Bloggers and pros fought for 13 million in Dota 2 and CS at the cyber battle in Luzhniki

On March 22, Luzhniki Stadium hosts Russia's first Super Bowl of the Media Cyber League of Dota 2 and CS teams. This is a unique tournament where professionals compete together with popular bloggers. There are 13 million rubles at stake. The details were told by the correspondent of Izvestia Artem Yakovenko.

Looking at the performance, you can't immediately understand that an esports tournament is taking place — the Super Cup. Breaks between matches are played to music. Both the audience and the cosplayers are dancing. Rappers, bloggers, streamers, and professional esports players compete with each other.: who will outplay whom.

The main objective of the game is to reach the opponent's base and break the throne. It seems like nothing complicated, but it's just lip service. The games are played in a 5-on-5 format. Usually, one match lasts about 40-60 minutes, although you won't guess here: an esports battle can drag on for several hours. All this time, athletes must not only maintain concentration, but also constantly change their strategy. The team that wins two out of three matches wins.

If you don't know what Dota 2 is, it may seem like a bacchanal is going on on the screen: constant flickering and characters always scurrying back and forth. In fact, it's a battle for reaction speed. You need to think fast, literally in seconds. One mistake can cost the whole game.

"To put it in simple terms, in fact, this is chess, which adapts after each move. A move happens — and the board just turns over, new pieces are added or something like that," said professional esports player Georgy "Xakoda" Lipartia.

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The teams are divided into two types: the professional league and the media league. The latter are groups composed mainly of influencers.

"We have a clear need for such tournaments and events in Russia. Russia, about the same Dota 2, about the same Counter-Strike, if we talk about it, is the most active country in these games. Most of the players who are currently playing on the international stage occupy top positions — these are all ours, these are CIS players," added streamer Timur "TraVoMaN" Hafizov.

Of course, there are far fewer girls in this discipline than there are boys, but those who are are not inferior to the professionals.

"I just watched enough of my father. He was my first favorite streamer. I put a chair in the back and watched him play Quake, Doom and everything else," said streamer Julia "By_Owl" Ivleva.

The total prize fund of this tournament was 13 million rubles, which is not so much by the standards of professionals.

"If we talk about a professional player who plays at the highest level, he earns more than a million rubles, and if with the prize money, then it's fine — there's enough to live on," said Ilya "bashka" Tsvetinsky, a professional player.

This is probably another factor that attracts competitive games in this discipline in particular. Back in 2001, Russia became the first country to recognize esports as an official sport. Since then, the entire industry has grown from underground clubs to multimillion-dollar tournaments. So it is possible that in the near future Dota 2 and CS tournaments will be no less popular than football or hockey.

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Anton Vasiliev, director of Hexlet IT College, told Izvestia in November last year that interest in gaming technologies continues to grow in Russia and video games are becoming not just entertainment, but a full-fledged resource for education and future profession.

He said that esports is being formed as a full-fledged professional field today. Vasiliev explained that an esports athlete requires the same qualities as a traditional athlete — the ability to think strategically, react quickly, work in a team and withstand high psychological stress.

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