On top of the world
Defending two-time champions of StarLadder's Star Series claim a 13-2 record and the top spot once more during the groupstages, and have secured an easy berth into the LAN finals again. While the team looks poised to take on all comers and defend their championship, they face stiff competition from another returning champion. As the winners of the groupstage and with the three-way tie behind them, Alliance will be allowed to choose their opponent for the first round of the LAN finals.
After missing out on the StarLadder LAN finals two seasons in a row after their domination of the four first seasons, Na`Vi have secured themselves a ticket back to Kiev and CyberArena. While plagued by poor form in Season 5, causing them to come just short of qualifying for the event, in Season 6 it was their trip to China which came in their way. May something still happen to cause Na`Vi to drop out of the competition at the last moment, like they did last season? Certainly, but the Ukrainian team with an 11-4 record and tied second place for the groupstage has undeniably looked hungry to attend, making sure to turn around what was a poor start to their season with post-TI3 absences.
Strong performers
Things looked dark for Quantic.flipsid3 as their good run was put into jeopardy on the final stretch due to the recent injury of Adrian 'Fata-' Trinks which sidelined him not just from TechLabs Cup but also from the final days of StarLadder. Still, even with stand-in's the team digged down deep and came up with not only a win against Ahead but following it up by defeating a full RattleSnake.Int squad heads on, just barely making it to an 11-4 record and tied 2nd place and a spot at the LAN finals, such a sweet victory for the team who had somewhat been in the shadow of RS.Int's great post-TI3 run.
The final team to earn their place at the LAN finals is an old name with a new roster. The rebuilt Team Empire has returned to glory with an 11-4 record, tying for second place with Na`Vi and Quantic.Flipsid3. This will be the new squads first showing on LAN, and with only two of the players having played together directly before making the move over to Empire, its likely to be a true baptism of fire which will give us an indication if the team is finally ready to retake it's place among the vanguard of European Dota teams.
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Disappointments of the season
While there's been plenty to celebrate this season, there's also been a few teams who've failed to post the expected results. Topmost on the list is of course Virtus.Pro, the star-studded CIS team which was intended to become Na`Vi's big challenger. The new roster has failed to gel so far and most often when watching the team play it is as if seeing five individuals rather than a team. This is especially noticeable when looking at the teams choices of when to engage and when to back off, which have often looked out of sync. There's been the occasional glimmer of hope, but for this season of StarLadder it was not to be, and VP will have to go back to the drawing board and keep trying to figure out their internal workings; no small task with so many strong personalities and former in-game leaders on the team.
For a very different reason, Fnatic have also posted a poor performance for the second season in a row after giving Alliance a run for their money back during the Season 5 Finals in what was an epic slugfest of a series that went the distance and introduced the Ogre Magi strategy to the world. Fnatic's issue though this season has not been their level of play, rather constant absenteeisms as well as experimentations with their roles right after returning from their post-TI3 break. Before Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu left for a holiday last week, the team were looking solid in terms of their play, and as such it is unfortunate that the team was not in contention for making it to the LAN finals this season. Perhaps next season the team will actually carry a consistent form throughout the groupstages and punch their tickets back to CyberArena.
RattleSnake.Int, the former Kaipi, have certainly been one of the big storylines of this season of StarLadder, as they dominated the early parts of the season and secured themselves the sponsorship of a Chinese organization. Everything looked on track for RS.Int to finally make their way to Kiev, after having to give up their spot last season due to lack of funding. However key losses to teams such as Virtus.Pro, Quantic.flipsid3 and a 4 Friends + Chrillee Medusa/Elder Titan/Naga Siren composition meant that the team ended their run one game short of a spot. With everyone expecting them to make it all the way this time around, this final stumble is one of the biggest dissapointments of the season.
Honorable mentions and relegations
While inconsistent, Power Rangers provided some of the greatest drama of the season and are worthy of an honorable mention for their job of taking down not just Na`Vi with a stand-in but also Alliance and Fnatic with their aggressive early rotations. This team has potential, although there is also a heavy dollop of the benefit of developing a playstyle in seclusion which contributed to them catching big teams off guard. As both Fnatic and Na`Vi proved when they later faced Power Rangers again, in a more stable environment and with foreknowledge of what to expect both established teams were able to take 2-0 victories over the Belarusians. Still, hopefully the team will keep on growing and maybe contend for a place at the LAN finals next season.
Having had a far less succesful run, holding the final place in the rankings, is German team uebelst-gamynG on 1-14, who have technically already disbanded, although they've kept on playing with different iterations of the team. They make up one of two teams which will be straight relegated down to the Pro Series, along with Finnish team Menace, who came up just short against Virtus.Pro in their final game, ending the season on a 5-10 record.
And then, things get complicated. This season has been so close, so back and forth, that no less than six teams all tie for 9th-14th place. Two of these will have to be determined in order to play the 2nd/3rd place teams from the Pro Series for a spot in the next season of Star Series. This list includes Fnatic, Virtus.Pro, former VP trio now known as Poseidon along with 4 Friends + Chrillee, aSpera and DuzaGaming. Only two of these will truly be in danger of being relegated, but we'll have to wait for those two to be determined, as StarLadder have told us the likely solution will be to resort to timeratings rather than have a 15 game tiebreaker round. Regardless of how things unfold, we'll keep you posted about future developments.
LAN Finals coming up in two weeks
The teams will be headed back to Kiev and CyberArena by mid next month, with the games to kick off on the 10th of October and go until the 13th, following the double elimination format that we're all familiar with by now. Toby 'TobiWan' Dawson has also been confirmed to be making his return to the event, along with Bruno 'Statsman' Carlucci joining him at the event for what should be a well hyped delivery.
Prize money distribution
1st place - $ 12,000
2nd place - $ 6000
3rd place - $ 3,000
4th place - $ 1,500