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I like writing these sorts of blogs before large tournaments because I like to spur some discussion on what people expect to see, and it helps establish some hype!
That said, the Frankfurt majors are only 5 days away (from the group stages at least), and we will have 16 top teams (hopefully, more on that in a bit) playing for their share of a $3 million dollar prize pool. Here are the teams by region:
China: VG, CDEC, EHome, LGD, Newbee, Newbee.Young (CDEC and VG said to be having slight visa problems) SEA: Fnatic, Mineski America: EG, Unknown.xiu, Butt9 Europe: Team Secret, Virtus Pro, Vega, OG, Alliance (potentially NiP followed by Liquid if the visa woes continue for Chinese teams)
I’d like to rank the teams not only in order, but also into tiers because I feel that the numbers can cheapen the discussion to a simple numbers game rather than talking about each team’s true potential. With that out of the way, here’s my power rankings from worst to first with the reasoning why I’ve placed certain teams where they are.
Power Rankings
16. Unknown.xiu
This team has by far the most to prove going into the Frankfurt major. They did well in the qualifiers but have been on a tremendous losing streak (to American teams, no less) since then. They’ve lost all but one series since the major qualifiers (to T-Show, a Brazilian team) and lost series to the likes of paiN, Archon, and Leviathan. I think they are capable of cheesing out a win or two, but it’s extremely unlikely they will finish out of the bottom 4.
15. Mineski
This team has been a nice story for the Philippines, a country that loves dota but has been lacking in top tier teams. I actually think this team is capable of some upsets, and while they did win a game against CDEC at Nanyang and did qualify for the Summit by beating Fnatic 3-2, I don’t think they’ll be able to take more than a game or two off of the teams at Frankfurt as they’ve been struggling with MVP, TNC, and other tier 1.5 SEA teams.
14. Butt9
They 2nd best team in America (Kappa), they played very well during the qualifier but have been struggling as of late, similar to Unknown. The difference here is that I fully expected Theeban to draft them to a win at some point, and Brax, SVG, and ritsu are all respectable players at their positions. That said, this team has been having some performance and drama issues as of late.
13. Newbee.Young
This team seems to rise (or fall) to the level of their competition. If you watch a decent amount of mid tier Chinese dota, you would see that this team has the potential to pull off some big games against some large opponents but also tends to struggle against softer competition. I expect this team to pull out maybe 3 or 4 wins in group stage, with 2 wins against less competition and 1 win that comes off a tournament juggernaut like Team Secret.
12. Fnatic
I’m a pretty big fan of Fnatic, but I can’t in good conscience put them very high. They choked in a key series against DC at Nanyang and they lost the Summit SEA qualifier to Mineski 3-2, but they are capable of beating big teams more consistently than other teams at Frankfurt (1 victory over Team Secret and EHome at Nanyang). This team should be much better than they are given the talent on the roster, and frankly is the team with the highest variance in the whole group. A bottom 4 finish is not out of the question, and if the stars aligned a top 4 finish isn’t either.
11. Vega
A very good and usually consistent team, they have stalled recently with some trouble beating 2 tier European teams (like NiP and 4CL) since ESL New York. That said, this team often surprises with their picks and plays a very aggressive style of dota that makes coming back against them nigh impossible. They will probably go a little below .500, but some of the games they win will be absolute stomps, and they are capable of beating the likes of Secret and the Chinese juggernauts if they bring their A-game.
10. Alliance
A team on the rise, they have been playing extremely well as of late. However, their competition hasn’t been of the highest caliber, with just two series against OG and one series against Vega in their last ten. However, the team has looked significantly better since the beginning of the fall, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if they recaptured some magic and made a deep run.
9. Virtus Pro
VP is a good team that’s hit a recent skid. However, they have recently taken games and series off of Alliance, LGD, and CDEC. They will bring out some great strategies, and G will probably win a game or two by himself. They will also lose a 20 minute game to some team due to a horrid early game. That said, if you’re a VP fan you can look forward to some innovative picks and drafts during Frankfurt, and I think they’re primed for a bit of a bounceback.
8. CDEC
There’s no easy way to put this: they’ve struggled mightily since TI5. They’ve struggled against VG, iG, Tongfu, Wings, and Newbee since last tournament, and they seem to be stuck a meta behind. That said, Q and Garter are a great support duo, and Aggressif is one of the best carries in the world. They are somewhat held back by Shiki’s small hero pool in the mid lane, and teams looking to beat them will take advantage of that.
7. Newbee
They’re very quietly 8-2 in their last 10 series, with only losses to EHome and LGD in that span. The forgotten Chinese juggernaut is much improved, and they are unlikely to lose games to worse teams which puts them an upset or two away from starting the playoffs in the upper bracket, which I believe they will achieve. Xiao2lei is actually a legit offlaner and is quite fun to watch.
6. OG
They’ve been tearing teams apart recently. OG is 8-1-1 in their last 10, including wins against Alliance and VP. They have yet to face the challenge of truly dominate teams, but watching them play makes you think they are capable of holding their own. They have been good at making comebacks, and they hardly ever let go of a lead once they’ve built it. Their weakness is in their davai-ness; they chase kills at the expense of objectives and that can burn you against the best of the best.
5. LGD
This team should be better than it has been performing. They have living legends on their roster, a great captain, and great support players. If they can figure out their drafting and coordinate their teamfights better (seriously, they farm like beasts but seem to rarely execute a teamfight the way they should, and rOtk’s darkseer never seems to use vacuum) they are a scary team, and are certainly capable of winning.
4. EHome
They have beaten every team they’ve played that’s not VG in the last 10 games, including LGD, Fnatic, and Secret. If they can dodge VG, they could win the whole thing. If they don’t, they’ll go home. Old chicken (besides having the best name in dota) has been playing a good mid, and Lanm and Kaka support is probably the second strongest duo in China at the moment.
3. EG
The former TI5 winners have no looked quite like champions since TI5, but they’ve played so few games it’s hard to say. They should do very well, or they could pull a Team Secret and disappear in 8th. We’ll see what happens, but besides a subpar performance at ESL One they’ve been playing up to their usually standards, and they seem to find an almost unbeatable form in the playoffs.
2. VG
The great China slayers. They don’t lose to other Chinese teams, but they do have weaknesses to western teams (loses to Team Liquid, Team Secret, and Virtus Pro in their last 10 games). Their run at Nanyang was impressive, and they showed that they can go blow for blow with the best teams in the world and do it using some relatively novel hero lineups. They are probably the hardest team in the group to prepare for, and if you combine that with the skill level of their players they are hard to stop.
1. Team Secret
Puppey’s done it again! This team is clicking on all cylinders after winning MLG and Nanyang. They have the best teamplay in the business, and Puppey has seemed to have stumbled upon a winning formula for his players that is almost impossible to draft against and almost equally impossible to win against. That said, they are not as strong as Team Secret going into TI5 was (not that it meant anything then apparently), and they do drop games to likes of CDEC, Fnatic, LGD, and EHome. However, despite this, they are clearly the favorites going into the tournament.
Tier Rankings
I’ve also ranked the teams into tiers to help provide a better distinction of who I think is capable of what:
Bottom Tier: Unknown, Mineski, Butt9 Low Mid: Newbee Young, Fnatic, Vega Mid: Alliance, Virtus Pro Top Mid: CDEC, Newbee, OG Top: LGD, EHome, EG, VG, Team Secret
Teams in the bottom tier will be lucky to win more than 2 games, teams in the low mid-tier have the chance to top 8 if they face the right circumstances or could bomb out, teams in the mid-tier are unlikely to bomb out but unlikely to move higher than 5th – 6th place, teams in the top mid-tier will be winner bracket teams that are unlikely to win but could make a deep run, and top-tier teams are those teams that I see with a legitimate chance of taking the title. I hope you all enjoyed this small preview, and I look forward to reading what you think!
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opterown
Australia54649 Posts
sounds really quite reasonable
bottom 8 is a bit tossup, i think any one of them can take a series off the other on a particular day
top 8 seems a bit more tiered
however the group stage seems to be a different format than you are writing about?
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Cool thanks for the write up, super excited for frankfurt
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Alliance will be higher imo. EG can't be that high or they are really really really strong. I mean last time we saw them they were average and they played no official series in weeks?
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I think Alliance should be higher since they have been in a stellar form lately (literally only losing 1 series ) and CDEC should be a bit higher . Overall i agree.
Cool stuff mang
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On November 09 2015 16:55 Furikawari wrote: Alliance will be higher imo. EG can't be that high or they are really really really strong. I mean last time we saw them they were average and they played no official series in weeks?
EG wasn't necessarily that convincing at MLG but they still beat LGD, VP and CDEC, lost to OG and Secret to make it into the finals. Although this specific lineup hasn't shown it yet, with the previous one they performed better at the biggest events than they did in other ones. Because of that I would even put EG as the favorites. Obviously one can't base that on recent results, but they were big enough favorites to dominate the scene after TI that at least for me they have to lose at a major before putting other teams above them.
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On November 09 2015 18:29 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2015 16:55 Furikawari wrote: Alliance will be higher imo. EG can't be that high or they are really really really strong. I mean last time we saw them they were average and they played no official series in weeks? EG wasn't necessarily that convincing at MLG but they still beat LGD, VP and CDEC, lost to OG and Secret to make it into the finals. Although this specific lineup hasn't shown it yet, with the previous one they performed better at the biggest events than they did in other ones. Because of that I would even put EG as the favorites. Obviously one can't base that on recent results, but they were big enough favorites to dominate the scene after TI that at least for me they have to lose at a major before putting other teams above them. Yeah it's not they are even bad. The secret series even though they got 3-1'd was still even~ish if you watched the games. It wasn't really a stomp.
Honestly it's EG you can't count them out they literally won tournaments without practicing before. And it's pretty much 80% of the same roster they already know each other.
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Something I didn't add is that the format makes this event very interesting.
Since OG and Newbee went through the qualifiers, it's possible that there might be some weirdness in terms of group balance; Vega and VP were invited but have been looking weaker than these two teams, which mean might end up with some of the invited teams starting in the lower bracket, which makes the bottom five teams (Newbee Young, Mineski, Unknown, Fnatic and Cloud9) might have to worry about VP in the first round of the loser's bracket, which is where none of these teams want to be.
I don't put too muck into Alliance yet as the teams they have been playing have been significantly weaker competition than what they will face here, and while that is also true of OG they have been looking significantly stronger against the weaker competition than Alliance have.
EG's also played fine; they did well at MLG and should be ready to go for this tournament. I think MLG was just a one off poor performance against a really strong Vega team.
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I would put VP lgd and eg lower, and put alliance higher. Alliance will be surprise contenders IMO.
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EG has been putting alot of work in so I expect them to crush
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Like it or not EG is pretty clutch. They don't really underperform in premier tournaments. Honestly there's a reasonable argument for putting them #1, even if the much more reasonable argument is still for Secret due to their current form. Either way I fully expect EG to end up top 2 at Frankfurt.
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As far as I understood EG did scrim for ESL and MLG too, but of course they've had more time now and apparently they had a bootcamp for this event. Secret on the other hand seems to have taken a pretty different approach to preparing. From what I understood from those EE&PLD casts recently they haven't even scrimmed between Nanyang and now, but are planning to play a bit in the few days they have between arriving in Frankfurt and the tournament starting. Though in their case I think spending a week in Singapore and playing in total 17 games on LAN there counts as pretty good preparation.
But one interesting difference to DAC and TI5 may be the way the format works. Instead of playing a lot of games before the playoffs, you may potentially play only 2xbo3 in this format. Not that EG has really struggled coming into the groups of DAC or TI5, but still there's some truth to them becoming stronger as the tournament progresses. With this format teams don't have as much material to look at when they end up facing each other in the playoffs.
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What has LGD done to justify being in the top tier? They performed worse than a lot of the teams ranked behind them at both MLG and Nanyang. This LGD is not the same LGD that finished 3rd at TI.
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IF EG prepared, they will go super far. But since they won TI, I doubt they are putting a lot of effort into dota at the moment.
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On November 10 2015 04:27 Kraznaya wrote: What has LGD done to justify being in the top tier? They performed worse than a lot of the teams ranked behind them at both MLG and Nanyang. This LGD is not the same LGD that finished 3rd at TI.
At Nanyang, they went 1-1 against Fnatic and Secret, 0-2 against EHome, 2-0 against DC, and 0-1 against CDEC. While that performance isn't outstanding by any means, they recently made it to the Summit 4 finals, beating iG and Newbee convincingly, and going 2-3 against EHome (a team that I think very favorably of). I don't think it's a reach to put LGD within striking distance of a win of the tournament, and as a 5th seed that's exactly where I think they belong.
If you want to argue that LGD can't win the tournament (and thus not top tier, but rather the top mid-tier), I'd be willing to believe that. I don't think they belong any lower on the power ranking list though; they should be better than both OG and Newbee if recent performance is any indication. They are certainly capable of losing games they shouldn't though.
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On November 10 2015 06:04 MetalMercury wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2015 04:27 Kraznaya wrote: What has LGD done to justify being in the top tier? They performed worse than a lot of the teams ranked behind them at both MLG and Nanyang. This LGD is not the same LGD that finished 3rd at TI. At Nanyang, they went 1-1 against Fnatic and Secret, 0-2 against EHome, 2-0 against DC, and 0-1 against CDEC. While that performance isn't outstanding by any means, they recently made it to the Summit 4 finals, beating iG and Newbee convincingly, and going 2-3 against EHome (a team that I think very favorably of). I don't think it's a reach to put LGD within striking distance of a win of the tournament, and as a 5th seed that's exactly where I think they belong. If you want to argue that LGD can't win the tournament (and thus not top tier, but rather the top mid-tier), I'd be willing to believe that. I don't think they belong any lower on the power ranking list though; they should be better than both OG and Newbee if recent performance is any indication. They are certainly capable of losing games they shouldn't though.
finished behind CDEC at three straight lans (TI, MLG, NYC), and chinese scrim reports have confirmed this hierarchy of VG > EHOME/CDEC > LGD
finished 4th in their group at MLG while MB/OG finished first (although they didnt play each other, performed far worse vs the same competition), and have torn up non-Secret EU competition
the draw in the group stage vs Secret I find meaningless. they needed a 2-0 to go to winners' while secret only needed to play for a 1-1; obviously teams were playing for different stakes. secret also drew vs fnatic and i doubt anyone would argue they are nearly equal teams.
speaking of fnatic they have lost vs mineski in two consequential finals in a row. ranking fnatic ahead of them is only brand-name respect for fnatic's players at this point.
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LGD is above multiple teams that have beat them since TI and seem to be riding on their TI5 placement and legacy here even though their biggest contributor is no longer playing (xiao8) and his replacement is not very good. A team is nothing without a captain
rotk doesn't seem to be capable of devising a strategy beyond "Be really aggressive" which means his team falls apart when people understand how to deal with it because he can't adapt (see: TI4 grand finals).
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LGD has very passive style cores too, which doesnt mesh with RotK's style.
I think Alliance is underrated, LGD overrated. I think CDEC may enter into a slump so I'd put both Alliance and VP ahead of them, I think they're on or around the same level as Newbee (and really the gap between them+Newbee and LGD+EHOME isn't far)
Also I just think head-to-head EG is better than VG.
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Everyone's praising Puppey as a strategical genius and shit, but he sure has a talent for painting a huge target on his own back before the most important tourneys... Dunno if it's that good of a talent to have.
I really hope secret won't bomb out like at TI :x
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alliance should be higher, vg maybe lower, ehome higher
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