OG are the victors of the first ever Majors
A Major announcement
This was definitely a major announcement this year; the Majors system was announced and implemented by Valve in an attempt to promote stability and professionalism in the competitive Dota2 circuit. The first ever transfer period went without too much of an issue, with only Empire having trouble locking their roster in time.
As the days passed, the first ever Majors - the Frankfurt Majors - arrived. The event went very smoothly as viewers enjoyed a high quality stream and players were treated well, with the only major complaint on limited food choices. Over the week, good Dota was played, plays were made and upsets were had; to top it all off, the underdogs OG mercilessly crushed tournament favourites Secret 3-1 in the grand finals. The Majors concluded with OG as its champions and a Western domination over the Chinese teams.
After the Major, the second transfer period started. This time, luck was not on Valve's side as the transfer period did not go smoothly; a two week transfer period was given, barely enough time for teams to discuss if roster changes were needed, and barely enough time for free agents to form or join a team. This issue was particularly evident in Johan 'Mynuts' Andersson's case who was kicked from Alliance five days before the roster lock.
Other cases of teams feeling rushed is the situation with No Vaseline, a team which formed one day before the roster lock, consisting recently turned free agents like Mynuts and Dominik 'Black^' Reitmeier - Black^. An interview with Khoo 'Ohaiyo' Chong Xin during the Majors talked about Fnatic not planning to undergo roster changes, however, Black^ was dropped from the team a few days before the roster lock. Valve tried to salvage the situation by extending the transfer period by a day but it seems that the damage had already been done.
Zhang 'Xiao8' Ning, captian of the TI4 winners Newbee
The Fall of the Chinese
The Frankfurt Major was done well, but the Chinese teams did not perform well, with their best performing team being fourth place finisher, EHOME - this is a sharp turn in performance for the Chinese after they took second, third and fourth at TI5. Simply put, the last few month of this year has been a rough for the Chinese scene. Other events which made these few months a rough period are, legendary captain Zhang 'Xiao8' Ning going into a semi-retired state, DK has stopping operations and top teams like IG and Newbee struggling.
Needless to say, the lacking performance of the Chinese teams spurred quite a bit of discussion. There have been claims that the Chinese teams did not take the Majors seriously due to viewing TI as the only event to be extremely serious about. There has also been discussion of the veteran players in China being past their prime and the lack of good captains in the Chinese scene after Xiao8's semi-retirement and Zeng 'Faith' Hong Da's absence in the tier one scene.
Alliance in their prime at TI3
Alliance is B[A]ck ! ... B[A]ck! ... B[A]ck...? And where did IG go?
As seen from the recent slump of the Chinese, teams doing badly is an unavoidable part of any competitive scene. However, in this past year, there are a few teams who have been hyped to succeed but did not. The TI2 and TI3 winners, IG and Alliance have been struggling quite a bit this year; Alliance is b[a]ck has become nothing but something spammed on Reddit after they win a game and in the months after TI5, IG have basically disappeared. Both teams went through multiple roster changes and are currently just a shell of their former selves.
Alliance went full circle, returning to the same roster which won TI3 after finding minimal success with different rosters, picking up players like Mynuts and Niclas 'Niqua' Westergård. It has been a rough year for them but with their new roster filled with motivation and a new patch, the team could return to their former glory...the same cannot be said for IG.
IG has had a relatively decent former half year but has fallen hard after TI5, failing to neither play well nor keep their roster stable. With consistent Visa issues for Su 'Super' Peng, the team has given up quite a few LAN events as well. This prolonged unfortunate state of events has led Wong 'ChuaN' Hock Chuan to leave the roster due to motivation problems and leave the team with one less star player, slowly draining hopes for an IG comeback.
The International 5's Aegis (Source: Dota2.com)
It happens every year...
Seeing this year's TI prize pool, IG and Alliance might be feeling worse about no longer being in their prime. It is an ongoing tradition and this year proved no different, the prize pool for The International 5 smashed all the previous records, offering a total prize pool of $18,375,000 - $7,675,000 more than TI4's prize pool. In addition to the record breaking prize pool of TI5, the Dota2 Asian Championships - also known as TI4.5 - offered a giant $3,000,000 prize pool ($2.8 million of the prize pool came from the event's compendium). Hope are high for TI6's prize pool, but, with the prize pool of The International 5 being as it is now and the Majors having a compendium, it remains to be seen whether the prize pool of TI6 will increase as much as it did from TI4 to TI5.
Secret after their win at the Nanyang Championships
$36,000 - $100,000 - $200,000 and a Taring for SEA
Speaking about prize pools, it has been a big year for the SEA scene as it has witnessed two of the largest LAN events to ever have taken place in the region, dethroning last year's Ok.- Dota2 Cup (offering a $36,000 prize pool) in scale. Major All Stars offered a prize pool of $100,000 in March and the Nanyang Championships offered $200,000 in November; both tournaments had multiple international teams taking place. These tournaments have not only given the SEA teams some international exposure but also the SEA Dota2 scene increased popularity.
Another big event in the SEA scene is the first ever Malaysian government sponsored team, Team Taring, formerly known as Team123 (with a slightly altered roster). Although the roster is relatively young, it looks promising, consisting of many legendary SEA players like Lee 'Papaxiong' Vei Siang, Ng 'Yamateh' Wei Poong and Sim 'Ling' Woi Cheong. Once again, this boosts the interest in the Dota2 scene and might slowly allow the SEA scene to catch up with the rest of the world.
Tournaments that did not go too well
Previously mentioned was the Major All Stars, the tournament was not only famous for being a large scale one in SEA but also for failing hard. As long as there are tournaments, there will be some which are mishandled. Before taking a look at some of the tournaments which were poorly organized, a mention must be given to the controversial statistics booklet given out by Valve during TI5 to prevent a strategy leak similar to TI4's situation with DK; whether this is a mishandling of last year's strategy leak remains to be seen but, it is a point for discussion.
Nearly every Dota2 region saw a tournament which went horribly wrong, these are some of the most notable ones. Starting with the SEA and the Major All Stars. On the first day of the LAN event, Major All Star did not manage to get any games played due to network and electrical issues, in addition, information provided to viewers was severely limited and the stream kept dropping. Also, as a testament to the event's organization there have also been stories of people crying after queueing for hours for a Na'Vi's autograph only to get told that the signing session is over.
As for Europe, it had Gaming Paradise, a tournament which firstly, failed to deliver their promise of providing first-class food to the players and instead, delivered some visually unappealing food and secondly, filled with technical issues. The Dota2 event for this tournament was eventually cancelled after teams participating in the event pulled out following the endless complaints heard from the CS:GO players and lacking communications between the tournament organizers and teams.
Moving on to the recent and now infamous, WCA 2015. The tales of this government sponsored event are countless, with stories of no hot water, lack of staff translating for the foreign teams, no heating and many more unreasonable happenings; twits have also surfaced regarding cheating accusations. The tournament was an overall mess and is thought of by many an example of how an event should not be held. WCA2015 prompted both backlash from the Chinese and Western scenes, with players like Lamn voicing their opinions on how the event reflects badly on the Chinese scene.
Rave at the Dota2 Asian Championships
Have caused, is causing and will cause
Visas have cause, is causing and will cause issues. The Visa plague this year has been particularly bad with teams and players missing multiple tournaments. Of these issues, the award for the biggest Visa issue experienced goes to Rave. Rave was unable to return to their Korean training house following some misunderstandings between the players and Fillipino immigration, gradually - with the team unable to train for the upcoming TI5 qualifiers - the matter blew up and Filipino senator Bam Aquino came into the picture, helping Rave resolve the issue after weeks of lost training time. Other Visa issues include Ilya 'LiL_HaRDy' Ilyuk's inability to get a US visa in time for D2L, Maxim 'Yoky' Kim getting his US Visa denied twice for MLG and Vega's Syoma 'Cema' Krivulya and Na'Vi's Akbar 'SoNNeikO' Butaev only acquiring their Visas a few days before TI5.
It has been a long year filled with Visa issues causing unnecessary stress among the teams and hopefully in the coming year - as eSports gains increasing recognition - there will be much less issues.
CDEC's entrance to the grand finals of TI5
The rise of Mineski, Vega and CDEC
An abundance of tournaments, ever increasing prize pools and the increasing popularity of open qualifiers have encouraged and given the opportunity for any aspiring team to make it into the professional Dota2 circuit. Utilizing these conditions, Mineski, CDEC and Vega have all propelled themselves into international recognition and are considered one of the best teams in their region.
Of the three newly risen teams, CDEC is the most impressive, finishing second place at The International 5. Singled out as a team on the rise after TI4 last year, CDEC was quickly forgotten as they struggled to perform well in the beginning of 2015, finishing last in the DAC. The team suffered another blow a month after DAC, losing their star mid player Lu 'Maybe' Yao; the CDEC roster today was put together after Maybe's departure. After CDEC finalized their roster, they kept putting up mediocre performances against tier one teams but finally hit their stride in TI5 - the rest is history.
Mineski at the Nanyang Championships
Moving on the Mineski's rise to prominence, frankly speaking, this team came out of nowhere. Mineski have been lurking in the background of the SEA scene for a large part of this year, only bursting into the "top SEA teams" category after TI5. Spending most of the first half of the year securing a stable roster, Mineski failed to qualify for TI5. In the post-TI5 reshuffle, Mineski picked up Ryo 'ryOyr' Hasegawa and, according to an interview with Ryan 'Bimbo' Jay Qui (Mineski's captian) at the Nanyang Championships, started to train seriously. The fruits of the team's labor came quickly as they started to qualify for multiple LAN events, most notably the Frankfurt Majors; today, after their relatively impressive 9th place finish at the Majors, the team continues to stay and train together.
Vega at the Frankfurt Majors (Source: Vega's Facebook)
Vega have a similar story to Mineski, after picking up Andrey 'Mag' Chipenko and Alexey 'Solo' Berezin, the team put out an increasingly better performances until the TI5 EU qualifiers, finishing in second place - taking the TI5 EU wildcard slot. Despite showing a good performance going into TI5, the team did not manage to qualify for the main event due to an upset by MVP.P in a very close best-of-three. The team decided to stick together in the post-TI5 shuffle and then won their first major event after, ESL One New York.
Gosugamers Dota2 - The year in numbers
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