Table of Contents

Intro
What's happening?

Teams
Who's there?

Bracket
Road to the finals

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The Summit 5 is most likely going to be one of the stranger tournament in the Dota 2 scene. In previous years, July has been a month of close to no Dota at all, due to the fact that top teams want to show as little as possible to their rivals. Somehow TS5 has managed to attract several teams invited to Seattle. Those teams still might not want to show off their full hand at TS5, but they will want confirmation that what has worked in scrims will work against the teams they’ll actually be fighting for the Aegis. Then add a few hungry up-and-comers who failed to qualify for TI, and want to prove themselves to prove themselves at one of the few LANs they make it to, then you might realize why this can be a week of many strange results and maybe produce an unexpected winner in the end.

Games begin in

The horse boys are back for their first LAN since their direct invitation to The International 6, with their sights set on a redemption title. Following two straight eliminations at the hands of Team OG, Liquid are seeking to recapture the magic the led them to their recent victory at Epicenter. At the Russian LAN, they had bested Chinese frontrunner Newbee, an ailing and fractured EG, and shut out their then-emerging rival OG with an impressive combined map score of 7-2.

Recent results have been sparse since their loss at the Manila Major, with only a best of three against Power Rangers in the Global Grand Masters as any performance indicator. And despite dropping the first game, they ultimately won after a dramatic hour long final game. It would be hasty to judge the two time Major finalists off of a single series; missteps in their first official games in over two weeks can easily be attributed to rust. Regardless, fellow western TI invitees Natus Vincere and OG are head and shoulders above simple warm opponents to Liquid. Meanwhile NA hopefuls FDL and Digital Chaos are universally underestimated by the community. Liquid needs to approach every match like it is a grand final in their final campaign to Seattle. For this squad, the potential to reach the top is definitely there, so is it time for them to ascend to the peak of The Summit?

There always seems to be more to prove from the current Digital Chaos squad. After routing compLexity at every turn running up to the regional qualifiers for TI6 and producing one of the most entertaining best of five finals to date, asserting their dominance over the fellow Euro/NA squad, DC laid an egg at the Nanyang LAN finals this past weekend. The shadow cast by their lukewarm tournament abroad will follow them to The Summit, where Digital Chaos will seek to show us the team that secured three straight North American invites and won Canada Cup 7.

The ability of this team is definitely there. The team SUNSfan assembled from the ashes of Aui 2000’s Digital Chaos is full of top notch talent; from Shanghai Major champion w33 and Misery, to NA’s hottest rising offlaner Moo, to the impressively new Saksa. This is not to discount the long standing capabilities of the veteran Resolut1on, whose Lifestealer play has warranted a slew of bans despite the hero’s nerfs in the most recent patch.

With one of the widest and most entertaining hero pools in the west, expect to see some non-standard drafts akin to their roaming Pudge pick vs LGD this weekend or the pocket Meepo for w33 that has blindsided many team in the past. DC’s road to TI6’s main event effectively begins this week on Californian soil. Can they show us that Nanyang was just rust?

Initially, OG’s first place finish at DreamLeague season 5 didn’t seem like much. A holdover direct invite from a previously won LAN, a small pool of opponents with inconsistent records, raw new lineups, and identity crises. With two more LAN titles under their belt, including their second Valve Major this year, and a string of Dota’s elite beaten and humbled behind them, Miracle and friends’ reputation of being a one-patch team has firmly been placed in the garbage. The team in green travel to sunny Los Angeles in hopes of keeping their momentum alive against fellow International invitees and scrappy challengers alike.

Confidence is OG’s greatest asset right now, coming off of a swagged-out 3-0 victory over Natus Vincere a short three weeks ago, a victory so assured in their mind that they chose a last minute role shift and put superstar mid player Miracle- on support in a grand finals game. The crazy thing? It worked. The team radiates Intimidation, but if misplaced it could cross the boundary to overconfidence and become liability. For now, just like this past autumn, OG has earned a target on its back. Whether it be the boisterous n0tail and Moonmeander going all in, or the reserved Miracle- and cr1t’s subtle and masterful touch, captain Fly has the talent and the coordination under his control to bring home another first place finish.

2016 has become an interesting duality for Fnatic; there is both consistency and change, success yet shortcoming, and respect mixed with skepticism. Mushi’s long time teammates, kYxY and Net, have been removed from Fnatic’s TI5 team in favor of new blood MidOne and former relative unknown 343. This is not to ignore Pinoy sensation, DJ, however, whose Enigma plays at ESL Manila sent shockwaves through the community in the latest of his high level play that has been showcased since he joined up last summer. Unlike the winter roster shake ups in the west that proved disastrous for Team Secret and Evil Geniuses, Net’s departure cast no shadow over Fnatic as their grip on the top of SEA Dota has never been tighter.

This grip has been at the cost of enduring qualifier after qualifier, and has yet to mature into a LAN victory for the team. Historically, this had been the normal for all SEA teams prior to 2016. The rebirth of MVP.Phoenix bringing home two LAN titles and securing a slew of direct invites over the former Team Malaysia has only highlighted Fnatic’s failings on the international stage. In SEA, MVP.Phoenix and Fnatic have danced around each other, trading matches and playing volleyball with the title of being king of the hill in SEA. Most recently, Fnatic’s seemingly clear route to TI6 through regional qualifier was met with turbulence when TNC snatched the first place slot in the group stage, forcing them instead to plow through the playoff bracket to ultimately secure their place at Seattle’s world finals. On their way to The International, they arrive at The Summit to once again prove their worth before heading off to SL/i-League’s finals to do it all again as the SEA qualifier representative. Could Fnatic’s rally begin in Beyond The Summit’s own backyard?

Not even 6 months ago, Na’Vi was a tier 3 team and many people, including yours truly, said that Dendi would never play at a TI again. Boy was I wrong, and boy, am I happy about that. With today’s rather—at least on-stage—reserved players, Dendi still feels like a breath of fresh air with his dancing and antics. He displays emotion in the booth, showing he’s a fierce competitor, but the moment the game is over he just wants to give his opponents a hug, no matter the outcome. This section has turned into a celebration of all things Dendi, but no one would mind, right? In each and every one of us, there’s at least a small part that can’t help but to cheer for the boy who used Dota as an escape from his father’s passing, and now uses it to spread happiness all over the world.

Ok, back to Na’Vi. As mentioned previously, Na’Vi has gone through quite the transformation throughout 2016. The year could not have started off at a lower point, as they failed to qualify for the Shanghai Major. Hell, they didn’t even make it out of the group stage of the qualifiers. After this failure, Na’Vi decided it was time for a change in their offlane and replaced Ax.Mo with GeneRaL, a player whose only claim to fame so far was a one month stint on Team Empire. The move wasn’t a bad one—there were issues with Ax.Mo—but GeneRaL wasn’t the high profile player many expected to see join the squad. Fortunately, something clicked. Na’Vi started winning again. It started off small, with them qualifying for DotaPit, but with every passing week they grew stronger and stronger. For the first time in ages, Na’Vi started getting top placements. Since then, they haven’t looked back. A strong performance in Manila and in ESL One Frankfurt secured them a direct invite to Seattle next month. Where will the saga of Na’Vi, and the faithful companion Dendi, take us next?

The redemption vote is one of the smartest ideas the Beyond the Summit studio ever hatched. It gives the audience a say in which teams they want to see at the event, while simultaneously boosting the prizepool. While the redemption vote for TS5 wasn’t nearly as dramatic as previous votes—where teams would promise all kinds of crazy things if they won—having FDL grab the spot over teams like Alliance, MVP Phoenix, and LGD Gaming was unexpected.

For FDL, going to The Summit is a huge opportunity. The team is, together with Ad Finem, one of the most promising, young teams at the moment; FDL need all the LAN experience, and prizemoney, that they can get. In the recent qualifiers for The International they ended up finishing fourth, just behind DC and coL, both teams whose rosters are packed to the brim with great players. While TI6 isn’t going to happen for FDL, there’s at least hope to see Beesa playing the carry at TI7.

Up and down and up and down and up. That’s probably the best way to describe Wings Gaming over the course of the last year. The team formed just after The International 2015 and has since taken a big step into the spotlight, even though they have been plagued by inconsistency. The first really big showing for Wings was undoubtedly their win at ESL One Manila back in April. In the finals they were up against Team Liquid, a team considered the best in the world at the time. Instead of crumbling under the pressure of their first major grand finals, Wings stared back at the beast, and the beast blinked. Well, not as much blinked as fell over dead. Wings easily(!) defeated Liquid 3-0 and gave payback for WCA 4 months earlier, where Liquid walked away with the 3-0 win.

But was the win in Manila a blessing or a curse? The Chinese scene at the time was still caught in the post-Shanghai fallout, which resulted in Wings becoming one of the biggest hopes for Chinese Dota. That’s not an easy burden to take on for such a young team, whose players up until then had never qualified for a major. Their flight home from their second trip to Manila one and a half months later must have been the polar opposite of the flight home from ESL One. They had finished in last place. Going out early in the Manila Major may have been just what this team needed though. A reality check that was so severe it burned the house down. Because with that, Wings can fulfill the destiny their logo indicated. With that, this young blood has a chance to rise up like a phoenix.

Ad Finem is the team with one of the most fitting names on the scene. Translated from Latin, the name means “to the end,” and these 5 Greek players have shown that they are willing to play their hearts out non stop to reach their goal. Ad Finem has been one of the biggest surprises on the European scene lately. The team has only been able to qualify for one other major tournament, WePlay, but have consistently beaten almost anything the European tier 2 scene has thrown at them. This was almost enough to get them to this year’s TI. In the end, though, they fell short against both Alliance and Escape Gaming in the brackets, and will have to stay at home watching the others battle it out for the Aegis.

With these recent showings, there is very little doubt in me that Ad Finem is going to be the next team to solidify themselves amongst the top teams in Europe, simply because they’ve come a long way as a team. Three of the players on the current squad have played together for close to two years, ever since they were known as XPC.Int, and their play style has matured much since then. Ad Finem doesn’t give you the vibe of a one patch team. A team that just found something a little cheesy that works for the moment, but will get crushed once their strategy is nerfed. They can win using several different playstyles, and that’s their strength. So tune in this week to see what could be a team that might one day hold the Aegis.



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