With January 2018 now upon us, we are only a few weeks away until the much-anticipated Valve Minor tournament: ESL One Genting 2018. After revealing its top eight directly invited teams, it was a month of qualifiers, and what a month it was.

One of the most notable teams that will be making an appearance at ESL One Genting will be Na’Vi, former TI champions as well as one of the top Dota 2 teams in the world. While Na’Vi have been showing some promise over the last few years, they have never really been able to break into the top tier Dota 2 teams bracket, which includes the likes of Team Liquid, EG, Newbee and Virtus Pro to name a few.

This time, Na’Vi is definitely back after blazing through the CIS Qualifiers with a clean three-nil sweep in the finals against Team Empire. Ever since its most recent roster change, Na’Vi have been on a good run of results, making its appearance in a Valve Minor and Major tournament. While they didn’t win said tournaments, they did manage to secure themselves Qualifying Points in both tournaments as they placed 3rd/4th in MDL Macau (Minor) and 4th in DreamLeague Season 8 (Major.)

With both Mineski and Fnatic already invited for ESL One Genting 2018, there aren’t many other Malaysian teams worth seeing live. Even in the qualifiers, there were only two notable Malaysian teams: Fire Dragoon and New Beginning (which included the likes of veteran Malaysian Dota 2 stars, Lee “kYxY” Kong Yang and Ng “YamateH” Wei Poong.) While Fire Dragoon were considered a Tier 1 invite, New Beginning made their way through the open qualifiers to secure a spot in the main qualifiers. Sadly, that wasn’t enough as they got knocked out in the first round by Clutch Gamers.

Clutch Gamers eventually made their way all the way to the finals, where they faced up against TNC Pro Team and after an intense back-and-forth match, TNC Pro Team managed to emerge victorious with a three-two victory over their fellow countrymen to represent The Philippines in ESL One Genting 2018.

Other qualified teams include two slots from the EU Qualifiers for both Planet Dog and PENTA Sports while the China Qualifiers saw both LGD.ForeverYoung and VGJ.Thunder making it through. There was also a North American Qualifier as well as South American Qualifier, a first for a Valve Minor tournament in Malaysia. For North America, it was compLexity Gaming who made it through while SG e-sports was your South American team, representing Brazil.

The stage is now set for what looks to be an exciting three full days of Dota 2! If you have yet to buy your tickets, you can do so at ESL’s website.