Gamers Without Borders hosted a short Dota 2 charity event and Team Secret claimed yet another title.The Dota 2 event started on Friday, May 15, and concluded during the weekend on May 17. Despite the short period, it accumulated some high viewership numbers and over 2 million hours watched. Gamers Without Borders is a global tournament that chooses a different game every week and Dota 2 was the lucky title for the third one. With a prize pool of $1.5 million, the event surpassed even the regular Majors part of the Dota Pro Circuit. Unlike them though, GWB’s event was completely focused on charity with all of the money going towards the fight against COVID-19. Team placement was only about the organization players would choose and bragging rights.
The event featured a total of eight teams – six from Europe and two from the CIS:
- Alliance
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- Team Secret
- Team Nigma
- Team Liquid
- OG
- Virtus.pro
- Natus Vincere
Due to the nature of the event and the limited amount of time, there was no group stage and the teams went straight into playoffs. Losing a series meant direct elimination. The first four teams to go home were Nigma, Virtus.pro, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Liquid. The shortest game of the event was also played here with Team Secret defeating NIP in 22 minutes.
Among the remaining four Team Secret defeated Alliance while Na’Vi managed to take down the two-time TI champions OG. Secret and Na’Vi met in the grand finals and it didn’t go well for the Ukrainian organization.
Zai's Timbersaw combo followed by QoP's Sonic Wave, that's two kills going our way https://t.co/tkUfBaAmxE#SecretDota #GWBPS pic.twitter.com/7gZCBrOxRt
— Team Secret (@teamsecret) May 17, 2020
Secret finished the series with a very convincing 3:0, giving their rivals no chance. Lately Team Secret have been unstoppable with the only team able to defeat them being Nigma. Sadly the latter left the event in the quarterfinals and we never got to see the showdown many fans awaited.
We are the Gamers Without Borders 2020 Champions! We have decided to split the $750,000 grand prize into two separate donations:- $375,000 to the Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance @gavi- $375,000 to The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement @IFRC#SecretDota #GWBPS pic.twitter.com/k7f04bvgFe
— Team Secret (@teamsecret) May 17, 2020
Gamers Without Borders will last up until June 7 and the total amount of money for the whole event will come at $10 million. The next tournament in line will be all about Fortnite starting tomorrow May 19 and concluding on Thursday, May 21. Fortnite players will fight for the $2 million they’ll donate to some of the causes of their choice. Two more games will be featured between May 29-31 and June 5-7.
Stay tuned for more Dota 2 updates and make sure to check out EarlyGame for everything gaming and esports.
