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Dota 2 The International tournament began 2 days ago in Seattle at 9 am and consumed a whole day’s worth of time. For those of us living on the other side of the world taking part in watching probably the biggest e-sports event in history can become a burden. Here in Indonesia the tournament’s first match day starts at 11pm and goes on into the night until 10am in the morning. It’s unfortunate that the Eid holiday has just ended and work and school is back causing many to miss watching.
Before the start of the tournament there were left 2 empty slots one for each group A and B. The winners of the wild card event would come to take those spots. CDEC the Chinese team completely demolished everyone else and took their well deserved spot. Fighting for the second spot in the tournament was Vega Squadron from Russia and MVP Phoenix from Malaysia with Team Archon previously known as North American Rejects were eliminated.
Simply by getting into the tournament at its worst/receiving last place, is rewarded with $50,000 from the total prize of $17 million, which is more than enough for some teams. Vega won the first round with a farmed phantom lancer played by 9pashaebashu. The second game was an astounding match up featuring core hero Lina against an Ember Spirit with the game bouncing back and forth featuring classic rat dota and the purchase of a rapier. MVP Phoenix after coming up top in the second game with Vega barracks crippling one after another, came to receive the last spot in the tournament after a convincing third game.
The teams arrived close to a week before the tournament allowing them practice time before the big event. Gadgets such as cellphones, gaming mice and keyboards were confiscated from the players of each team to be inspected prior to the event. This was primarily due to hacks during CSGO tournaments inscribed into the mice. Artour Babaev or more commonly known as Arteezy playing the carry role at secret, had conflicts with one of the casters stating on twitter that said caster had leaked private data about each of the teams. It was found out that valve has done analytics for each team and the data was passed down to the casters for better information during commentating. One of casters unprofessionally leaked information to their favored team and thus valve was forced to send the analytics to each team in order to make it fair. In general this shouldn’t be a problem as each teams have most likely done their own analytics of their opponents beforehand.
As of today both Secret and EG the top favored teams have proven their worth reaching 1st rank in their own groups (secret tied with LDG for 1st in group A). Secret currently with only 1 loss from the Malaysian team Fnatic. EG’s mid hero Sumail although only 16 years old (15 when first joined EG) has done spectacular plays on Storm Spirit, Ember and Windrunner.
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Na’vi on the other hand, winners of the first TI and runner up to TI2 has been underperforming reaching last place in group A. Na’vi had their share of a rough ride during 2014 with an unpleasant ti4 finish and the loss of their captain Puppey who joined Team Secret. Putting aside their history they have been performing generally well with their new member Sonneiko joining not long ago playing on position 5 as the support. Artstyle returned to Na’vi as their new captain known as a world class drafter.
Na’vi finished 2nd in Dreamleague season 3 kicking Virtus Pro into the lower brackets, however losing to them in the finals. Dendi stated in an interview before the event, that their team considering it new hasn’t managed to practice and boot camp as much as they would’ve liked. It isn’t the end for Na’vi as finishing below the bottom half in the group stage transfers said team into the lower bracket however with more match ups in the knockout stage.
The Grand Finals are on August 8th, don’t forget to watch and good luck to the teams participating!
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