Second Installment of GEST The Challenge to be held this Sunday

The second GEST (Gigabyte E-Sports Tournament) The Challenge of the year is scheduled this Sunday, 21 July. It is a four-team tournament with a USD 1,500 prize pool.

After being put on hold for a couple of months, GEST The Challenge is finally back. GEST The Challenge is a tournament set to pit the best of Southeast Asia (determined through the GEST Dota 2 tournament) against Chinese teams, as there were really no regular tournament that pits the two regions against each other.

During the past four months that we had no GEST The Challenge, three teams had stood atop of the GEST tournament.  Invasion.MUFC won two, while  MiTH.Trust and  NeoES.Orange won one apiece. However, the invitation for both Malaysian teams were declined due to different reasons. MUFC was joining the GMPGL Malaysia, a LAN tournament happening on the same day, while Orange is reported to be having a team holiday. Both of the Malaysian teams are participating on the upcoming The International 3.

Entering the tournament with  MiTH.Trust is replacement team  AMD.Mineski.Razer. The fan-favorite team from the Philippines always has a strong showing on the monthly tournament, including consecutive top finishes on their local qualifiers. On last month’s main event, they almost won their series eventual champion MiTH.

The two teams will be joined by the Chinese representatives in  RattleSnake and  Vici Gaming. RattleSnake is Seattle-bound this August, and they are foreseen as the favorite heading into this competition. Meanwhile, this is VG’s second appearance on GEST The Challenge. They were the first to be eliminated on that tournament, but the team has seen some roster changes and has displayed big improvement since then.

The tournament will be played on a Single-elimination format, different from the double-elimination format from the previous installment. All of the games will be played on a best-of-three series.

21 July (SGT)

• 1800:   Vici Gaming vs  AMD.Mineski.Razer
  
• 1800:   RattleSnake vs MiTH.Trust 
• 2100: Winner1 vs Winner2

The winning team will receive USD 1,000, while the runner-up will receive USD 500.

Originally a tournament scheduled every two months, the tournament unfortunately had to go through a break because of the unavailability of Chinese teams. The Chinese teams need to have permission from ACE (Association of Chinese E-Sports) to play on tournaments, which was made complicated because of several Chinese events such as the G-League, the G-1 Champion’s League and the Dota 2 Super League among others.

The very first GEST The Challenge, held last year, was won by  LGD.int. That was their first official tournament, and they also coincidentally defeated their sister team  LGD.cn with a score of 3-2 on the Finals. LGD.int had the chance to win the second one as well, which was held last March, but they were destroyed by Orange 3-0 on the Grand Finals.

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