The International 2016 – Wildcard Teams Preview

The International 2016 (TI6), the biggest tournament in Dota 2, or any eSport for that matter, is almost upon us.

As Dota 2’s most prestigious battleground in Seattle is being set, get to know the teams who will be fighting for the lion’s share of a whopping $19 million+ prize pool and the right to hold the coveted Aegis of Champions as the world’s best Dota 2 team in eSports by Inquirer.net’s TI6 team profiles!

THE WILDCARD TEAMS

While there are 18 teams in  Seattle this year, only 16 will actually be competing in the tournament itself.

Last year, Valve introduced a new wildcard format where four teams would face each other in a double elimination bracket, with the two winning teams joining the rest who have been already invited or qualified, before the group stages officially start. While these four teams may be the ones who didn’t quite make it during the main regional qualifiers, let’s not forget that CDEC Gaming, who placed second in The International 2015, was a wildcard team. Considering that The International this year may very well be the most stacked and competitive one yet, who’s to say that these teams can’t repeat CDEC’s legendary Wildcard to Grand Finalist run?

Only two of these teams will go on to compete in Dota 2’s biggest tournament yet, while the others will have to content themselves with watching from the sidelines. Get to know this year’s wildcards teams:

EU WILDCARD – ESCAPE GAMING

MOST RECENT TOURNAMENT RESULTS:

• 3rd – The International 2016 EU Qualifiers
• 5th-6th – Global Grand Masters
• 1st – Global Grand Masters Qualifiers

While Escape Gaming (ESC) is a new team and organization that was only created a mere four months ago, its roster is made up of some of the most experienced Dota veterans around. Originally known as No Diggity (DiG) before they were picked up by ESC, the team is a mix of experienced veterans and talented newbloods from the EU region under the captainship of renowned player-turned-caster-turned-player-again Troels “syndereN” Nielsen.

As a team, ESC is known for winning their lanes and accruing a substantial advantage over their opponents during the early game, allowing them to win teamfights during the midgame and transitioning their lead into game-ending pushes.

Their strategies primarily hinge on their support duo of syndereN and Yazied “YapzOr”Jaradat playing on roaming or defensive supports to win the lanes for their primary farming cores in the early game. Recently, ESC mixed up their playstyle by having Adrian “Era” Kryeziu (of old Fnatic fame) on a fighting core making space for Max “qojqva” Broecker on his signature farm-intensive heroes, like Tinker and Invoker, to farm up during the midgame. They complement this further by having their offlaner Maurice “Khezu” Gutmann on teamfight-control heroes to look for opportunities that can allow his team to further take control over the entire map. In a broader sense, ESC is a team that prefers to play slow and steady early until they accrue a big enough advantage to take over by the midgame. This particular playstyle seems to mask their glaring vulnerability once it comes to the lategames, exemplified by their most recent losses to Alliance, a team known for turtling and ratting their way to a lategame win.

While ESC is a team known for its consistency and preference for playing a steadily-paced game, this belies the fact that they have some of the most mechanically skilled players in EU in the form of qojqva and YapzOr, not to mention the proven carry capabilities of Era. Combined with the skills of Khezu as one of EU’s rising offlane stars and the leadership of Synderen, ESC has the potential to be a solid competitor.

After a lackluster results during the first day of the European Qualifiers, ESC exploded to top the groups, taking down teams like Team Secret, Ad Finem, and Alliance along the way. Even though they were edged out by Team Secret and a resurgent Alliance from being directly qualified for TI6, ESC is a team that can make it through the wildcards and may even be a potential contender in the main event.

NA WILDCARD – CompLexity GAMING

MOST RECENT TOURNAMENT RESULTS:

• 3rd – The International 2016 EU Qualifiers
• 5th-6th – ESL One Frankfurt 2016
• 9th-12th – The Manila Major 2016
• 4th – EPICENTER Moscow LAN Finals

If one is to describe CompLexity Gaming (coL) as a team, they are “a band of brothers,” literally. The team has two pairs of brothers in its roster; there’s Kyle “swindlemelonzz” Freedman and Zakari “Zfreek” Freedman, and Rasmus “Chessie” Blomdin and Linus “Limmp” Blomdin.

During TI5, coL, which then had OG’s Tal “Fly” Aizik and David “MoonMeander” Tan in its roster, landed in a relatively respectable 9-12th place considering most expected them to be one of the lowest-placing teams. After Fly and Moon left, coL rebuilt its roster around the core of the Freedman brothers, swindlez and Zfreek, by adding a trio of Swedes, the Blomdin brothers, Chessie and Limmp, along with Simon “Handsken” Haag. Since then, the team has been one of the claimants to the title of best NA team, alongside their bitter rivals, Evil Geniuses (EG), and Digital Chaos (DC).

coL is known for running a diverse and flexible range of strategies and playstyles depending on their opponents, but most of them primarily hinge on Limmp playing tempo-contolling midlaners and swindlez on teamfight-oriented offlaners making space for Chessie to take over games with farm-dependent yet high-impact carries. Their support duo of Zfreek and Handsken provides a solid backbone for the team, with Zfreek playing roaming supports and Handsken on defensive supports to help win lanes for their cores.

As of late, coL has seen some lackluster results. After playing second fiddle to EG for the longest time, coL seems to have been supplanted by DC in what is now the three-way contest for the NA throne. During the TI6 Qualifiers, there have been some who considered  NA to be the weakest region due to it having the least amount of teams, along with some questionable invites. Perhaps as a reflection of the state of NA competitive Dota for the longest time, the qualifiers were merely just a question of who among EG, DC, and coL will qualify and who will end up in the wildcards. Unfortunately for coL, after they topped the round robin, they lost to EG in the tiebreakers and had to face DC in the playoffs. Despite 2-0’ing DC during the Winner’s Finals, coL ultimately lost to them in a close 5-game Grand Finals for the last qualifying spot. Now, if coL wants to make it through the wildcards and into the main event to get revenge on their NA rivals, they first have to get their act together. Despite their potential, given their skilled players and solid coordination, coL has a tendency to choke during games that matter. Perhaps their recent acquisition of famed Dota statistician and analyst, Alan “Nahaz” Bester, can help solve some of their problems both off and in-game. With all that said, it is all up to coL to live up to their potential if they want to get through to the main event.

From left to right: old chicken, old eleven, LaNm, iceiceice, Fenrir.

CN WILDCARD – EHOME

MOST RECENT TOURNAMENT RESULTS:

• 3rd – The International 2016 CN Qualifiers
• 9th – Dota2 Professional League Season 1
• 5th-8th – SL i-League Starseries Season 2 CH Qualifier

EHOME and its players have seen better days. The organization itself is one of the oldest in Dota’s history, dating as far back as the WC3 glory days of 2009-2011, and is one of the pillars of Chinese Dota. The team’s first foray into Dota 2 was back in 2011, during the first International, where it fell to Na’Vi in the Grand Finals. Since then, EHOME has been a regular fixture of the international scene, sometimes fading into activity but always a competitor, never to be counted out so easily. As a Chinese team, EHOME is known to be (surprisingly, for most western players) foreign, as the organization chose not to be a part of the Association of China E-sports (ACE), who limited the support and training partners provided for the team.

EHOME has always been the home of some of the most illustrious names in Chinese Dota, and its current incarnation is no exception. Two of its most well-known members are Singaporean superstar Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang and the legendary Zhang “LaNm” Zhicheng, both of the old “dream team” DK fame. After the disaster for the Chinese scene that was the Shanghai Major, most Chinese teams were caught in a storm of shifting rosters and player trades as CN Dota was desperate to retain its former glory. In this upheaval, EHOME lost some of its former key players, and thereby chose to rebuild its roster around the core trio of LaNm, Wang “old chicken” Zhiyong, and Ren “old eleven” Yangwei. They were later joined by Lu “Fenrir” Chao, the other half of the support duo that brought the old Vici Gaming lineup to the highest tier of Chinese Dota.

In terms of playstyle, EHOME exhibits the very same foreignness of its organization, thanks in large part to some of their players. In the old “dream team” DK lineup, both iceiceice and LaNm were known for their propensity to draft and play highly unusual, if not downright crazy, heroes and strategies. They bring this same quality to the current EHOME, which seems to complement well with how both old chicken and old eleven play a highly unusual style in their respective roles. With their addition of  Fenrir, EHOME gains a reliable support player that can act as a safety net for their more crazy strategies. In stark contrast to the rigid way that most of the older and more ‘traditional’ Chinese teams played, EHOME stands as one of the pioneers of the new breed of Chinese Dota. Far from the old 80-minute Chinese farm-fests of old, EHOME plays a high-octane and unpredictable style of Dota that could take any opponent off-guard. Expect them to pull off some crazy stuff, from no-ban drafts, quad-core lineups, or even a support(!) Juggernaut, at times as well.

For all the fanfare and reputation that the EHOME name carries, its current roster seems to constantly fall short of living up to it. In the TI6 CN Qualifiers, EHOME topped the round robin with Wings Gaming, who forced them into the playoffs after defeating them in the tiebreakers. In the contest for the last qualifying spot, EHOME beat Vici Gaming Reborn (VG.R) 2-1 and sent them to the lower bracket. They later met again in the Grand Finals, where VG.R edged out EHOME from directly qualifying to TI6. As it stands, EHOME, with its star-studded roster and illustrious history, is the team that most would expect to be the first to win the wildcards. But in order to do that, they first have to live up not only to the great potential that their roster has, but also the storied history of their organization. Longtime fans of EHOME should expect them to start finding themselves in the wildcard and eventually show up to compete at the main event.

SEA WILDCARD – Execration

MOST RECENT TOURNAMENT RESULTS:

• 3rd – The International 2016 SEA Qualifiers
• 5th-8th – Mineski Pro-Gaming League Season 8 Leg 1
• 8th-9th – SEA Kappa Invitational Season 2
• 2nd – Nanyang Dota 2 Championships Season 2 – SEA Qualifier

In the SEA and international competitive scenes, many have always considered Execration (Xctn) as underdogs. In a similar fashion to how EG is the titular American team while DC and coL were vying for who gets to play second fiddle, Xctn has always been one of the teams that stood in the shadow of Mineski.Sports5 for the Philippines. At least, that’s how things used to be. After Mineski crashed out of the TI6 SEA Qualifiers, not even making the playoffs, other Pinoy teams like TnC and Xctn now took the spotlight.

Unfortunately for both of those teams, just when the biggest opportunity for Pinoys to compete in the biggest and grandest competitive stage for Dota 2 presented itself, they were beset by visa problems. While they were eventually able to overcome their visa issues, both Pinoy teams lost some valuable time they could’ve used for training. 

READ: TnC and Execration’s long road to The International 2016

While TnC would fare relatively better than their Pinoy brethren due to their direct qualifier spot in the main event, Xctn has a much tougher battle ahead of them before they can actually play at TI6. Perhaps a bit too true to their nature, Xctn will be the true underdogs of the wildcards. And while that may not exactly be a good thing, it’s not all that bad. After all, Pinoys have shown time and again that, even if they have always been the underdogs, they can take games off of even the world’s best.

Xctn’s playstyle, true to the Pinoy way, is very unpredictable and, more often than not, incredibly hit-or-miss. On a good day, they can take matches and even series off of teams like Fnatic and MVP.Phoenix, but a little tilt can send them crashing out of tournaments. Expect Xctn to exhibit the trademark SEA/Pinoy style of relentless aggression and flashy plays, the likes of which you’d see more in a pub match and not in a professional game. Be that as it may, Xctn is a team you can never count out. Their carry duo of Fernando “Nando” Mendoza and Abed “Abed” Yusop would always switch between fighting and farming cores to suit the needs of their team, while Ralph “RR” Penano would most often be on initiating or teamfight control heroes as a backbone of their team’s aggression. Meanwhile, their support-duo of Timothy “Tims” Randrup and Kimuel “Kim0” Rodis are always not far behind to back their team’s charge. Also typical of most Pinoy teams, Xctn may also attempt to blindside their opponents with picks like Huskar (even if he has become a more stable pick as of late), Puck, Phantom Lancer, or Medusa.

Even if Xctn are indeed the underdogs of the entire tournament, that doesn’t mean they can’t and won’t bite their way through their competition. Even if their chances are not that good on paper, who’s to say they won’t show up when it matters? If nothing else, look to these guys to try their best to wave the Philippine flag proudly in Seattle.

Facebook Photo Courtesy of: Arvin Risos

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