OG declined the invitation for 'The Kuala Lumpur Major'

posted by Smyke,

The new Dota 2 Pro Circuit doesn't allow invites for the Major tournaments anymore, only for the Closed Qualifiers. PGL announced all invite teams and explain why OG won't participate at the first Major. OG's run at The International 2018 was historical - nobody expected them to win the biggest event of the year. A bright future lies ahead of them and everybody was excited to see them competing in the next tournaments. However, the European squad surprisingly decided not to compete at the first Major.

Regarding @OGesports , we reached out to #ogdota2 to invite them for the Closed Qualifier. They declined the invitation and will not be participating at the Kuala Lumpur Major
— PGL (@pglesports) 9. September 2018

As PGL explains the lineup was reached out to, but decided to decline the invite. Furthermore they must have told PGL that they won't compete at the first Major at all. Jesse 'JerAx' Vainikka and Johan 'BigDaddyN0tail' Sundstein explained that they decided to take a break, because they were travenling a lot lately and want to start fresh in the new season.

Hey! Wanted to quickly comment about not playing in the first major. Most of us had the feeling, that we needed to take our time off from dota/traveling, and spend time for the other things we love. It's been an insane road and now it's time for a pit stop. See you soon again! 🔋
— Jesse Vainikka (@iamJERAX) 9. September 2018

Four invites for the Closed Qualifier

Every region has four teams invited for the Closed Qualifier. Team Secret and Team Liquid obviously got invited and next to them Alliance and Shangri-La - the squad surrounding Peter 'ppd' Dager. This means that the North American allstar will start in Europe for the second time in his career.

*intensely googles some of these teams unable to find info pic.twitter.com/e0rbnMtpdl
— KillerPigeon (@KillerPigeon) 9. September 2018

Former Forward Gaming, now known as Quincy Crew was granted with an invite for North America, same as Evil Geniuses, compLexity Gaming and Team team surrounding Michael 'ixmike88' Ghannam.

While coL doesn't have an official lineup yet, rumours say Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao will start for the North American squad. Meanwhile the best Chinese team of TI8 were invited to their qualifier.