It’s the third week of August, and the tournament arc of MOBA Esports keeps on keeping on as League of Legends and Dota 2’s tournaments have been pretty lively, especially for Dota 2’s Southeast Asian tournaments. League of Legends’ World Championships has started to determine their qualifying teams, and the Korean scene is starting to chase their neighboring regions for their own representatives as well.

Check out what happened in this week’s MOBA Esports scene below!

League of Legends

Qualifiers for Worlds 2020, so far

September 25 is about a month away, and we’re finally seeing who’s going to play in the biggest League tournament of the year. This week, four different teams from China, Europe, and North America have been confirmed to have a seed in Worlds 2020.

Starting with the host country for this year’s Worlds, the LPL has finally confirmed Top Esports to take the second seed to Group Stage of Worlds 2020 for having the most Championship Points in the domestic tournament. They ended up with 130 total points (40 from Spring, 90 from Summer), beating JD Gaming by 30 points.

Next in the Group Stage is G2 Esports, taking the 3^rd seed for winning 3^rd place in the LEC 2020 Summer Playoffs. Could this be their chance to finally feel the Summoner’s Cup, or will they flop in the Grand Finals again?

Down in the Play-in Stage, we have Rogue as Europe’s 4^th seed for placing 4^th in the LEC 2020 Summer Playoffs. It’s their first appearance in the World Championships, so it’s an exciting sight to see after seeing the usual European qualifiers like Fnatic play for Worlds.

For North America, there are two confirmed teams in the Play-in Stage: FlyQuest and Team Liquid. FlyQuest is an interesting wildcard, as after years of ending their tournament runs in the lower halves of the leaderboard, they have cleaned up their gameplay. Worlds 2020 will be their first international debut and it will be interesting to watch how North America will fare this time around.

LCK 2020 Summer Season ending soon

While the other main regions have been determining their Worlds qualifiers, the LCK is still going at it in their regular season due to their long breaks between weekly series. Today, things are starting to look solid as the two matches remain before Playoffs kicks off.

DRX (formerly DragonX) will be battling T1 for today’s first match, and Team Dynamics and Hanwha Life Esports will follow suit. More or less, both teams are already settled their current places (DRX at 2^nd, T1 at 4^th, Team Dynamics at 8^th, Hanwha at 9^th) due to the score differences in their surrounding competitors.

Essentially we can say that the five teams going into the LCK 2020 Summer Playoffs are: DAMWON Gaming, DRX, Gen.G, T1, and Afreeca Freecs.

T1 and Afreeca Freecs will battle each other in Round 1, while the rest will be waiting in the later rounds, as per the King of the Hill tournament style that the LCK Playoffs prefers. DAMWON will be waiting in the Finals, DRX at Round 3, and Gen.G at Round 2.

Catch today’s final Regular Season matches and the future playoffs on August 26 at the official LCK Twitch and YouTube channels!

Dota 2

OMEGA League: Asia Divine Division has ended

OMEGA League’s Asia Divine Division recently concluded on August 22, with the score being 3-1 in favor of 496 Gaming against Execration.

Execration, coming from the lower brackets, climbed the steps towards Grand Finals with extremely clean 2-0 series scores against Reality Rift, Aster.Aries, EHOME.International, and Neon Esports.

While 496 Gaming didn’t wipe the upper bracket like Execration did in the lower bracket, their gameplay improved as they progressed towards the Grand Finals. In reality, both games played to their absolute bests, and Execration stood their ground as firm as they could for a fighting chance. It may well be one of the best series to spectate this year, showing that Southeast Asian teams still have that fighting spirit.

ESL One Thailand: Asia kicks off

The ESL One Thailand Asia division finally started on August 20, and we’re already seeing groundbreaking starts from our local teams.

The winners of the Closed Qualifier that happened days before was Neon Esports and Adroit Esports. Neon Esports beat Team Trust 3-0 and qualified into the main tournament. Adroit Esports defeated For The Dream and received a free bye to the main tournament, because Team Trust was invited to the main tournament and only acted as a replacement for the withdrawing team Royal Never Give Up.

On Group A, TNC Predator is leading the group with two series won and a 4-1 win/loss game score, beating Adroit Esports and Motivate.Trust Gaming. Following them is BOOM Esports, who beat Team Trust, a new entrant in the Southeast Asian scene.

On Group B, Geek Fam and Sparking Arrow Gaming are leading the group, both tied for 1^st place. Question Mark (formerly Hashtag?.DOTA) and Aster.Aries fell to 3^rd place after losing to the two leading teams. Neon Esports and T1 are yet to debut, and will be doing so today. Let’s find out if they can overtake the current contenders this early on in the split.