When firstly announced, at the beginning of September this year, Game Show eSports Cup was looking like THE tournament to follow. With a total prize pool of $1,000,000 spread into three seasonal Cups, GeC became the first tournament of the year with the largest amount of money up for grabs outside Valve’s competitions.
Although the prize pool is so high compared with other premiere tournaments, having to deal with a first season proved to be a tormenting experience for GEC. Over the course of two months they faced an avalanche of teams withdrawing from the tournament, most of them happening during the qualifier stages with the most recent one happening only a few days before the studio LAN playoffs to happen.
With Alliance, Digital Chaos, Vici Gaming, Invictus Gaming, NewBee, EHOME giving up their spots, NIP’s disband, Fnatic refusing the invitation to participate right from the start and some visa problems in the South East Asia region, the first season of Global eSports Cup will see quite the interesting mix of teams that are not in the actual top ten teams according to Gosugamers rankings, fighting for one of the most generous prize pool in the 2015 DotA 2 competitive year. With the exception of Team Empire who is placed exactly on the 10th rank spot.
All these being said let’s take a look at the participating teams at the first edition of Global eSports Cup.
MVP - the Korean flavor of GeC
Due to last minute visa issues coming from the SEA qualifier winner TnC, Game Show was forced to come up with a fast solution and the emergency situation was solved by bringing to Vilnius, Lithuania a mix of players from both MvP squads that will compete under the Korean flag.
With March preparing for his two years of military stage and being in the full shuffle period, the Korean organization is sending to Vilnius, Lithuania three Mvp.Hot6 players and two from MvP.Phoenix to compete under one name: MVP.
There is no doubt that all five Koreans are knowing each other really well and can pull out some interesting strategies but the chances to see a big upset at the Studio LAN are quite low. To qualify for the DreamHack grand finals LAN, MVP will have to secure top four in Vilnius and looking at the recent performances of their opponents at this tournament it will be somewhat of a surprise to see them advancing.
MVP roster for GeC:
Noah "MentalProtector" Pyo
Sun "QO" Kim
Sang-Don "Forev" Lee
Jun-Young "Reisen" Lee
Dooyoung "Dubu" Kim
No Logic Gaming (world rank 37) The rebirth of Greek DotA
Put together by Giorgos "SsaSpartan" Giannakopoulos, No Logic Gaming (NLG) was announced in the post TI5 shuffle, on 2nd of September. A considerable number of roster changes were made during the three months of its existence. This could be the main reason for their poor performance at previous competitions.
An improvement in their play style and team synergy was registered immediately after the ex London Conspiracy carry-support duo was reunited. The addition of Omar "Madara" Dabasas yielded immediate result as No Logic Gaming finished first in their group, leaving 4 C&L behind them and then taking a convincing series against Stark Esports in the decisive qualifier playoff.
Another ace card of NLG roster is the TI4 Fantic stand in Steve "Excalibur" Ye. Although he never achieved incredible results with the teams he has been played with, Excalibur is still regarded as a force in the mid lane and he actually placed second with the old Fnatic squad at DreamLeague season 3 and on the 3rd-4th position at ESL One Frankfurt 2014.
No Logic Gaming roster:
Omar "Madara" Dabasas
Steve "Excalibur" Ye
Mitch "zmaj" Škari?i?
Milan "MiLAN"" Kozomara
Giorgos "SsaSpartan" Giannakopoulos
4Clovers & Lepricon (world rank 18)
4Clovers & Lepricorn’s story starts at the end of March this year when Goblak formed the team. Since then only Alaan "SexyBamboe" Faraj is left from the original rooster. 4C&L was the launching platform into the big competitive scene for Aliwi "w33" Omar and has always saw big names coming and leaving the team.
Since the three ex Alliance players namely EGM, Niqua and Pajkatt along with the Macedonian pub star Martin Saksa Sazdov have found a new home at 4C&L the European team started to continuously rise and shine. At the recent DreamLeague Sesaon 4 Dreamhack Winter LAN event their performance was truly remarkable and although they finished on the third position, very strong individual plays were shown, with Pajkatt and SexyBamboe standing out for 4C&L.
Given the fact that the team is on an ascending trend and looking at their roster which features four players who are more than familiar with big LAN events, we anticipate to see them among the top four teams that will make the trip to the GeC Dreamhack Moscow grand finals.
4Clovers & Lepricorn roster:
Per Anders "Pajkatt" Olsson Lille
Niclas "Niqua" Westergård
Alaan "SexyBamboe" Faraj
Martin "Saksa" Sazdov
Jerry "EGM" Lundkvist
compLexity Gaming (world rank 14) The Swedish - American brotherhood squad
Although compLexity competed with only three core members of the team during the regional qualifier stage, at Global eSports Cup they crushed the group stage competitors and destroyed Elite Wolves afterwards in the decider qualifier playoff for the Vilnius Studio LAN.
A few days ago compLexity Gaming announced the new line-up and also signed up on the Shanghai Major registration list. The interesting part of the new complexity roster is the reunion of one of the most dominant squad back in 2012-2013 in Heroes of Newerth. Chessie, Handsken, Zfreek and swindlemelonzz were part of the stayGreen HoN squad who managed to win five LANS in a row at that time.
Another interesting complexity feature is the fact that now they are the only team in the competitive DotA scene to have two set of brothers competing under the same banner. Chessie and Limp are the Swedish brothers who joined the American brotherhood of swindlemelonzz and Zfreek.
compLexity Gaming roster:
Rasmus 'Chessie' Blomdin
Linus 'Limmp' Blomdin
Kyle 'swindlemelonzz' Freedman
Zakari 'Zfreek' Freedman
Simon 'Handsken' Haag
Luis 'ZyzzY' Perez - substitute
Vega Squadron (world rank 12)
Vega got directly invited to the CIS playoff qualifier and had to defeat only Hellraisers to secure the Vilnius LAN spot. They are regarded as one of strongest team from CIS at this moment but despite winning the ESL One New York this year they haven’t really performed in any other competition.
The Russians were quite inconsistent with their performance in LAN events, as the Frankfurt Major approached. Vega is the only team who defeated OG at the recent Major but crumbled in front of Evil Geniuses and then got 2-0’ed by EHOME in the second round of the lower bracket.
A win at the first Global eSports Cup would mean a lot for the Russians who chose to withdraw from The Defense LAN to participate in a tournament in front of their home town audience.
“We're hoping to show some high level Dota on GameShow League LANs in Vilnius that will let us play on DreamHack Moscow. GameShow League Global is the first tournament of this kind in Russia and it's very important to show ourselves strong to the people wholive in the same city where our headquarters are situated.”
Vega Squadron roster:
Pavel '9pashaebashu' Hvastunov
Vladimir 'No[o]ne' Minenko
Andrey 'Mag' Chipenko
Alexei 'Solo' Berezin
Semion 'CemaTheSlayeR' Krivulya
Team Empire (world rank 10) - The XBOCT return
The Russians which once were a force to be reckoned with in any tournaments are facing a rough patch lately. Failing to sign up on the Frankfurt Major registration list, Empire started to shuffle and reshuffle their roster until they almost exhausted the CIS players choice.
Their last adjustment has happened at the recently played DreamLeague LAN playoffs in Jönköping, Sweden when Funn1k was brought as stand in. The last moment addition propelled them into the grand finals at Dreamhack winter where they had to face the Fall major Champions OG.
But even so, while they were playing in Sweden a new switch in Empire’s roster was announced for GeC. The long time carry of Na’Vi Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich, now acting as free agent was announced to play at the Vilnius LAN instead of Ayrat 'Silent' Gaziev.
If Empire managed to reach the grand finals with Funn1k at DreamLeague who knows what can they achieve at Global eSports Cup with two of ex Natus Vincere members.
Team Empire roster for GeC:
Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich
Roman 'Resolut1on' Fominok
Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov
Ilya 'ALOHADANCE' Korobkin
Alexander 'NoFear' Churochkin
