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As we roll closer and closer to DAC 2015’s LAN Finals, it’s time to get behind your favourite teams. The prize pool is now at $2,143,720 USD, which is only $370,660 away from TI3’s prizepool of $2,874,380!

Even the 17^th place finisher (those eliminated from the wildcard will be the 17^th place finishers) will split $10,719 amongst five people.

Only the very best will get the big bucks in DAC 2015.

We often use prize pools to measure the “size” of the tournament, but e-sports isn’t all about the money. It’s more often about the storylines and personalities behind each team and tournament.

DAC has not courted so much controversy, except for their own use of the International-style compendium and immortal treasure rewards.

You will see DAC’s prize pool spike again closer to the Playoffs and Finals, occurring Jan 28 – Feb 2 and Feb 5 – 9 respectively. The Summit 2, for example, illustrates this “spike” in prize pool I am talking about.

There´s a lot of money at stake in DAC 2015. And even if you end up at #17. You still get 10,000 bucks to split with your team.

DAC will be the first tournament that features entirely new rosters from Cloud 9, Team Secret and EG. These 3 teams command the top spots in the North American region for Dota 2, and their recent multiple shuffles have made many fans concerned about their own stability.

Cloud 9 will be fielding “Big Daddy” N0tail and MiSeRy after removing pieliedie and Aui_2000, EG loses both zai and Arteezy to gain Sumail, a rising star in the NADota Elite League (NEL) and Aui_200.

Secret finalizes their roster for DAC with zai and Arteezy replacing Fly(Now Simbaaa and in Team Tinker) and N0tail.

In summary, Cloud 9’s captain, EternalEnvy made the call that Aui_2000 and pieliedie needed to be replaced to take Cloud 9 out of their 2^nd-place rut. Team Secret parted ways with N0tail and Fly amicably for the same reasons: to win.

EG lost zai and Arteezy, with zai being asked to join Team Secret and Arteezy coming along because he believed EG has hit a wall with the current roster. You can read all about the shuffles from the player’s perspective in the links!

The largest splash in the sea of Dota 2 finalizes its LAN roster on the 28th of January.

Who will finish out of the Wildcards? We have Energy Pacemaker, Wings Gaming (from China DSPL – a training league), HyperGloryTeam, Speed Gaming (from Asia Qualifiers), Power Rangers and Natus Vincere (from Europe Qualifiers).

PR looks extremely stable in the Europe Qualifiers, only losing to HellRaisers who went on to win the Qualifiers. HGT and Speed are the rising stars from China though, and with the Dota 2 scene in China being the most dominant, the two teams might simply be too much for the rest of the Wildcard teams to handle. Look out for the DSPL teams though; the underdogs are always fun to watch.

Na’vi are still famously trying to find their glory days again. They had some successes with the Dendi Magus in the Europe Qualifiers, but in the end, they were outmatched by PR’s stable play.

Navi is a team of flashy and playmakers, but if no plays are made, the team will simply fall apart.

The meta is currently favouring stable wins but rewards risky and flashy plays from behind if you can make them, but most of the time, the behind team lacks the damage to pull of such plays, making the game advantage relatively static.

Tanky heroes and heroes that have survivability skills are largely favoured over pure DPS heroes in the current meta.

Chen Yiji
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheFreakofnatur