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The International 5 begins to assemble its cast and disappoints many, many fans.

The “One and the Only” indeed, as EHOME

The China and American qualifiers have ended, with very surprising results for the American qualifiers. The first two qualifiers played out exciting games of Dota in the group stages, with every BO2 packed with swings and exciting plays every which way. Unfortunately, the BO2 format meant that even the team that was ahead played very carefully, which lead to some teams throwing their advantage by waiting too long and thus getting caught out one by one.

Exciting games for the China Qualifiers: any game with EHOME in it. LaNm really pulled through for the team this qualifiers, saving the team through insane plays, like this one against CDEC in the Grand Finals. Other teams played scared towards the mid/late game, leading to plenty of disappointing results, like HGT dropping out of the qualifiers during the Group Stages.

Surprise, surprise. HGT, failing to perform in the group stages, drops out without much fanfare.

Many had eyes on HGT as they were consistently dominating competition in the early half of the year, even beating EHOME thrice recently in May: WCA group stages 2:0, VP pro league 1:0 and ECL Spring(May) 2:0. The patch, it seems, has destabilized dominant teams in general, as even VG has suffered more and more losses.

EHOME took their rightful place in The International 5 by smashing CDEC Gaming’s face in 2-0 in the Winner’s Bracket and 3-1 in the Grand Finals, leaving CDEC behind to play in the Wildcard tournament

(of which will have 4 second-place teams from each qualifier duke it out for 2 spots in The International).

LaNm has also made a weibo post about the reason why he retired from competitive Dota 2 after Ti4. He is expecting a daughter, and wanted to stop playing to take care of his new family. However, in the weibo post, he talked about missing a large part of his life, and when he picked up Dota 2 in DAC under the BG banner, he realized that his place in Dota was an essential part of himself.

From left: BuLba, pieliedie, qojpva, Wayto, Black^.

Mousesports (mouse-esports), which recently picked up Black^ together with Team Tinker, was expected to sweep the competition in the American Qualifiers, but ended up being forced into the loser’s bracket by a more consistently performing compLexity Gaming in their groups. There, they beat Voidboys 2:0 and struggled against NAR v 2, surprising fans when they got eliminated 2:1.

CoL’s dominance was undisputed in the AM qualifiers, their stable teamplay a great thing to watch.

compLexity Gaming’s surprise win was compounded by their release of a heartwarming player reactions video, which really tells you the story of how complexity(CoL)’s victory was entirely unprecedented. Well deserved, I say. CoL has performed consistently throughout the qualifiers, only dropping a single game in the group stages to mouse. Casters always refer to CompLexity as a team where no one player stands out, their synergy being their strongest point. This is why they play such consistent Dota, as they don’t rely on star players who might fail at critical moments.

The failure of Mousesports might spell the end of Black^’s NA run.

Over twitter, it seems that Black^ might have to find a new team once again. This is pure speculation as it mousesports has not made any official announcement yet, but roster changes are not out of the question for a team that seems to be unable to gel perfectly with each other. His journey in Dota 2 has not been smooth this year, having been ejected from Vici Gaming in February due to communication issues.

You can follow me on twitter @TheFreakofnatur and email me at [email protected]. Until next time!

Chen Yiji
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheFreakofnatur