American Dota 2 Team Bags $6.6 Million First-Place Prize
After a whirlwind series at this year’s The International, Dota 2’s grandest event, American team Evil Geniuses stormed through Chinese Cinderella-story team CDEC in three of four games to claim the Aegis of Champions and the $6.6 million first place prize. Evil Geniuses is the first North American team to ever win the Aegis of Champions.
Throughout the finals series, Evil Geniuses clashed head-on with CDEC, entertaining the crowd in four unforgettable matches. Story lines crashed into each other as CDEC, the virtually unknown wild card qualifier team and unlikely finals competitor, sliced through the competition and waited on top of the standings.
The team they had to defeat on the way to the finals slot? American fan-favorites Evil Geniuses, composed of beloved veterans and talented new bloods.
The games
As was expected of CDEC’s fiery and aggressive style throughout the tournament, each of the matches were action-packed affairs, with kill scores neck-and-neck for both teams in three of the four games.
CDEC employed their patented team fight strategy, bringing the fight to Evil Geniuses as early and as often as possible in the first game. The strategy worked for them previously, as it was the same strategy the Chinese team used to knock Evil Geniuses into the loser’s bracket two days prior.
But the Americans, learning from their past encounters with up-and-coming Chinese squad, employed a counter-initiation strategy to turn the tables on CDEC’s aggressive advances.
Evil Geniuses captain and primary support player, Peter “ppd” Dager, drafted Gyrocopter in all four games for the team’s main carry player, Clinton “Fear” Loomis. Fear’s excellent timing and high-damaging, area-of-effect spells proved effective at stopping CDEC’s rushes as his Gyrocopter routinely damaged multiple enemy heroes.
CHAMPION. Peter “ppd” Dager is captain of Evil Geniuses, the first North American team to win the Aegis of Champions (Photo by David Pham | opterown at www.liquiddota.com).
Not to be outdone, CDEC showed versatility in game two by using an unorthodox line-up to battle Evil Geniuses. CDEC drafted a Broodmother midlane to pressure Suma1L’s Windranger and to allow their aggressive support players to roam around the map uncontested.
As Evil Geniuses struggled to remove the Broodmother from the middle lane, Huang “Shiki” Jiwei’s Leshrac setup kills for the Chinese team. After a disastrous fight at the Roshan pit where CDEC managed to eliminate all five Evil Geniuses’ heroes without losing a single one from their side, the Chinese squad marched into the Dire base to put the Americans away decisively.
In games three and four, the rest of the Evil Geniuses squad took the stage, with key plays from Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora contributing greatly to their wins.
His plays on the Clockwork in game three allowed Evil Geniuses to finally put down Sun “Agressif” Zheng’s very elusive Slark.
It was in the final game, however, where UNiVeRsE and ppd’s combined efforts wiped all four members of CDEC at the Roshan pit, signalling the final moments of the series.
In two of the four games played, CDEC allowed Syed Sumail “Suma1L” Hassan to use his signature hero, the Storm Spirit. In both instances, Suma1L lead Evil Geniuses in team engagements and kills.
Winnings
With the win, Evil Geniuses will take home a whopping $6,630,109 (~P298,354,905) — the largest prize in all of eSports.
ESPORTS. Suma1L, the youngest player on the top 10 list, will go home from The International 5 with over $1 million. (Photo: Esports Earnings)
This places all five members of Evil Geniuses in the top ten of highest earning professional eSports competitors in history. Suma1L, at 16, is the youngest Dota 2 world champion of all time and currently ranking 6th in all-time winnings with $1,637,048.02 in total prizes won since starting his career in late 2014.
Fear, one of the players followed in the Valve documentary Free to Play, wins his first world championship in the professional DotA scene. Almost a decade since he debuted.
For their efforts, CDEC walks away with $2,854,630 (~P128,458,350) for second place. CDEC is a relatively unknown team from China, a region that has produced former world champion teams such as Invictus Gaming and NewBee.
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