Boston Qualifiers: A Fresh Start

After an interlude of 2 months with only the occasional premier tournament, the Dota 2 world is ready to heat up again with the start of the new Dota Major season. Boston beckons for action and with it we can expect a wild brawl as new rosters and established veterans alike try to take their first steps on the long road to TI7. Their first hurdle will be the Main Qualifiers, as not everyone was as lucky to receive one of the elusive invites to the Winter Major, and it promises to be just the cut-throat competition we all craved for during the break. 37 hopeful teams from the qualifiers will be reduced to the final 8 making it to the Wang Theater in December.

Who will prevail in the proving grounds just beneath the invited 8? Will it be the old guard rising again to the challenge or will new challengers topple them on their way to the top? Get ready for 3 days of exciting Dota between each region’s best. All-out war for each team’s shot at the trophy is all but guaranteed as nobody wants to trip and fall this early in the season as it will only get harder to prove themselves with only 2 Majors in the circuit. The road to Boston starts now!

China

With the direct invites out, the Chinese qualifiers are packed with the side-teams of the known power houses, but don’t be fooled. These teams not only have new and fresh talent on them, but also some veteran players looking to establish or redeem themselves in this new era leading less experienced players.

Such is the case of VG.J, the team that got the “J” from the first letter of basketball player Jeremy Lin. The team led by rOtk (who has a hard time finding retirement), Fenrir and Agressif is in good shape with a great 62.5% win rate, but VG.J has failed to translate those performances into good tournament placings. In the end, VG.J will have to go through one of the toughest qualifiers the CN scene ever had.

Another notable so-called side-team is LGD.Forever Young, a team that’s lead by the one we can call captain China after all these years, xiao8, and anchored by the veterans Super and Yao. Formed during this last September, it has yet to find solid footing in the scene. With a barely positive 52.3% of win rate since its forming, LGD.FY’s members have yet to achieve some notable results together. With this in mind, fans should ask themselves if this team can live up to the players’ historied performances.

Invictus Gaming is a case of a team in which its secondary team has fewer known players that their main squad. But that’s because the main squad is led by no other than Burning himself. This squad shows a good 65.7% win rate in the last month but similarly to the other teams, they failed to qualify to the Summit and other tournaments which forces them to go through qualifiers.

Almost unknown to Valve events, CDEC’s new roster doesn’t have any of the members of the TI5 squad. This roster has a not-impressive 55.6% win rate for this month and hasn’t achieved any interesting results aside for a 2nd place in the Shanghai Dota 2 Open #2, where they lost to Newbee – a direct invited team. Another less noticeable team is FTD Club A who has xinQ, former player of 2014-2015 Tongfu, and PrettyHaw, who played for HyperGlory Team back in 2015. With 50% win rate this month it is common to expect them to have a hard time in these qualifiers.

Southeast Asia

If you have not been able to watch the SEA region in the aftermath following TI6, we suggest you try to watch the qualifiers for the Boston Major. Owing to Fnatic failing to find solid footing and the rise of once lesser teams such as Faceless, Execration, and Warriors Gaming the scene has become a volatile bloodbath. Fnatic head into the qualifiers in an unfamiliar position of no longer being the favorites to win the SEA qualifier since being outperformed by Team Faceless in recent weeks. Although it would obviously be a mistake to count them out as Mushi has the tenacity to make it to Valve events no matter the what. The return of Iceiceice to Singapore has seen him reunited with Black^ along with former Zenith player Xy on Team Faceless who have started off strong, winning the BTS SEA qualifier and going 7-1 in their group for the ProDota Cup. They will be the favourites by a slim margin with Execration and MVP already receiving invites to the Major. The last team we’d like to draw attention to is Mineski, with Meracle returning from military service to put his skills to the test once more.

Rex Regum.Qeon, TNC, and The Mongolz round out the rest of the invites and while each of them have the potential to cause an upset during the group stage it will be a grueling uphill battle for each of them to surpass their limits and make it to the Boston Major. Surprisingly missing from the list of teams invited to the main qualifier due to a mistake they made while signing up their official roster are Warriors Gaming.Unity, a team that has recently made themselves known by winning multiple online cups in SEA over teams like Execration and Signature Trust. They quickly mended that wrong by easily taking the first open qualifier slot, winning the finals 2-0 in only 40 minutes. Rave and First Departure are two other notable teams who will also be attempting to get through the open bracket to claim one the last spot in the main qualifier. With the open qualifiers hotly contested we may see another TI6 TNC-esque team emerge and surprise us as it is truly difficult to predict exactly how the SEA qualifiers will go.

Europe

As with past Valve events, the EU Qualifiers look to be another onslaught once again, this time with an array of mostly familiar teams sitting near the top of EU Dota. Disappointment does not go unnoticed as, for the first time ever, there have been less than 2 direct invites issued to EU teams after the regions spotty performance at TI6.

Since the start of the year, Ad Finem have proven themselves to be a formidable team, even putting up a solid stance at The Summit 5, essentially glowing with consistency as they head into the Qualifiers off of solid performances in the past few weeks. Another team which, oddly enough, was not directly invited in spite of their recent PR disaster is Team Secret. All the drama aside, Puppey’s team has easily been the most consistent team with all-round strong performances, winning the FACEIT Invitational and the DotaPit Season 5 EU Qualifier. Next, we have our very own Team Liquid which, lost two very key players in JerAx and FATA-, having respectively replaced them with NA sweetheart BuLba and pubstar Miracle-. Despite the extremely high individual skill level in the team, chemistry has yet to be achieved as the team continues to prove inconsistent in several other tournaments with rather meagre performances on a proportionally greater basis.

In the CIS region, Virtus.Pro come in hot amidst victories in The Summit 6 Qualifiers and BTS Europe 4 and, along with Secret, look to be the favourites to go through the qualifiers with the young Russian star RAMZES666 and veteran support Lil. Following VP right on their heels are Vega Squadron who, under the leadership of fng, have been producing consistently good results-- though not nearly quite as good as their fellow Russian squad. A primarily Ukrainian squad, the team will seek to return some measure of glory to Ukraine amidst the post-TI slumber of Na`Vi. As of late, Na`Vi have been completely out of the spotlight, maintaining the same roster and abstaining from participation in any tournaments since TI. There have been rumours of discord brewing within the team since most of the team competed in WESG under the banner of Team Ukraine, but thus far, there is nothing to show for that. If anything at all, Na`Vi may well come in as the dark horse of the EU qualifiers.

To round things off, in Northern Europe, Alliance and Escape Gaming have both been rather mediocre in their recent endeavours, often achieving middle of the pack placements since TI.
With two Open Qualifier slots remaining, it is indubitable that the EU Qualifiers will once again be filled with fierce competition as each team tries to redeem themselves and achieve the pre-TI glory.

Americas

Whereas most regions have a fine gradient of skill stretching from its weakest pro teams to its international competitors, the Americas scene has been more than just top heavy: it has been a monarchy. Evil Geniuses, excluding a small readjustment period earlier this year, had been king of the region until Digital Chaos stole the crown last August. Now, as both teams have received direct invites to Boston, the question that has been asked since the reshuffle ended can finally be answered: since EG and DC are undoubtedly the strongest teams in the region, who is the third best team in NA?

Following a trend set at the TI6 regional qualifiers, NA once again has a smaller invite list than the three other regions. Among them are the three favorites for advancement, and old favorite, and the two strongest teams from South America. Ahead of the pack is undoubtable Team NP, featuring three out of the five players from the Cloud9 team that fell from grace following their performance at The Frankfurt Major (MSS, SVG, and 1437) and fan favorites Aui 2000 and Eternal Envy. They have recently enjoyed the success of qualifying for their first LAN when they beat compLexity in a stunning five game set to lock in a spot at The Summit 6. compLexity has a new look after their unfortunate TI6 run. Gone are the Swedes and in are canceL^^ (an EU scene veteran), justin (who has bounced around random NA stacks since his EHUG days), and the TI6 grand finalist Moo, who was unceremoniously kicked from Digital Chaos following the tournament. Of course, at the core are the brothers Freeman, Zfreek and melonzz, with a small role shift of the latter from offlane to support. Neck and neck with coL is Friendship, Dedication, and Love. Headed by the pride of the UK Dota scene, Beesa, their victory in the Manila Major open qualifiers put them on the map and have received regional invites ever since. They have also qualified for their first LAN this Major season and will face the world’s best this November at the BEAT Invitational.

Behind these three are the underdogs. Team Freedom is back with its mustachioed figurehead ixmike88, and so is the ex-paiN Gaming all-Brazilian crew of Kingao+4 with the high MMR stylings of h4n. At but not least, the Peruvian stack Infamous, featuring the antics and BM of midlaner Kotaro Hayama. In a region where the results are as unstable as its rosters, there is everything to look for in this best of one qualifier format, where upsets thrive.