Dota’s next Manila Major announced as Shanghai continues to disappoint, baffle

Valve have announced details of the next stop on their seasonal Majors tour, with Manila’s Mall of Asia playing host to a second Dota 2 tournament of the year.

The Manila Major will take place over June 7-12, two months after ESL One Manila hosts another premier Dota tournament in the same arena.

The event is a great boon to South-East Asian Dota, and eSports in general, given the slightly sullied reputation the entire region has received thanks to the woeful production of the Shanghai Major last month.

Production issues continued even after Team Secret were crowned the winners of the $3m tournament as player practice rooms in the Marriott hotel were cleared out without their knowledge, leading to lost keyboards, mice and in Chinese player Bai "rOtk" Fan’s case, a missing set of Maserati car keys.

Valve’s chosen production company for the Manila Major will be PGL, who have had solid performances on organising CS:GO tournaments in the region previously.

The announcement of the Major also unlocks all teams’ player rosters for shuffles before the tournament begins, with the transfer window closing on March 27.

Team Spirit has already taken the chance to shift two players they felt underperformed at Shanghai, with many other teams expected to follow suit soon.

Rosters will be locked until after this summer’s The International, making this window the final chance to put together world class teams before the year’s biggest tournament.