Seeing the carries of the three strongest Chinese teams, iG, LGD and DK, among the nominees this year surely won't come as a surprise to many. In fact it is likely that Lio 'Sylar' Jiajun, Chen 'Zhou' Yao and Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei pull ahead in the race of who, in the eyes of the public, should get the GosuAward for best carry of the year. As TI2 drew close, it can be argued that Sylar and Zhou had a slightly easier time to shine compared to BurNIng, who excelled at his part despite DK being unable to challenge neither iG, nor LGD, nor Na`Vi for a top three position in the most prestigious tournament of the year. Shortly later, the team readjusted and snatched a second place at G1-Champions League. Zhou and Sylar on the other hand have each been playing in lineups that performed well without changes for at least the entire year. Them being part of a perfectly working organism let both reach the peak of their potential this year, yet especially Sylar who was brought on to play for LGD after recommending himself strongly in his previous team World Elite. It is his first GosuAward nomination this year. Zhou who - despite being similarly successful - has always been walking in the shadow of BurNIng over the years, stood in the spotlight with iG this time, taking home the million US-Dollars from Seattle. Will this be his time to shine?
The Chinese trio will have competition in the election however, as Dominik 'Black^' Reitmeier and Per Anders 'Pajkatt' Olsson Lille left a distinct impression on us this year as well. Black on the one hand has been the backbone of Mouz for quite some time. When building up his hero in games, he tends to remind his audiences of a lone wolf shut off from his mates in a seperate territory. In critical moments it mostly came down to Black securing victory however, who through his personal effort, let Mouseports do distinctly better in tournaments than if they'd miss him.
Pajkatt completes our first batch of nominees and deservedly so, as the 20-year-old Swede established his previous team CLG as one of the most feared teams in Europe, which through their aggressive playstyle won quite a bit of prize money under his lead in 2012. Striving to become the very best next year, Pajkatt decided to make the move to China, which he initiated himself after a disappointing result at TI2. His first matches with LGD.int already suggest that he made the correct decision. GEST: The Challenge was won against fearsome competition and the team is now off to a good start at the currently running G-League.
Considered the most demanding and also most prestigious position in the first ten minutes by many, mid lane has once again been the stage of numerous Dota stars this year. Among the 2012 nominees are familiar and new faces alike, who - through their high display of individual skill - helped their teams to a lot of success.
Luo 'Ferrari' Feichi and Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin for example will surely go into the race as favourites. As part of the well-oiled machines that are Invictus Gaming and Natus Vincere, both managed to turn their level up a notch yet again this year and are by now regarded as virtuosos of the game, not only because of the way they utilize Invoker. Yee Fung 'Mushi' Chai being part of the nominees will also not come as a surprise to many. His control of the lane is nearly unmatched in the business and feared among the best of China. Despite his comparatively young age of 22, it feels as if Mushi has been around for ages, carrying the responsibility of securing victory in the end-game all by himself. Through his efforts, Orange can look back at a good year 2012.
Even though Yao 'Yao' Zhengzheng's role in LGD has been shifting, we still decided to nominate him as solo mid over hard laner, which he now primarily plays. Yao is the man for Windrunner and Invoker on his team, in which he is among the longest serving members, and the way he handles team fights has been flawless this year. Our fifth nomination for second position goes to Empire's Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov. His aggressive style of play, through which he manages to work out advantages for his team almost every time, has been most refreshing to watch in the months following TI2.
Hard Laners are under a lot of pressure in the first minutes and their primary objective is not to die. They have to make the most out of a hopeless situation, given that the opposing carry will have his early farm secured by two bodyguards. Our first contenders Jiang 'YYF' Cen and Dmitry 'LightOfHeaven' Kupriyanov have played at the very top consistently for at least two years, following a transition of roles. Both never liked to share their lanes however and 2012 saw each of them use their experience as solo mid, respectively carry to play some of the best Dota within their lineups.
Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov is our third pick for hard laner of the year. While we are used to see offlaners struggle to do well in games at times, Funn1k tends to turn this initially bad starting position into a profitable one and proved to be a very versatile player for Empire this year. Be it either a solo Clinkz safe, Dark Seer or Batrider off, or his trademark hero Wisp as part of a trilane, his aggressive style of play let Empire destroy their opposition in dominating fashion and caused a lot of hype around his person.
As mentioned in the category above, Zhang 'Xiao8' Ning could easily be nominated for solo mid of the year as well, which is the role he tends to take whenever LGD are in need of a good Night Stalker or Beastmaster player. His ability of creating room for his team mates, especially Sylar's carry heroes, has evolved to the primary issue for his opponents to tackle. Under his leadership, LGD added a distinct note of aggression to their style, which suits them well as their countless achievements in 2012 prove.
Bai 'rOtk' Fan rounds off our list of nominees for best hard laner of the year. Him playing the position for DK for a long time helped exploiting his own potential greatly. Even though he is often regarded as a player who tends to die unnecessarily, rOtk has been a core member for his team and takes a big part in drafting the lineups. His strong performance during TI2 was the reason we deemed him worthy of this honor, even if his perfomance has dropped quite a bit since then.
The fourth position role this year, for which no Chinese player made it in our list, has been in the hands of Wong Hock 'ChuaN' Chuan, who I dare say starts on pole in the race for this award. His plays on a wide range of heroes proved elemental for the very aggressive style iG utilized at The International and the months following it. ChuaN is also not afraid to help his team mentally, showing strong emotions whenever they are needed. He is being followed by none other than Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov who lead Na`Vi through yet another golden year in the team's history and has never been afraid to take on unconventional heroes for his position. In 2012 Puppey not only invented smoke-farming with heroes such as Shadow Demon, he also played pulling Omniknights and jungled Lycanthropes on a regular basis.
Featured next is Orange's tactician Chan Zhan 'XtinCt' Leong, who similarly to fellow nominee Joakim 'Akke' Akterhall counts classic junglers Chen and Enchantress to his trademark heroes, which have been valued higher in the first half of the year than now. Compared to ChuaN and Puppey, both only fall short slighty in terms of success within their competitive environments. Last but not least Brian 'FLUFF' Lee is one of our contenders for the GosuAward this year. The 20-year-old has been climbing to the top of the scene with his previous team Fire, that later became compLexity and was ultimately bought out by TeamLiquid after lineup changes. His efforts as a captain, as well as an almost flawless play in 2012 let him become leader of one of the leading eSports teams in the world.
We've reached the category for our last but not lesser important tactical position hard support, featuring players who are on the lowest priority in terms of farm and have to put a chunk of their money aside for Wards, Smoke, the Courier as well as detection.
Zeng 'Faith' Hongda of iG and Leong 'DDC' Fat-meng surely belong to the best of this craft in 2012. Both supported their teams to numerous successes, splitting top three placings evenly between them. While Faith has aquired fame through his plays on Enigma this year, DDC's Earthshaker remains one of the best in the scene. The two top supports are being challenged by Orange's Chee Cai 'Ice' Chua who particularly proved at G1-Champions League why he is one of the best on his position. The nominees for this category are completed by Na'Vi's Sergey 'Smile' Revin and Theeban '1437' Siva of LGD.int, who directed the actions of Mousesports in the months ahead of TI
Invictus Gaming
- BeyondTheSummit World Tour
- The International #24th - G-1 Champions League
- World Cyber Games ChinaWarcraft DotA
- World Cyber Games China wildcard - G-League season 1 - ACE Professional Dota League season 1 - Nvidia Game Festival4th - World Gamemaster TournamentIn many ways, 2012 has been iG's year and seeing that all of their five players made it on our nominees lists for the various positions shall serve as a testimony of that. As mentioned earlier, the team has been a well-oiled machine and played together without lineup changes. During the most important tournament of the year, The International 2, Invictus Gaming were on their highest level and acted as one organism to secure victory, which turned all of their players into stars.
LGD Gaming - Gigabyte Dota 2 Masters - ItsGoSu Montly Madness Asia - July
- The International #2, Seattle - Alienware Arena China Dota 2 ELite - Alienware China Regional Finals - G-1 League Warcraft DotA
Natus Vincere - Star Ladder: Star Series #1, Kiev - Dreamhack Summer, Sweden - Star Ladder: Star Series #2, Kiev - The International #2, Seattle - Star Ladder: Star Series #3, Kiev - Electronic Sports World Cup, Paris - ASUS FBOTY, Kiev - StarLadder: Star Series #4, Kiev Online
Team DK - It's Gosu Razer Mini Madness 4th - The International #2, Seattle
- G-1 Champions League - World Cyber Games China Warcraft DotA
- World Gamemaster Tournament - Road to Starswar month 2 - G1 Champions League season 3 - StarsWar 7 - G-League Season 1DK completes the trio of Chinese powerhouses that dominated their country in 2012. Before TI, the team has been a force in all Warcraft DotA events and won gold at the World Gamemaster Tournament as well as StarsWar 7 and the third season of G1-Champions League; most impressive. Their switch to Dota 2 has been shaky however; a circumstance that was revealed at TI2, where the team could not match their counterparts, LGD and iG. Shortly later, the team underwent changes in the lineup and is currently working their way back to the very top.
Team Empire - Star Ladder: Star Series #3, Kiev/4th - Dreamhack Winter, Sweden - StarLadder: Star Series #4, Kiev - ASUS FBOTY, KievOnline
Aggression is the term that defines this team ever since it was formed. Team Empire is the counterpart to Na`Vi in CIS Dota and despite placing mostly second behind their big brother, the mix of Russian and Ukrainian top level players belongs to the very strongest in the time following TI2. Two out of five Empire players are nominated for being best on their tactical position this year.
2012 has also been the year of new faces and this category exists to give them some recognition. NoTidehunter's Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao and Henrik 'AdmiralBullDog' Ahnberg were the players to look at last November when DreamHack Winter took place. Following their success in Sweden, both suddenly found themselves in the spotlight and became primary targets for interviewers. While AdmiralBulldog set new standards with his trademark hero Lone Druid on third position, EternalEnvy caught the entire scene by surprise when executing a new style of Dota, dominated by stacking neutral and ancient creeps to outfarm opponents much quicker than usual.
Joining them in the list of nominees are two up and coming mid solo players Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov and Khoo Chong 'Ohaiyo' Xin, who started out far away from each other geographically, yet are both considered big talents of Dota who rose to top level players in Empire, respectively MUFC. Scandal and Ohaiyo share an aggressive play style and their affection for Templar Assassin.
Our last nominee can not be considered one of 2012's newcomers, yet got introduced to a large part of the community only this year, despite having played Dota and Starcraft II on the highest levels for quite some time. Kurtis 'Aui2000' Ling takes on the carry duties for Team dignitas and - through his unconventional item choices - gave the community a lot to talk about. Besides having caused a huge upset beating pro teams back when his team was still called Potm Bottom, Aui2000 now also plays host to Dota talkshow MAAD and continues to increase his rapidly growing fanbase with insightful stream and coaching sessions.
After honoring teams and players for their achievements, it is now time round off the GosuAwards with two categories dedicated to people behind the curtains. In 2012, commentators have professionalized and improved their abilities like never before and the year also did not fail to shed light and fame on many newcomers who now successfully contribute to the Dota 2 community.
While Toby 'TobiWanKenobi' Dawson has been stepping up the level of Dota 2 coverage at joinDOTA, David 'GoDz' Parker and David 'LD Gorman established their project BeyondTheSummit as the first address for Dota coverage in the Asia-Pacific region. With Andy 'Draskyl' Stiles and Aaron 'Ayesee' Chambers adding their expertise to the business, the North American Dota communities now also have two representative figures to watch, and Kevin 'Purge' Godec built up one of the biggest Youtube communities for Dota solely dedicating his time to commentating professional matches and providing high level gameplay of all heroes in the book.
All have been invited by Valve to contribute to the coverage of The International 2 and will hopefully stick with us in 2013.
Personality of the year has been the category with the most spread-out pool of potential nominees. Many agreed that the tart-tongued GD Studio, DreamHack and TI anchorman James '2GD' Harding shall deserve a spot for hosting enjoyable shows at all of the above mentioned events. Given that the numerical wisdom of 'Statsman' Bruno 'Wicked' Carlucci also convinced players and fans alike, he is our second nominee. What follows has been a wide list of potential candidates ranging from Dota 2 director Eric Johnson and Icefrog to opinionated commentators and players such as TobiWan, syndereN and GoDz, over to folks with comedic talent like SingSing, Nebu1a and PyrionFlax.
In the end, our choices were popular Dota 2 blogger Matthew 'CyborgMatt' Bailey for introducing changes and additions to the game to us on a weekly basis, Dotacinema's Shannon 'SUNSfan' Scotten for his regularly provided video highlights surrounding the world of Dota 2 and Na`Vi's Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov, whose outspoken and opinionated character added alot to the appeal of the business. "The International 1 to us was like a dream come true, The International 2 is a dream for somebody else, we are just here to break it"
