The Dota 2 Mdl Disneyland Paris starts this weekend (May 4th) and will run until the Grand Finals on Sunday (May 12th).

Sixteen teams, grouped into four groups of four, will start the tournament with championship aspirations. After three round-robin games against fellow group members, the top two teams from each group will advance to the upper half of the playoff Bracket, while the bottom two go to the lower half and face a nearly impossible road to the finals.

According to the odds from SBD, Team Secret is the outright favorite to take home the championship at +275, and they are the only team that’s deemed to have a better than 50/50 chance to reach the finals, sitting at -110 in the online odds.

Secret has captured just one of the last ten majors,

By comparison, Virtus.Pro has won two of the last five and reached five straight Grand Finals. To find the last Grand Final without the Russian superpower, you have to go all the way back to Changsha in May 2018, nearly a year ago to the day.

Why do they lag behind TS in the odds at +400? Largely because of how the groups worked out.

https://twitter.com/search?q=mdl%20disneyland%20groups&src=typd

VP was lumped in a quartet with Team Liquid, who won the China Supermajor last June and have reached three finals in the last 1.5 seasons. They aren’t having the best year in 2019, but they remain dangerous. The oddsmakers agree, giving them +1000 odds to win the title in Paris. Add to Group A an emerging team in the form of Keen Gaming, who sit 8th in the 2018-19 rankings, and there’s a small but real chance VP finds itself in the lower bracket.

Secret, on the other hand, is not likely to be tested too strongly in the group stage. Ninjas in Pyjamas are seen as their biggest threat.

While the relative newcomers impressed by winning the OGA Dota PIT Minor in April, they managed to do so without facing arguably the top-two teams in the tournament in the playoffs. After a 1-2 round-robin performance, they ran the table in the relegation bracket, while Royal Never Give Up and Alliance (both 3-0 in the group stage) were both upset in the winners bracket.

They are playing with the big boys now.

As tough as VP has it in Group A, the Group C members may have an even bigger gripe. That group features three real championship contenders in the form of PSG.LGD (+500), Vici Gaming (+800), and Mineski (+2000). PSG won two majors a year ago; Vici won the last one in Stockholm; and Mineski surprisingly captured the Asian Championship in April 2018.

One of them (likely Mineski) will be rather upset to find themselves in the lower part of the playoff bracket after the round robin.

Who do you think it will be?