SEA teams forced to choose between MDL: Changsha and ESL One: Birmingham Open Qualifiers

Aspiring SEA Dota 2 teams are now faced with a huge dilemma, they are now forced to choose between the ESL One: Birmingham Major and MDL: Changsha Major as they can only compete in one of the two events thanks to scheduling conflicts between the two organizers.

This is a massive blow to any of the current SEA teams who aren’t directly invited to the SEA Regional Qualifiers for either tournament.
 

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MDL: Changsha Major announced that their SEA Open Qualifiers will be taking place on April 14^th way back in March well before ESL One: Birmingham announced their Open Qualifiers on the same dates. Our sources have confirmed that both tournaments have refused to reschedule their SEA Open Qualifier tournaments despite repeated appeals from SEA teams.

MDL:Changsha Major was already involved in a controversy in the NA region thanks to altering the schedule in order to allow Evil Geniuses to participate in the Epicenter: Madness Qualifier. GESC:Thailand also faced similar backlash after they altered the schedule of their SEA qualifiers to allow Fnatic to participate in it.

Perhaps this has lead tournaments to be wary of any rescheduling in order to appease a certain team or a small set of teams. While organizers sticking to their schedule is a welcome move, it is inarguable that this move is detrimental to smaller teams who are vying to make a name for themselves.

We expect these to be the last sets of Open Qualifiers for the current DPC season to have such conflicts. As of now, The China Super Major’s Open Qualifiers doesn’t clash with any of the scheduled events and will hopefully go on smoothly without any scheduling conflicts.
 

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While Valve’s off-hand approach to the current Majors system has promoted a ton of tournament organizers, they need to draft proper guidelines for tournaments and their open qualifiers to help mitigate these sort of issues with the Dota 2 Pro Circuit.

And while it’s not likely that either ESL or MDL will change their schedule at this point of time, we hope that they take into account the hundreds of smaller teams who rely on these Open Qualifiers for their shots at glory and better schedule events in the next DPC season.