International hopefuls: South East Asia
We are maybe only a few weeks away from the first invites going out to this years International if last years timetable holds true, which means it’s about time we start considering which teams may or may not be showing up to the party. Beyond the usual hubbub this year we have an interesting twist, as previously datamined formats for four regional qualifiers has turned out to be true, leaving far fewer direct invites up for grabs this year than previously while at the same time expanding the scope of the qualifiers, splitting South East Asia and North America apart from their bigger brothers. With that in mind we will start our journey by looking at the health of the SEA scene, which has been subject to considerable turmoil since the last International.
The dire straits of SEA
While SEA has had an important role in the history of Dota, the scene has been in a relative decline for a few years now, and this has been reflected in their results at the International. Of the 75 SEA players across 13 SEA teams that have ever attended or tried to qualify for this premier event, only 20 have ever posted a top 8 finish, with only five players being able to replicate that feat in a following year and none managing to stay at that level for all 3 events that have been held to date. Further more of these 20 players, seven are no longer playing Dota professionally including two of the five who’ve managed repeat top 8 finishes, with a further two leaving for China after last years international. The only two time top 8 player left on a SEA team? Joel ‘XtiNcT’ Chan Zhan Leong of Titan eSports.
The problem hasn’t so much been that SEA has gotten worse, it’s that the scene is underdeveloped and has been stagnant while the other scenes have continued to grow. Language barriers prevent good players from consolidating across country lines stranding them in their small local scenes and unable to compete against teams that can draw on far greater talent pools. While both MiTH-Trust and Mineski attended the first International, with MiTH-TR coming in 7th-8th, neither team has since been able to qualify for the event when pitted against Chinese teams in the Eastern Qualifiers. In fact Mineski has never won an International qualifier game, while MiTH-TR has only ever won two qualifier games, both against Mineski. And then we have MUFC, one of two SEA teams that have in some form been invited to every International to date. Their record? 1-19 and once disqualified for having their captain kicked off of the plane in Canada en route to the event. It’s not without reason that a lot of people are pessimistic about SEA going into TI4.
So what’s the point of this history lesson? Well, for the first time ever we’re looking at only 11 direct invites to the event, which means that some direct invites have to be cut. In past years SEA has been afforded four direct invites in 2011, four in 2012 with MUFC later being disqualified and three in 2013. These numbers can’t hold up when there’s only 11 direct invites to be handed out, especially not given the state of the SEA scene since last years event. Given that there are four regional qualifiers it’s not only plausible but it might even be right for no teams to afford a direct invite from SEA, allowing only the single best team through the qualifiers with the second best team given a chance to prove themselves against the other regions second place qualifier teams at the event. If history is any indication, such a second place qualifier team from SEA would likely struggle to make the cut when put up against the second place qualifier from China, Europe and North America.
Prospective qualifier teams
Since Wei Poong ‘YamateH’ Ng replaced Galvin ‘Meracle’ Kang in Titan a bit more than two months ago the team has gone 33-3-15 in 51 matches, clocking in at a very respectable 65% winrate. These numbers however are largely against other SEA teams, and although Titan is showing that they can compete with the weaker Chinese teams in WPC ACE right now and came close to taking a game off of NewBee today, they are still 0-8 in matches against the top tier Chinese teams. Titan have the best case to be made for a direct invite of any SEA team, as they have seasoned players with International experience, with every player having reached top 8 or better at a previous event. They also have the strongest organization behind them, which matters quite a bit in terms of their ability to prepare for the big event. They should be included in the next International and may get a direct invite on this basis, although this means that SEA will have two teams at the event, setting things up for a potential repeat of MUFC's run last year.
Not the team you remember from last years International, Orange lost their entire remaining squad to Titan after last years event, leading them to pick up the core of what was the ill fated 0-14 MUFC. Of those players only Chan ‘WinteR’ Litt-Bin and MUFC sixth man Raymond ‘Sharky’ Wong remain on the team, as they’ve added three young players to their ranks since. While the team has struggled against other notable SEA competitors such as Arrow Gaming and Scythe, they have a strong organization behind them and name recognition which is likely going to be enough to get them into the qualifiers, where it will be up to WinteR and Sharky to try and leverage their experience into a top two finish. Even if they were to qualify they would realistically only be attending the International as a filler team with no real prospects of making it past the second round of the lower bracket.
Without a doubt the surprise breakout team of this year so far in SEA, Arrow Gaming consists largely of players who weren’t familiar to the viewing public just a few months ago. Consisting of former Lowyat.Net players as well as Lee ‘JoHnNy’ Johnny formerly of Chains Stack and a short stint in Rattlesnake, this team has been taking the SEA scene by storm during the past few months, going 9-1 and 16-4 in their last 10 and 20 games respectively. They mainly only play other SEA teams, but they have shown time and again that they can not just take games off Titan and Orange but also beat both of them, sitting on top of the joinDOTA League Asian division currently and making it to the finals of the AOC Pro Cup back in February. They may well make it deep in a qualifier run, but their prospects if they did end up qualifying are almost non-existent.
While the name is a tacky attempt to cash in on the fame of Scythe.Sg, the team is still a legitimate contender which some may better remember as last years First Departure. With Galvin ‘Meracle’ Kang returning to the fold after being removed from Titan eSports and former Zenith player Nicholas ‘xFreedom’ Lim biding his time before military service, this all Singaporean squad again has a fairly good track record against other SEA teams. As with any Singaporean team there needs to be a caveat however as the location of the SEA servers in Singapore have always been advantageous for the local teams when competing online. The actual strength of the team on LAN is yet to be seen, but it’s hard to imagine a SEA qualifier right now without including Scythe as one of the favourites.
The return of Indonesian legend Ritter ‘RitteR’ Rusli some four months ago caused a bit of commotion among long time fans of Dota, and was followed up by some decent results in SEA competitions, although not enough to measure up to what some fans were hoping for at the onset. RRQ have taken games off of other qualifier hopefuls such as Orange, Scythe, MiTH-TR and Mineski, but at the same time their overall trackrecord is spotty, coming in at a 51% winrate while only playing within the region. They are likely to be invited to the qualifier in order to add some flavour and as a nod to oldschool fans, but their chances of qualifying are slim.
MiTH-TR have been involved in both of the previous International qualifiers as well as the original event and there’s no reason to expect that they wouldn’t be invited again this year. They aren’t the most flashy team and they haven’t switched up their play style in years, but they are consistently relevant in a scene that sees teams and players come and go several times a year. Pipat ‘LaKelz’ Prariyachat may be one of the greatest victims of the language barriers of SEA, as with a better team around him he might well be far more relevant. As it is, MiTH-TR is another filler team, with a slight chance of making it deep in the qualifier.
These days all it takes to make most Dota fans eyes roll over is to mention Mineski. What was once the crowning jewel of the vibrant Pinoy scene is now better known for their spectacular failures on the international stage and their once a month roster swaps. The team has been doing ok, taking some games off of other qualifier teams and have once again reached out to DK’s Chai ‘Mushi’ Yee Fung for some coaching, but whether this will have any impact on their previously mentioned terrible success in TI qualifiers is doubtful. They’ll get a spot representing Pinoy dota, but don’t hold your breath for them to qualify.
Michael ‘ninjaboogie’ Ross is one of these players who continue to float around the SEA scene and elicit a bit of hope wherever he goes before seeing yet another team fold and him moving on. The main motivation for their inclusion is that every qualifier ends up including two Pinoy teams, for all that no Pinoy team has ever won a qualifier match. Exe.TnC would look to buck that trend, and ninjaboogie is in fact one of the few Pinoys to have had some qualifier success previously with Duskbin, but it’s still highly unlikely that we’ll see any Pinoy colour attending Seattle this year.
The South Korean Dota scene hasn’t exactly panned out as many hoped, with little improvement being seen over the past year even as Nexon continues to pump money into the local scene. Instead Korea has become the place to go for Western players who can’t for whatever reason find a real contender team back home, and Zephyr is the ultimate representation of this trend as a full five man squad of North American and European players are sitting on top of the South Korean scene. The major notch against them in terms of the qualifier is that they are from SEA only in the most superficial sense, but it is likely that their name recognition will be enough to get them a qualifier invite.
Phoenix is the strongest of the home grown Korean teams and winners of the recent StarSeries IX Korea qualifier. While Tae Won ‘March’ Park can be considered a partial import and the squad did use Jimmy ‘DeMoN’ Ho for the previous Nexon Sponsorship League they still now consist of all Korean nationals, and this may put them ahead of Zephyr in consideration for the International qualifiers, even though they consistently seem to lose to Zephyr. Another option might be that they would end up bumping Exe.TnC from the qualifier.
