After eight days packed with Dota games of varying quality from the qualifiers for The International, we’re now ready to continue our regularly scheduled programming with the MarsTV Dota 2 League. MDL has always stood in the shadow of other Chinese tournaments that have been considered more prestigious, but this year MDL is here to show everyone what they are made of. They have one of, if not the most, impressive lineups of teams since the Dota 2 Asia Championships. The only team not in the tournament that would be on most fans wish list is Evil Geniuses, but otherwise MDL has the best teams from all corners of the world. Some will be looking to improve, some looking to stay on top and some are just there to know where they stand right now. No matter what, we should be in for a treat!

Games begin in:

Group A

Vici Gaming

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Vici Gaming has had a tough couple of tournaments, at least by the standard we've gotten used to holding them to. VG has been through two blow out, 3-0, finals losses in D2CL and i-League, And in The Summit they did not even manage to reach the finals, finishing third. A question we should start start asking ourselves is: Are we expecting too much from VG? While coming 2nd, 2nd and 3rd place in three consecutive significant LANs would make almost any other team ecstatic, Vici is not any other team. While the line-up sports some of the biggest names in the Chinese scene the aura of invincibility seems lost as of late. Could it be that VG have been figured out?

EHOME

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EHOME is an organization that has been around in Dota 2 since the start and even before that EHOME was a well respected and well known name in DotA. The team was represented in the first edition of The International back in 2011. Ever since then they have had teams only sporadically, but now the legendary organization is now back together with some huge names from the Chinese scene. The team, in it's current form, only formed back in March but that was enough for them to get their game together and win the Chinese qualifiers for TI5. Can they keep riding the wind in their sails to a victory? Or will the wind die down as quickly as it gathered speed?

Newbee

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Only a few months ago the name Newbee instilled fear into opponents and prompted fangirl-ish screams from legions of fans. The TI4 champions have not had an easy year following their big win. Rumors of lack of practise and general disinterest in Dota have run rampant and at DAC 2015 the team didn't even manage to get out of the group stage. But lately we have seen some glimmers of hope from the team. In I-League they managed to finish fourth after beating Team Malaysia in the first round and then Invictus Gaming in the lower bracket before losing to a resurgent Team Malaysia. But 4th isn't where we're used to seeing Newbee, and they still have a long way to go if they want a shot at winning MDL.

Cloud 9

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The team known for making deep runs in most bigger tournaments but ultimately failing in the finals has been struggling a bit as of late. The results have not been disappointing per se, but they have been surprisingly... average. The mainly North American squad hasn't actually made a finals since The Summit 2 back in December of 2014. The problem for C9 right now is their inability to perform over several days. In the first day of The Summit 3 they managed to crush EG 2-0. But after that the magic, once again, was lost for Jacky Mao and his team. Going into a summer with lots of big tournaments, MDL will be a key part of Cloud 9's big plans. Another chance at finding the consistency needed to, once again, make it to and lose in the finals.

Team Empire

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Empire is to Dota 2 what the middle class is to society, the hard working gatekeepers of the Dota scene. While many high profile western teams such as EG, Secret, and Cloud 9 have chosen to participate in fewer tournaments, Empire grinds on. This has given them many smaller wins in smaller tournaments, such as JoinDOTA Masters. But this does not mean that they feed only off the weak teams in the scene. So far this year Empire has four(!) tournament victories, and in the finals of those tournaments they beat VG, EG, Alliance and VP. Empire is also somewhat unusual, being one of the few fairly stable lineups, with three players playing together since 2013. Considering the long running joke that Empire was merely Na`Vi’s farm team, that stability is a big deal for Empire.

Group B

Invictus Gaming

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Invictus Gaming is a team of big names. It still has the core of three players who won The International back in 2012. Add to that a player of Burning’s caliber of and a respected captain in Luo and you should have a recipe for success. "Should" being the keyword here. Instead iG have seemed lost. Ever since TI4 they have not been able to claim a single tournament win. They have, in general, not even been in the top 4. iG has to use this summer to once again find their stride, to find the fire that once made them TI champions. MarsTV is a tournament with some of the best teams in world, all with their own struggle, so this could prove to either be a great start to their comeback to the very top of standings, or just another blow to their hopes of turnaround.

LGD Gaming

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This year’s incarnation of LGD seemed to be a team of almosts and not-quites. Many had high hopes for the team after xiao8 and Sylar both returned to the LGD banner, hearkening back to TI2 much as Faith and Chuan rejoining iG did. A star-studded roster in their own right, they couldn’t quite match the star power and fan appeal of iG, nor could they seem to match the achievements and performance of Vici. A disappointing performance at The Summit 3 seemed to cement their image, but all that changed just weeks later as they managed to take down i-League in a convincing 3-0 victory over Vici. Now Director8 and co will be looking to keep the momentum alive and, with a win here at MDL, force themselves into the conversation for TI5 frontrunners.

CDEC Gaming

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Once the LGD B team, CDEC has long struggled to break into the top ranks of Chinese dota. Originally built out of pub-stars and players with little experience, CDEC saw some decent results under the LGD banner and eventually climbed to the top of the Tier 2 scene in China. However, the loss of their star player Maybe to LGD and their inability to triumph over EHOME in the TI5 chinese qualifiers doesn’t bode well for the young squad. Still, MDL offers yet another chance for the young team to force themselves into the upper echelons of the chinese scene, if only a slim one. No doubt CDEC will be looking to use any experience that they can gain at this tournament when they play in the Wildcard play-ins in Seattle.

Team Secret

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After the disappointing early exit from StarLadder S12 Secret was in a rough spot. The much-hyped dream team had not manage to win a LAN, even though they went into every single tournament considered serious contenders for first place. Finally, at The Summit 3 that all changed. We saw the Secret that everyone expects to show up, not just in the group stages but throughout the tournament. We saw a Secret as confident as they were during the group stage of DAC 2015, where they managed to breeze through the group stage without dropping a single game. With S4's drafting and Puppey in the driver’s seat the team finally managed to meet the extremely high expectations set by their fans. Now it's a question about maintaining momentum for the Europeans. Success can be a great ally, but it can also be your biggest enemy as we’ve seen time and again. Continued success at MarsTV should be just as important as The Summit was for Team Secret.

Natus Vincere

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If you had asked anybody about Na`Vi a month ago, they would have told you that Na`Vi was done for. The storied team didn't manage to secure a direct invite to TI5, but were instead relegated to the qualifiers. The dreaded European qualifiers, a gridlock of closely matched teams and widely seen as the hardest region to qualify from. But instead of laying down and accepting their fate, Na`Vi fought back. And they fought back hard. After a "small" blunder in the first set vs London Conspiracy, Dendi and the rest of this CIS squad once again showed the world what they are capable of. Led by some amazing support play by SoNNeikO, Na`Vi managed to crush every other team on the way to qualification. But while the opponents they faced in the qualifiers might have been the hardest of all the qualifiers, it was still, well, just qualifiers. Out of the 10 teams at MDL, 7 were directly invited to TI. Na`Vi have their work cut out for them at MDL, but if any team can win a tournament from this far off of the radar, it’s them.