First offline Dota Underlords tournament to take place at ESL One Hamburg

ESL One Hamburg will play host to the first Dota Underlords event later this year at the Barclaycard Arena.

Dota Underlords is Valve’s official Dota Auto Chess game — released to Battle Pass owners on June 14th. ESL has wasted no time in getting the game on the books for its Dota 2 event in October.

The first Dota Underlords offline tournament will be happening at #ESLOne Hamburg 2019! ?

Free to join for everyone attending the event, it will have a total prize pool of 5000€!

More info coming soon ? https://t.co/N4LHatavLu pic.twitter.com/XDMGDtxubD

— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) June 19, 2019

The tournament will feature a €5,000 (£4,400) prize pool with registration for the event free for all fans who attend the live event. The event is the first offline tournament announced for Valve’s Auto Chess spin-off. ESL gave few details but stated that we’d learn more soon.

The main event for ESL One Hamburg kicks off October 25th – 27th and will feature a $300,000 (£235,000) prize pool. A total of 12 teams will battle it out for the prize with the event sponsored by the usual sprinkling of ESL partners including DHL, Vodafone, Intel, Mercedes-Benz and ROG.

Dota Underlords is based off the hit Dota 2 mod ‘Auto Chess‘ created by Drodo Studio’s and with the help of popular mobile MMORPG maker Dragonest Game will be releasing a standalone version of the popular mod on the EPIC Store, Valve’s main rival in the PC gaming space.

The popularity of this new genre sometimes referred to as an ‘auto-battle’ has even seen rival MOBA developer Riot Games release its own take on the game this week titles Teamfight Tactics.

Esports Insider says: ESL are smart to jump on a popular new trend, they have a long relationship with Valve so I’m certain the two see this as a perfect proving ground for the new title, especially given the event takes place during a Dota 2 tournament. As for the ‘Battle Chess’ series of games, time will tell if we have a new esports genre on our hands but it is certainly something to keep an eye on, especially with Riot Games, Valve and Epic having a hand in the preventable pie.

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