TI3 Pubstomp at Meltdown London! (Updated)
Dota 2 in UK | 04 August 2013, 02:05 | By [RKFF] Patters
Come to Meltdown in London for The International 3, Saturday (lower bracket semi & final, winner bracket final) and Sunday (grand final); sign up on facebook so we can judge numbers:
Facebook event page.
Saturday and Sunday the 10th and 11th of August, should have been in your calendar for months. The biggest esports event in history is about to go down.
And we're going to be at Meltdown bar watching it all unfold live.
Meltdown - the UK's first dedicated esports bar - are hosting what is probably going to be the worlds biggest pubstomp yet for the final two days of The International 3. This is the first Dota pubstomp at Meltdown and so there's never been a better time to show Valve and the rest of the world how strongly the UK loves its Dota 2.
If you're new to Dota and havent heard of TI3, welcome and you are in for a treat! With a record breaking prize pool of over $2,700,000, you can bet that this will be the best Dota you have ever seen.
Last year Invictus Gaming managed to narrowly defeat previous TI1 winners, Na'Vi, after being knocked into the losers bracket by that very team in the previous round. The champions will take home at least $1,380,000, so everyone will certainly be trying their absolute best. If you want to follow what's happening in the week leading up to the finals there's a link to the official schedule at the bottom of the post and a more human readable format of the main tournament here.
We'll be running a number of activities during the inevitable warmup and downtime, a cosplay competition and a quiz, both naturally Dota 2 themed.
Meltdown boasts some seriously powerful gaming rigs for us to use - be it playing some warm up Dota, viewing old replays or catching all the first bloods Tobi will no doubt miss over the cause of the night. Valve have even made it so you don't have to miss out on your chance for the illustrious drops, as long as you register as attending on the Dota 2 website. Some small prizes will be provided by Valve because they're wonderful but the main prizes will be funded by the UK Dota community personally because we're wonderful too - choice of either booze or choice of steam based goodies. The last London pubstomp blew UK Dota away, packing out the Assembly House, this one can only be bigger and better. The staff at Meltdown are keen gamers and do their utmost to provide the best service they can - did we mention they'll be open as long as it takes on both Saturday and Sunday nights for the games to finish?
Finally - Please signup on facebook if you are coming so we can judge numbers as best we can - there's a chance we will have so many people we'll need to have a second venue sorted out to ensure nobody gets turned away - there could be several hundred people attending!
Important timings:
Meltdown opens 2pm, with cosplay/quiz/general hanging about (or watching some WCS Starcraft 2 if you're into that sort of thing) until...
Dota games start 8pm
Last trains/everyone has to move inside the bar ~midnight
Games finish, Meltdown shuts /late/ (~6am)
First trains start running again /early/ (~6am)
Accomodation:
If you're planning on staying the night because its easier than staying awake or going home there are plenty of hotels and hostels in the Kings Cross area:
Hostel170
Keystone Hostel
Splitting a hotel will give a little more privacy and should be doable for around £40 if you can get 3-4 people together
Travel:
The bar is here (it's no longer called The Prince)
The fastest way to get to the venue is almost certainly to get to Kings Cross by train and then walk 15 minutes to Meltdown. But if you are coming from out of town, a bus might be considerably cheaper.
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk for getting into London by train
http://www.tfl.gov.uk for getting around London by train and tube
http://uk.megabus.com really cheap busses, limited destinations
http://www.nationalexpress.com cheap busses, variety of stops
Links:
Facebook event
Reddit r/ukdota thread
Official Dota2.com info
Meltdown (venue)
Previous pubstomp feedback
Food & drink:
Meltdown is a bar, and although it doesn't have the world's widest selection of drinks, they're not too unreasonably priced and there's enough available to ensure you won't go thirsty. ~£3.50 a pint ballpark price.
They don't serve food themselves, but pizza is available
