The article was written based on teams’ drafts only for the current 6.84 patch in collaboration with Jaishil “Drifter” Mistry and it highlights their current playstyle.
Team Archon
Achievements:
1st Dota 2 Canada Cup Season 5
2nd TI5 Americas Qualifier
3 - 4th BTS Americas
North American Rejects announced the revival of their squad just in time to catch the US qualifiers for this year’s International and that's just history repeating as they did the same thing prior TI4. And to keep the story perfectly symmetrical with last year when they were picked up by Na’Vi as an US representative of the Ukrainian organization at the biggest DotA event, this year they signed a contract with Team Archon right after they secured their trip to Seattle.
The new branded squad benefits from talented players from the North American DotA scene like USH, Korok, MSS and Fogged, but who, for the past few years, couldn't quite find a stable team to call home.
Their drafts aren't exactly in tune with the 6.84 picks and bans but not entirely outside the box either. Team Archon prefers to play a hybrid of the current meta that implies the usage of some of most common heroes these days like Gyrocopter, Rubick, QOP or Shadow Fiend but at the same time they like to go with less utilized nuking supports like Skywrath Mage or Lina and the flexible offlane hero Spirit Breaker while the flavour of the patch Leshrac is completely ignored by them.
Team Archon Roster:
Chris "USH" Usher
Steven "Korok" Ashworth
Scott "chad" Jensen
Ionnas "Fogged"Loucas
Arif "MSS" Anwar
MVP.Phoenix
Achievements:
7th DreamLeague Season 2
4th i-League Season 2
4th Star Ladder Season 11
13 - 16th DAC
4thjD MLG Pro League Season 1
2nd TI5 SEA Qualifier
MVP Phoenix became the first Korean team to advance to an International last year, when they qualified for Playoff Phase One of the tournament. In February this year the team has been split in two different squads with Heen and Forev moving to MVP.HOT6ix while Reisen went inactive.
With three new members to fill up the gaps and March experiencing a role change as he migrated to the the offlane, the new reformed MVP.Phoenix managed to finish second in the SEA TI5 qualifiers losing the grand finals in front of their sister squad, MVP.HOT6.
Although they have a carry Leshrac as one of the top picks in the current patch, MVP.Phoenix have shown in their qualifiers matches that are quite anchored in SEA’s playstyle and it comes as no surprise to see Templar Assassin or Storm Spirit as some of the most played heroes of QO. The patch also affected March's most picked hero, namely, his signature Warlock which needed to be abandoned for more suited offlane heroes like DarkSeer, Spirit Breaker and Undying.
MVP.Phoenix Roster:
Damien "kphoenii" Chok
Kim "QO" Seon-yeob
Park "March" Tae-won
Kim "Febby" Yong-min
Wong "Nutz" Jeng Yih
CDEC Gaming
Achievements:
2nd G-League 2014
4th Dota 2 League Season 5
5 - 8th MDL
2nd ECL 2015 Spring
2nd G-League 2015
Formed initially as a young division of LGD Gaming filled with talented newcomers from the Chinese Dota Elite Community (CDEC) which is a Chinese inhouse league, the team chose at the end of the last year to pursue their future path without the giant Chinese organization behind them.
Ever since their departure, CDEC made a name for themselves due to the good results in many Chinese tournaments. Having a lot games played post TI5 China qualifiers, CDEC gaming fully adapted their playstyle to the new 6.84 patch displaying early aggressive presence and a good grasp of late game scenarios.
They emphasize the mid game with picks that can provide efficient ganks and can generate huge momentum for the team, like Bounty Hunter and Spirit Breaker while the map control is enforced with Viper, QOP or Dragon Knight.
CDEC Gaming Roster:
Sun "Agressif" Zheng
Huang "Shiki" Jiwei
Chen "Xz" Zezhi
Liu "Garder" Xinzhou
Fu "Q" Bin
Vega Squadron
Achievements:
1st MSI Dragon Battle #1
1st EIZO Cup #14
1st GIGABYTE Challenge #12
7th DreamLeague Season 3
3rd Esportal Dota 2 League
Formed during the post TI4 shuffle, Vega Squadron ended the year with a bang qualifying for Esportal League and started 2015 taking first place in three tournaments in a span of two weeks. After that they fell into a cone of shadow undergoing multiple roster changes but they started to shine again once the former captain of Team Empire, Mag and the famous support Solo joined the squad.
Benefitting from Mag’s talent and experience they elevated the CIS aggressive style and the new 6.84 meta opened new drafting options that can sustain their continuous teamfighting oriented playstyle, Winter Wyvern being the most recent addition to CemaTheSlayer’s hero pool.
Although Io and Chen remain Solo’s favorite supports, he also plays a mean Disruptor who is usually picked along a Gyrocopter or a Beastmaster due to the massive damage output that their combined ultimates can provide in teamfights. Being an extremely aggressive team, Vega will opt from time to time to run the minus armor combo Slardar – Dazzle, a strategy rarely used by other teams in this patch.
Vega Squadron Roster:
Pavel "9pashaebashu" Hvastunov
Vladimir "No[o]ne" Minenko
Andrey "Mag" Chipenko
Alexei "Solo" Berezin
Semion "CemaTheSlayeR" Krivulya
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