ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 qualifiers viewership results

With The International 2023 not even a month away, a new Dota 2 season has already started, and the professional scene is in a state of complete confusion for now. Many teams have not yet decided on the final rosters, some clubs are taking a break after a busy tournament season, and others have disbanded their squads due to financial problems and poor results.

Meanwhile, the first S-tier tournament of the new Dota 2 season is just around the corner. ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 with a prize pool of one million dollars will be held on December 11-17 in Malaysia. Twelve teams will participate in the event: Gaimin Gladiators, LGD Gaming and Azure Ray received direct invites from the organizers, and nine more teams were determined in the closed regional qualifiers.

ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 qualifiers were a great opportunity to test the renewed rosters for some of the clubs. The Western and Eastern European qualifiers got a lot of attention, as they are now the two strongest regions in Dota 2. The qualifiers in Southeast Asia also attracted quite a lot of viewers, where a very promising Blacklist International roster with star players from the Philippines emerged after the World Championships. Abed, who played in North America for Evil Geniuses / Shopify Rebellion for the last four years, has become the captain of this roster.

ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 qualification results

The Western European qualifiers for ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 outpaced the others by Peak Viewers — they were watched by more than 105.5K people concurrently. Team Liquid and Team Secret won quotas for the tournament. The first one confidently went through the upper bracket, defeating all the opponents without losing a single game. Team Secret's way to the quota was more difficult and went through the lower bracket. It was its match against OG that ended up being the most popular in these qualifiers.

The qualifiers in Southeast Asia drew 96.4K Peak Viewers, that's how many people were concurrently watching the final match between Blacklist International and Geek Fam. Abed's new super squad proved stronger and got a chance to debut at its first international championship. It's been a long time since Southeast Asia has had a team with such great potential, so viewership interest in the region is sure to grow in the upcoming tournament season.

The Eastern Europe and MENA region qualifiers attracted 49K and 43.4K Peak Viewers, respectively. This is an unexpectedly small difference considering the regions' success on the professional scene. Eastern Europe is now considered one of the strongest regions in Dota 2, with Russian overtaking English in popularity at the end of last season. The number of viewers at matches of local teams is highly dependent on community casting, and these broadcasts were exactly what was lacking during the regional qualifiers. Nix and NS, the most popular Russian-speaking Dota 2 casters, did not cover the qualifying matches in Eastern Europe. BetBoom Team, 9Pandas and Team Falcons earned quotas for the event.

For the qualifiers for North and South America, the difference in Peak Viewers was even smaller. In general, both regions are struggling right now: Evil Geniuses and beastcoast have both disbanded their lineups, Shopify Rebellion dropped three players at once and only recently found replacements for them. Now there are almost no big clubs in these regions — they mostly play only mixes without serious sponsorship. Team SoloMid will play at ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 representing North America, and Peruvian mix Wawitas Sagazes will represent South America.

The qualifiers in China attracted the most modest audience of all regions — only 11.3K PV. The region has a lot of problems right now: many star Chinese players have retired, top teams have been disbanded, and newcomers have not yet had time to prove themselves at international tournaments. However, China will still have good representatives at the tournament in Malaysia: LGD Gaming and Azure Ray performed well at the last The International 2023. The Invictus Gaming roster, the winner of the qualifiers, will also accompany them.

The ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 matches will be held from December 11 to December 17 in Malaysia at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Center. The tournament prize pool amounts to one million dollars.