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WINLINE Star Series Season 4 begins online on September 10 with 10 Dota 2 teams and a prize pool of ₽3,500,000. The event runs through September 19, opening with a round-robin group stage before six teams move into the playoffs. Its field mixes professional players, streamers and other Dota personalities, giving the tournament a different character from a conventional club competition while still using a structured qualifying format.
Opening day starts at 15:00 Moscow time with Recrent Club against Daxak Club. Rostikfacekid Club and YBN Club follow at 18:00, while NS Club and VooDooSh Club close the programme at 21:00. These are scheduled fixtures, not completed results. Two matches come from Group A and one from Group B, beginning a group phase that continues through September 15.
Group position shapes the playoff route
The 10 entrants are divided into two groups of five, and every team plays each opponent in its own group. All group series are best-of-three. The top two teams in each group advance to the upper bracket, third place enters the lower bracket, and the bottom two are eliminated. Six teams therefore survive, but their route through the playoffs depends directly on where they finish in the round robin.
The playoffs use double elimination. Every series is best-of-three until the grand final, which expands to best-of-five. The event also uses a modified Captain’s Draft mode, adding another layer to preparation because teams must navigate the tournament’s particular drafting rules as well as a busy group schedule. The bracket slots cannot be assigned before the round robin ends, but the structure already shows what every placement is worth.
A five-team round robin gives each participant four group opponents, so one bad opening series is not automatically fatal. At the same time, only three places in each group lead onward, and the difference between second and third is significant: second place keeps an upper-bracket life, while third starts the playoffs one series from elimination. That makes every map relevant even before the first tiebreak scenario appears.
Opening-day viewing guide
Group A contains NS Club, Daxak Club, Stariy_Bog Club, Recrent Club and VooDooSh Club. Group B features Rostikfacekid Club, Stray Club, Rostik999 Club, YBN Club and Cooman Club. Later fixtures include Recrent Club against VooDooSh Club, Daxak Club against NS Club, and Rostikfacekid Club against Cooman Club. Viewers can follow the matches on the personal Twitch channels of participating team members.
The staggered start times make the first day straightforward to follow from beginning to end. Recrent and Daxak provide the first look at Group A, Rostikfacekid and YBN open the Group B programme, and the late series returns attention to Group A. With no simultaneous matches listed for the opener, each team gets a clear window and viewers can see the initial standings take shape without choosing between broadcasts.
The mix of professionals and prominent community figures is part of the event’s appeal, but the format still rewards consistency. Best-of-three group series reduce the influence of a single unusual draft, while modified Captain’s Draft encourages teams to arrive with broader plans than they might use in standard matchmaking. By the time the group stage ends on September 15, every survivor will have earned its bracket position across several series rather than one elimination match.
- 15:00 MSK — Recrent Club vs Daxak Club
- 18:00 MSK — Rostikfacekid Club vs YBN Club
- 21:00 MSK — NS Club vs VooDooSh Club
| Final placement | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | ₽1,000,000 |
| 2nd | ₽500,000 |
| 3rd | ₽300,000 |
| 4th | ₽200,000 |
Placement prizes account for ₽2,000,000 of the pool, while another ₽1,500,000 is allocated for completing in-game contracts. The first day will not settle either group, but it will establish the early standings and give all three opening matchups immediate weight in the race for six playoff places. Every opening team has room to recover, though an early series win immediately reduces the pressure on its remaining group schedule.
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