Cloud 9 - Hot Favorite
Despite SingSing's departure after TI4, Cloud9 still has a large fanbase, partly because of their captain Jacky 'EternalEnvy' Mao. The Canadian has earned the nickname "EE-Sama" a long time ago and with it a lot of jokes, memes and more. It was also Envy that was one of the first players to openly advocate for his team in the redemption vote. The fans quickly picked up on the rallying and created banners, posters and videos to raise awareness.
Community Submissions
A lot of things have been done, a lot of montages and photoshopped pictures especially. One of the first notable ones was the "Why Cloud9 is the most American, non-American Dota Team" - which even the organization picked up on thesmelves, as can be seen in the picture above. Another fan project was "Hitler hears about C9 losing EU qualifier". The clip is originally from the movie "Downfall" and is a widely spread Internet meme. In this particular version, Hitler is hugely upset about Cloud 9 losing to Team Secret and towards the end makes a case to vote for Cloud 9.
This video here is also another subtitled attempt at convincing the "non-beliEEvers".
Notable Supporters:
Many community figures have openly campaigned for Cloud 9 and have suggested that if you "bought The Summit 2 Compendium and voted for C9. Now I can type with this cool font." We can confirm that this in fact works. Notable advocates for C9 include 1437, Arteezy, Universe, BigDaddyN0tail and DeMoN. Evil Geniuses' Universe in fact went to great lengths to make a case for his former teammate Aui_2000's team. He combined his subgoal, which was him singing "A whole new world" to the Cloud 9 campaign.
Needless to say, this reached the frontpage of Reddit quite quickly.
Election Promises:
Every election campaign needs promises, something the voters can look forward to when their candidates make it. While this is not a promise directly in regards to The Summit2, EternalEnvy has promised to bleach his hair when the team wins their next LAN event. Fans are thus looking forward to see their team at every LAN possible to make that promise a reality.
A promise that is connected to the fan vote however is BigDaddyN0tail's.
If you, the community, will bring me Jacky Mao in LA I promise to provide a BigDaddy cannonball in the BTS miniature pool, if they allow me.
— Johan Sundstein (@BigDaddyN0tail) November 10, 2014
LGD-Gaming - A Chinese plea to the West
Surprisingly enough, LGD-Gaming has posted a video to plead to their Western fanbase and asked them to vote for them. LGD is the only Asian team to do so thus far and maybe the only notable Chinese team that could go anyway, considering that Newbee is probably still struggling to find their lost passport.
Team Tinker - A Hesitant Approach
A fan favorite could've been Team Tinker, but the popular team has not made a lot of advances in that regard. Pajkatt seemes to be really into it, the rest of the team not so much.
The teams' manager chappy however seemed to have been inspired by Universe's video, but has no ideas yet.
Now I'm fiending ways to sellout for #TheSummit2, any ideas? I will sing whatever to whomever.
— Brian Chapman (@chappYcast) November 14, 2014
Natus Vincere - IT'S DONDO TIME
Ukrainian powerhouse Na'Vi started a bit late, but have possibly the full force of Dendi's supporters behind them. The popular streamer has started streaming a bit more actively again under the title Redemption Stream. The midlaner has also promised to play Pudge in the tournament, if Na'Vi was to be voted to LA.
*Update* It seems as if Na'Vi has decided to match the production value on Cloud9's side - sort of. With the following video, Natus Vincere has launched it's probably final attack in the war over fan votes.
Election Promises:
Na'Vi has gone the more traditional route, promising some good Dota and improved performances. Dendi however has also promised to pick and play Pudge for the LAN event.
VOTE FOR @natusvincere to visit #thesummit2 and u will c @DendiBoss dancing and me singing together! also we gonna show u some good dota:)
— alexandr dashkevich (@NaViXBOCT) November 11, 2014
C9 image by Cloud 9 on Facebook