The schedule for Dota 2's Midas Mode 2 goes live on Tuesday with 12 teams playing in the novelty online tournament with $150,000 on the line. The event is organized by Moonduck and an interactive LAN viewing will be held at Localhost Arena Denver in Lakewood, Colorado throughout the event's duration.
Midas Mode 2 runs from September 24th to October 2nd with teams divided into three regional groups: North and South America, Europe and China and Southeast Asia. Teams meet once during the group stage, with each region having a semifinal and grand final to declare the winners.
The event is the brainchild of Dota 2 caster Sir Action Slacks and fans can find all the Midas Mode 2 live streams and make your predictions on the matches on the Luckbox tournament page.
Why is Midas Mode special?
Midas Mode 2 is a follow-up to the successful Midas Mode in 2017, standing out due to its extremely unique and entertaining format.
The core concept of the format is that teams will be given a set amount of fantasy money (called Moonbucks), where actions like picking/banning a hero, pausing, using glyphs, will cost them money.
The event features a dynamic stock price system, where a hero's popularity before and during the event will determine the price a team needs to pay in order to pick that hero. This greatly encourages experimentation and usage of less popular heroes in order to maintain a healthy team economy throughout the event.
Drastic measures can also be done to obtain more Moonbucks, like randoming a pick or completing a challenge in-game. Community involvement is high in this event, since the community gets to decide the challenges that needs to be done, and for a first-time in the series, atendees at the viewing event will be able to influence in-game units like creeps and Roshan.
The community also gets to crowdfund the tournament in exchange of being able to advertise certain things in-game or, more entertainingly, modify the elements / units in the game. High profile examples of this is Evil Geniuses, which jokingly bought all the in-game cliffs and made them off-limits in respond to the Cliffteezy meme, and OG, which bought and modified Io so that it would feature the team logo and ana's face on the hero.
Teams and groups
North and South America
- J.Storm
- beastcoast
- The Fighting Pepegas
- Team Anvorgesa
In spite of EG buying all the in-game cliffs, in the end they weren't able to make it to the tournament. In it's place is former EG icon and TI5 winner Fear with his team J.Storm, alongside other NA team beastcoast and EternaLEnVy's NA pub stack The Fighting Pepegas. Rounding off the Americas region is SA representatives Team Anvorgesa, which also exceptionally represented SA in TI9 under Infamous.
Europe and CIS
- OG
- Sir Sadim's Stunners
- TI3 Alliance
- TI1 Natus Vincere
This group contains the most high-profile teams playing in the event. Kicking it off in high gear is recent back-to-back TI winners OG, complete with ana and Topson before they're taking their extended break. In competition for the spotlight is event-exclusive team Sir Sadim's Stunners features highly-popular Dota 2 streamers like Wagamama, Gorgc, and most notably SingSing, who has retired from streaming Dota 2.
But even with those names in the fray, the unprecedented revelation of the TI3-winning Alliance stack and TI1-winning Na'Vi stack (which last played together as a whole in 2011) reuniting as a team to play in the event blew it off the water for everyone. With legendary but retired players like Loda, AdmiralBulldog, Akke, LighTofHeaveN, XBOCT, and Artstyle in the mix, the EU team lineups is nothing but pure ecstasy for long-time Dota fans.
China and Southeast Asia
- Vici Gaming
- BurNIng's Legion
- Fnatic
- EHOME
Last but not least, we have Asia. Being Midas Mode's first venture toward the East, this group features a solid lineup of CN household names like EHOME and most notably Vici Gaming, but the real zinger here is the announcement of retired Chinese legend BurNIng's participation, in a stack of players that have yet to been disclosed. To bind things up is a sprinkle of SEA salt in Fnatic, who will be playing with a roster slightly different from their announced roster for this season, featuring community favorite Febby.
So what's the schedule?
The Midas Mode 2 schedule is as follows, with all times in CEST.
September 24th
Sir Sadim's Stunners vs T13 Alliance - 6pm
J.Storm vs beastcoast - 9pm
J.Storm vs Fighting Pepegas - 12pm
September 25th
OG vs TI3 Alliance - 6pm
OG vs TI1 Natus Vincere - 9pm
Team Anvorgesa vs Fighting Pepegas 12pm
September 26th
OG vs Sir Sadim's Stunners - 6pm
TI1 Na'Vi vs Sir Sadim's Stunners - 9pm
Team Anvorgesa vs beastcoast - 1am
September 27th
TI1 Na'Vi vs TI3 Alliance - 6pm
Team Anvorgesa vs J.Storm - 10pm
Fighting Pepegas vs beastcoast - 1am
September 28th
Europe semifinal - 6pm
Americas semifinal - 11pm
September 29th
Europe final - 6pm
Americas final - 11pm
September 30th
Vici Gaming vs EHOME - 7am
EHOME vs BurNIng - 10am
Fnatic vs BurNIng - 1pm
October 1st
Vici Gaming vs Fnatic - 7am
EHOME vs Fnatic - 10am
Vici Gaming vs BurNIng - 1pm
October 2nd
China and SEA semifinal - 7am
China and SEA final - 10am
Pictures: StarLadder / Flickr / ESL / Helena Kristiansson
