The three teams that will define Artisan Dota League 2020

The Artisan Dota League is a cross-regional event between SEA & Asia featuring 20 teams and a 45,000$ prize pool. The team lineup doesn’t offer much hype in terms of players, but we did spot several lucrative ways to make the most out of it.

The Chinese and South East Asia Dota 2 scenes host the most sustainable amateur leagues to nurture young blood into Dota 2 artisans. Plenty of matches are played out daily between Nov 13 – Dec 20, offering a wide array of betting options.

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Artisan Dota League Format and Teams

The organizers have opted out for best-of-two single round-robin matches in two group stages. Each region will play out their own group stage before meeting their opposing region in the Playoffs. Six out of the ten teams in each group will advance to the double-elimination playoffs where matches are best-of-three.

SE Asia representatives consists of familiar teams such as Neon Esports, Execration, Cignal Ultra and Galaxy Racer as the main favorites. The rest includes The Prime, Void, Vice Esports, Zerothreetwo Dota, and TEAM STAR. The final team in SEA, Sumi Esport was disqualified from the event with no additional reasons given.

Over on the Chinese side, we got Aster.Aries, iG Vitality and Sparking Arrow Gaming joining the fray. Along with less familiar squads such as Team Sirius, FTD club C, Phoenix Gaming, Jungle, Forest, Team magma, Access.

At first glance, we notice a blend of tier 2 and tier 3 Dota 2 teams mixed in a one big pot. As a result, there are plenty of betting options and in-play bets to be considered for the high number of matches played out daily.

Those not following the Asian amateur scenes too closely, we have identified three teams that can become a mainstay on your betting slips this next month.

Neon Esports & Skem

Skem and Neon Esports are the main favorites for this entire event. The former Complexity carry/support has boosted Neon’s performance massively this season, and is easily in contention for the tournament MVP. Best known for his aggressive Ursa plays and risky decisions, Skem does not hesitate during team fights as he believes in his proficiency on his signature hero.

Neon Esports as a whole has been able to hold their own against regional leaders TNC Predator and Fnatic for most of this season. On November 24th, Julius “JG” Galeon departed the roster in favor of  John Anthony “Natsumi-“ Vargasand, skem has moved into the support role to give his amazing flavor to yet another position.

Sparking Arrow Gaming

Sparking Arrow Gaming (SAG) is definitely no tier-3 amateur team. In fact, they swept the floor (3-0) agaisnt Chinese powerhouse Vici Gaming at the BEYOND EPIC: China tournament just months ago. We don’t really know why SAG is invited to the event in the first place. Since they could easily hold their own against bigger teams such as team 4AM and even PSG.LGD.

Anyways, here they are, raising the bars exponentially higher for the rest of the competition and definitely a perfect candidate in Dota 2 betting. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim SAG has this tournament in the bag. We could give the SEA rivals the benefit of the doubt here, considering the two regions don’t usually compete frequently.

If there’s a team of such caliber, it probably would be Neon Esports who can give SAG a run for their money.

Team STAR and the memory of Arrow Gaming

The Malaysian team that made it into the heavens but fell from grace, TEAM STAR, is participating at this event giving it an aura of untrustworthiness. The team features, Yi Liong “ddz” Kok and Hsien Wan “Lance” Fua, two players holding lifetime bans for throwing a match back in 2014. There is however, no denying the overwhelming talent and skills that ddz has, as they continue to win plenty local tournament to date.

While the match-fixing scandal was an epoch ago, STAR has given given several bookmakers pause in listing them. Yet the team still remains one of the main favorites in their region. Next to our first two picks, STAR should be a mainstay on your betting slip whenever you see their odds listed. The team seems out for blood as of late and are piling on victories left right and center.

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