One of the Dota Pro Circuits biggest events, ESL One Los Angeles, will kick off this weekend with a suitably big fixture as back-to-back TI winners OG take on Evil Geniuses in Group B.
The clash between a new-look OG and Evil Geniuses – which gets underway on March 15 at 11:00 PDT (14:00 EDT/ 18:00 GMT) in the first round of fixtures – will see one of the TI champion’s new signings, Sumail ‘SumaiL’ Hassan, face his former team for the first time. Along with SumaiL, it will be the first outings in an OG jersey at a major for Yeik ‘MidOne’ Nai Zheng and Martin ‘Saksa’ Sazdov.
Evil Geniuses have been on a decent streak of form in the DPC recently, finishing second in the last two premier events at the ONE Esports Invitational and the finals of DreamLeague Season 13. The last time the two teams matched up was in the upper bracket of last year’s TI, which OG won on its route to lifting the Aegis for the second time.
Things will likely be a lot closer than it was then, with three changes to OG’s roster and Evil Geniuses in good form.
We have our first matchups for #ESLOne Los Angeles!
Which series are you most excited for? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/rp3AVLFQ9p
— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) March 10, 2020
Whatever the result, OG and Evil Geniuses are the favourites to progress from Group B, with Chaos Esports Club and Geek Fam being the other two teams.
OG are currently the bookmakers’ joint-favourites with Team Secret to go all the way in Los Angeles, with Evil Geniuses as third favourite.
