, with tie-breakers played on Dec. 12 if needed.

The Group Stage is played as a series of BO2 rounds, with a point system that eliminates the bottom two teams of each group. After that, the top four teams go to the Upper Brackets, and the bottom four play the Lower Brackets. Also, every bracket series is a BO3, except for the Grand Finals, which is a BO5.

Finally, the prize pool and EPT points are distributed in the following way:

Now that the next ESL tournament is so close, let's take a look at how the teams are coming. We'll try to make a quick summary on how some of the teams are coming.

This is the first tournament in Team Secret's history that they swap regions from WEU to EEU in the attempt to qualify. Their roster is still new, and they looked promising after their clean Open Qualifiers run. However, they lost their first Closed Qualifiers series, and immediately failed to advance through the Lower Brackets.

On the other hand, it was a completely different scenario for PuckChamp, the team that managed to dominate the region. They also started losing their series against One Move, but they bounced back. Despite having to advance in the longest run, they didn't drop a single game, beating NAVI Junior (the team that eliminated Secret), Virtus.pro, and L1GA team by 2-0. And also, destroying 1win Team 3-0.

To make things more impressive, this is a team that only played five days of scrims before achieving this goal.

After the recent drama between Parker and HEROIC, everyone's talking about how what was the greatest SA team wasn't able to qualify to the ESL One Bangkok. However, another South American carry has been quietly showing an insane amount of potential. Yheremi "payk" Arroyo was loaned to Team Waska during the last DreamLeague Season 24.

There, they got further in the tournament compared to HEROIC. Not only that, but they were matched in the same group as their regional rivals, easily beating them 2-0. Payk returned to beastcoast, and proceeded to qualify without losing a single series—including beating HEROIC twice.

Beastcoast impressed the South American community with fresh draft ideas, playing with Vintage as a Trial Coach. Let's not forget he's been behind successful regional teams, like Evil Geniuses, BOOM, and Team Waskas. Definitely, a team worth looking at.

Shopify Rebellion's new team looks promising, don't get us wrong. However, it's impossible not to address the current state of the region. After Nouns announced they won't be sponsoring a Dota 2 team anymore, the players tried to stay together for the qualifiers.

However, as Fly said on his social media platforms, the mental burden of playing without an organization, and with a grim future ahead, didn't help them when they reached the ESL One Bangkok NA Closed Qualifiers Grand Final. Thus, the team underperformed, and lost 3-0 to Shopify Rebellion despite beating them the day before during their Upper Bracket run.

The days of Gaimin Gladiators dominance in Western Europe seems to be over, and it's now Team Liquid dominating. Even after parting ways with the two-time TI winner, Neta "33" Shapira, the team has found a solid structure. With their young carry player Michael "miCKe" Vu as the drafter, and their new box of surprises in the offlane, Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek, the team is the new king of the region.

Of course, the infamous AVULUS is also worth noting: A team that was better known for the drama between SoNNeikO and ATF is now the underdog everyone is looking forward to. They managed to beat OG to secure the last WEU slot. This is no small feat, considering it was OG who knocked Gaiming Gladiators out in the first place.

Some were rooting for the legends defending the TEAM TURTLE banner. Other were in Yakult's Brothers band, the ex-Invictus Gaming. And let's not forget, the only sponsored team, Xtreme Gaming. However, there was a stack that everyone recognized as the strongest: Gaozu, the competitive return of Paparazi, and the magical aura around the Ame.

Gaozu sliced the Upper Brackets like it was butter, sending Xtreme Gaming to the Lower Brackets. Then, Paparazi had to face his ex-organization one more time for the Grand Final. But this one was a whole different story, a close 3-2 series in favor of Gaozu. One of the best Storm Spirits in the world is back to international grounds after Riyadh Masters 2023, and it's as exciting as it sounds.

The ESL One Bangkok promises to close the 2024 year with amazing Dota. Keep following esports.gg to get every detail about this tournament!