If you are looking for the centre of the eSports world this week, then you need to head to China where the World Cyber Arena 2015 Tournament is taking place, involving several major 
eSports, but we are focusing on two major eSports, Defense of the Ancients 2 and League of Legends across two separate tournaments played out at the same time.
Seeing as there are several distinct, and very different tournaments taking place at this multi-national event, let’s take a look at how the competition will line up in each of our two featured tournaments starting with a look at how the League of Legends event will unfold.
World Cyber Arena 2015 – League of Legends
In the League of Legends event at the World Cyber Arena, kicking off on Thursday 17th December and progressing through until Sunday 20th November, eight of the top League of Legends teams in the world have been specially invited to participate in the tournament. The event boasts a prize pool of around $234,560, with just over $125,000 up for grabs for the winner.
Unlike many events which boast a group stage before a playoffs section, the World Cyber Arena LoL event is a simple knockout event where each of the eight invited teams have been drawn against each other to face off in a Best of Three quarter final.
The roster was changed when original participant EDward Gaming was forced to withdraw from this event, and several others, due to player injuries.
The eight teams have been drawn into the following matchups as outlined below:
Invictus Gaming will take on 2144 Danmu Gaming in the first quarter final. Hyper Youth Gaming face off against Energy Pacemaker.All in the second followed by Royal Never Give Up against Vici Gaming in the penultimate clash before Snake e Sports take on Legend Dragon in the final quarter final.
The winners of the first two semi finals will then face off in the first semi final and likewise the winners of the third and fourth quarter final will meet up in the second semi with the winners progressing to the final. This is a straight knockout event with no losers bracket, so once your team has lost, they are eliminated from the event.
Of the many events at the World Cyber Arena event, sponsored by the Yinchuan Government, the League of Legends event is arguably the lesser of the two with more teams and considerably more money available to be won in the Dota 2 event.
World Cyber Arena 2015 – Dota 2
After four separate qualifying events for professional Dota 2 teams in America, China, Europe and South East Asia, followed by four more Open events for all teams from the same four regions and finally one Wild Card event, the 16 finalists for the Dota 2 World Cyber Arena 2015 have been decided .
There are many familiar names that will descend on Yinchuan over the coming week to contest this huge event with a total prize pool available of around $650,000.
The full list of qualifiers are:
- KGD Gaming, CDEC Gaming and Invictus Gaming from the Chinese Pro Qualifier
- Newbee and Fnatic from the American Pro Qualifier
- Team Secret and Team Empire from the European Pro Qualifier
- MVP Phoenix and TnC Gaming from the South East Asia Pro Qualifier
- Wings Gaming from the Chinese Open Qualifier
- Team Leviathan and Team YP from the American Open Qualifier
- Alliance from the European Open Qualifier
- Execration from the South East Asian Open Qualifier
- Team Liquid and Digital Chaos from the Wild Card Qualifier
The 16 teams have since been drawn into one of four groups for the first stage of the event, which consists of a group stage where each team will play the other to decide which two teams from each group progress through to the playoffs.
The Groups are:
- Group A – Team Secret, Wings Gaming, Fnatic, Team Empire
- Group B – LGD Gaming, Newbee, Team YP, Leviathan
- Group C – CDEC Gaming, Invictus Gaming, TNC Gaming, Execration
- Group D – Alliance, MVP Phoenix, Team Liquid, Digital Chaos
Matches will start on Thursday 17th December and over the four days of action the League stages will see two teams from each group qualify for the quarter final stage, From then on, it is a straight knockout to see which of the teams emerges victorious and takes home a top prize worth at least $350,000, if not considerably more.
There will be plenty of eSports betting for this Premier event available from Thursday on sites such as Bet365 Sport, which offers an extensive eSports betting service to customers. Check out what is available on the site throughout the week for all the top prices.
There is already extensive betting available on the Win Outright market for the Dota 2 event, with Team Secret the 7/4 favourites, followed by Team Liquid at 7/2 and CDEC Gaming a 9/2 shot. After that the betting tails off somewhat with LGD Gaming and Team Empire both 7/1 shots.
As expected it is the Open qualifiers that are the rank outsiders for the event with Wings Gaming a 100/1 Shot, TnC Gaming 150/1, Execration 200/1, Team YP 250/1 and the rank outsiders for the title being Leviathan at 500/1, all prices available with Bet365 Sport.
In addition to betting on the two events listed above, you can also find plenty of bets available at the other events scheduled for the World Cyber Arena events this week including betting on the Heroes of the Storm event, which sees Could9 as the 2/1 favourites ahead of MVP Black as the 9/2 shots.
CS:GO ESL Nordic Nationals Season One Kicks Off In Stockholm Next Saturday
Next Saturday 19th December sees the start of the €15,000 ESL Nordic Nationals Season One event in Stockholm, Sweden as eight of the best Scandinavian Counter Strike Global Offensive teams face off at the Inferno Online gaming centre to claim the title of Nordic National champion.
There has already been a fierce qualification program taking place in the months prior to the final with two qualifiers each from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland all earning a place in the offline eight team finals event.
The teams have been drawn into two groups, with one team from each country being placed in each group. The draw has resulted in the following group allocations:
- Group A – GreyFaceNoSpace, Reason Gaming, BX3 eSports Club, Mixcat
- Group B – No Problem, PFP, Torpedo Gaming, SkitLite Gaming
Following the Group stage the top two teams in each group will progress into the semi finals with the winners from one group taking on the second place team from the other group. The winners of both semi finals will then head on to play in the final taking place on Sunday 20th December.
Remember to check back to Bet365 Sport’s eSports betting service for all the latest on this Scandinavian event later this week.
