Starladder has announced the venue for the next season of Starseries & I-League Season 7. The event will take place in Shanghai, China in 2019. Starladder has seen an increased focus for China where they will be hosting a Dota 2 Major as well. The Chongqing Dota 2 major will take place from 19th January till 27th January.
The new season of the Starseries and I-League Season 7 will take place in Shanghai. It will feature an increased prize pool of $500,000. This is a massive $200,000 increase in the total prize pool from the previous season.
Starseries & I-League will see a total of sixteen teams in participation. Out of these sixteen teams, 13 will receive direct invites to the tournament. The remaining three slots will be given to the regional qualifier winners. There will be three regional qualifiers one each from North America, Europe and Asia.
The first team to receive a direct invite to the tournament is Team Wild. The Brazilian team won Gamecon Brasilia 2018 after defeating Isurus Gaming 3-1 in the Grand finals. The series was extremely close and had a lot of ups and downs in the individual matches. Team Wild is the South American representative at the event.
Starladder is seeing an increased focus on China
Starladder is already hosting a Dota 2 Major in China for 2019. This Dota 2 Major comes at the directive of Valve, who gave Starladder multiple choices. It is also a business decision to expand into China as it is one of the biggest esports markets in the world.
The South American region has plenty of players with high potential, but they are almost unable to prove themselves on the international stage and to become a part of some famous organization. Only a few teams have managed to “escape” from the region and, moreover, it became possible only due to great efforts and no smaller portion of luck.
Starting in 2019, we are planning to open another way to the international stage for these players. We are starting to cooperate with local leagues and tournament organizers who can organize regional qualifications and send the best teams to the LAN-finals of StarSeries
Manager of the league, Sergey “Negative” Bidzan
China will see multiple esports events in 2019. The International 2019 also scheduled for Shanghai, we can expect some of the best esports events in the region. For now, Starladder will announce further details of its qualifiers next week.
Who Will Win The Star Ladder Shanghai?
Currently, Betway esports is providing an opportunity to bet on the tournament. OG is the tiny leader in the open market with Team Liquid leading by 13/8 at 2/1. Wings Gaming is a 6/1 game. The outsiders begin with Team Secret a shot of 12/1, and all of them are 14/1. The 33/1 long shots of the TNC Pro Team.
Besides the open market, Bet365 offers a variety of bets on this case including who will reach the final round, the champion zone and winner’s match wagers.
For a detailed breakdown of all of the possible bets for this big event in Shanghai, see the esports betting section at bet365 esports.