With less than 5 days to go Valve's second seasonal event for Dota 2 will be held at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, China. We can see the remaining teams battle it out for the two day group stage event from February 25-26.
EHOME will be one of the heavy favorites going into the Shanghai Major as they recently pulled a huge upset over TI5 Champions, Evil Geniuses. What we can expect and learn from these smaller LANS is that they don't necessarily always predict final outcome of a tournament with a significantly bigger prize pool. But as we're nearing the event China's teams will be heavily favored against the Western teams due to them playing in their home court.
Another unexpected surprise has been for European team Alliance, who have reformed their original TI3 Champion roster lineup with Admiral Bulldog, Akke, EGM, Loda, and s4. Alliance recently participated in the Season 13 StarLadder League to also pull a surprising 2-0 upset against Evil Geniuses.
While it is still too early to predict the outcomes, many are expecting China to put up one hell of a fight for the Major. GameTyrant will be following the event and viewers will be able to as well by grabbing Valve's Winter Battle Pass.