posted by Malystryx.GDS,
Team Secret will debut their new roster tomorrow at ESL One Manila in a group with two teams of the moment, EHOME and Fnatic, as well as Team Empire.
Group B




The format of the groupstage
The groupstage of the $250,000 ESL One Manila will be GSL style, meaning that after the first group match the winners will play the winners and the losers will play the losers. The first team to win two matches takes first seed, and the second team to win two matches takes second seed. The groupstages will take from Friday 22nd to Saturday 23rd.

The playoffs, which feature the top 2 teams from each group, will be on Sunday and they are single elimination. By the end of the groupstages half of the teams will have been eliminated. All matches are bo3 aside from the final which is bo5.



Team Secret - A new chapter begins
Secret's last official match was the first round exit in the DotaPit Season 4 LAN Finals to ua Natus Vincere, but prior to that they were crowned the Shanghai Major champions.

eu Team Secret will make their official debut tomorrow with their new roster. During the Spring Reshuffle the team released dk Rasmus 'rASmus' Fillipsen and ro Omar 'w33haa' Aliwi and brought in ca Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev and us Saahil 'Universe' Arora. This is Arteezy's second term in Team Secret, having also left EG to join Secret at the end of 2014.

Meanwhile, Universe was part of the us Evil Geniuses's roster ever since the beginning of their rise to glory under the captainship of us Peter 'ppd' Dager in the second half of 2013. He was also part of Evil Geniuses back in 2012 but left the team after deciding to take a break from Dota 2 to focus on his studies. On Twitter the former EG offlaner said: "sincerely sorry to anyone I hurt making this decision, will always cherish the memories I have with my old teammates. A new chapter."

Diredude's ESL One Manila inspired cartoon


Will we see a return of the "Old Artour"?
The thought of seeing Universe in a Team Secret shirt is a peculiar one, but Puppey may have assembled a new superpower. ro Omar 'w33haa' Aliwi's impact on the midlane had dwindled slightly when compared to his run on patch 6.85, and with ca Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao already in the carry role with a similar hero pool to Arteezy for that position, it would seem probable that we will see Arteezy return to playing mid. If you Miss the old Artour, then you may prefer Secret.Arteezy to EG.Arteezy.


Fnatic are Kings of SEA at the moment even with Mushi on the bench
Anyone who has been following SEA will be aware that Fnatic have been ruling that part of the world for the last month. The Malaysians have only lost 1 of their last 15 matches and triumphed over the winners of DotaPit Season 4 kr MVP Phoenix* not once, not twice but thrice.

At the Shanghai Major Int Fnatic finished 5th-6th alongside us compLexity Gaming, and even with my Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung now acting as a coach due to health issues, the team have continued to win. Russian commentator V1lat believes based off recent performances Fnatic already deserve a direct invite. Fnatic are a team to watch out for at ESL One Manila.

Mushi heads to ESL One Manila as the team's coach position due to health issues


EHOME doing well in China and IceIceIce is now a jungler

Since the roster change which saw the addition of sg Daryl Koh 'iceiceice' Pei Xiang and cn Lu 'Fenrir' Chao EHOME have, like Fnatic, been doing extremely well in their region. EHOME have played 14 competitive matches with the new roster and won 11 of them.

sg Daryl Koh 'iceiceice' Pei Xiang who we are used to seeing play offlane on heroes such as Clockwerk or Tidehunter has now been moved to the jungle. In his new team the former Vici Gaming player has expanded his repetoire to add heroes of the moment such as Chen, Enchantress, Earth Spirit and Enigma. cn Yang 'Eleven' Wei Ren continues to fill the offlane role with cn Zhi Cheng 'LaNm' Zhang as the carry player.

By the time the ESL One Manila event gets underway EHOME will have not played a competitive match for more than 2 weeks. Their last two matches before their break were a 3-0 defeat to cn Newbee in the Epicenter Qualifiers and a 2-1 loss to Starladder Invitational winners cn Vici Gaming Reborn* in the H-Cup Finals. With their new roster EHOME have looked strong in China, but can they be as effective against stiff opposition such as Team Secret and Fnatic?

Team Empire: Here for the ride but unlikely to travel far
ru Team Empire have unfortunately drawn the short draw. The roster which qualified for the event have all now left the team and Empire head to Manila with a completely new roster, and an inexperienced one at that compared to other teams present when it comes to major LANs* (amended - cheers GuessMess) with the exception of ru Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov. They've won 7 of their last 15 games but lost to the hands of up and coming teams like gr Ad Finem and eu Ninjas in Pyjamas*.

Team Empire also open with a match against Team Secret in group B. Empire's chances of survival are almost non-existant even with the talents of former Team Spirit mid ru Vasily 'Afterlife' Shishkin. However, it will be a good opportunity for the new roster to gel and pick up further experience playing on LAN.




Predictions
1. Team Secret (through to playoffs)
2. Fnatic (through to playoffs)
3. EHOME
4. Team Empire

Although EHOME have been active, the 2 week hiatus from competitive matches and the sheer volume of games and results Fnatic have been pumping out for me gives the Malaysians the edge in Group B. Team Secret know how to make an entrance and with their two new additions group B may well be their playground. Fnatic versus EHOME in round 1 is definitely the match to watch out for as well as Secret's debut against the only Filipino team present.

What do you think? Who will finish in the top 2?

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