The International 2018 : The Year of China - Part 1

Welcome to the Legacy of China segment of SportsKeeda E-sports. Today we are going to take a look at Newbee, Team Serenity and Team PSG.LGD. Follow our website and the Facebook page for the Part2 featuring Invictus Gaming, Vici Gaming and VGJ.Thunderstrike.

According to the memes, history of The International and past events China is the hot favorite this year. Why? Because apparently every even year China produces a new TI champion.

2012 champion Invictus Gaming. 2014 champion Newbee and 2016 champion Wings Gaming. But, what if we ignore the memes and the tradition and look into the matter with logic? Honestly, Chinese teams have always been a nightmare to the rest of the world. During the TI1 Ehome was the hot favorite while other Chinese teams were scary enough. There was a time in DOTA when people were afraid of Chinese teams. Chinese teams used to get treated as the GODS of the game.

People admired their discipline and feared their unity. The way they move around the map, the level of focus, the amount of time they spend and the way they were wrecking every other team in the world was spectacular. Whenever someone mentions Chinese Teams the first thing I see is a team of 5 most disciplined and dedicated players showing the world the art of DOTA and it’s near endless possibilities.

Everything they do is perfect. Be it Individual plays be it a team-play, they are always on the top. Around when the world started to acknowledge E-sports and the possibilities in this industry, China has already made it a Sports. Chinese players were signing autographs and people were worshiping them by the time the rest of the world realized what E-sports is. TI1 was literally a China vs World competition. As TI8 is knocking on the door, let’s take a look back at the Chinese powerhouses entering this year’s The International Championship.

#1 NEWBEE

Team Newbee

Newbee is getting called the Vengeful Spirit of China this year after their 3-0 lose against Liquid in last year’s Grand Final. I don’t know how many of you have watched the post-game reaction or the “True Sight” Valve released on the TI final but if you have then I can bet my money that you will forever remember the look in SCCC’s eyes. That alone was scary enough and people took no time to caption it with “The revenge of the fallen”.

Let’s take a look at Newbee’s team this year.

Xu “Moogy” Han

Song “SCCC” Chun

Damien “kpii" Chok

Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi

Zeng “Faith” Hongda

You need to fear the lineup of Newbee. It does not matter what team you are playing for, you just know that these 5 players have achieved the top tier of their respective roles. While most teams decided to change the roster in post TI shuffle, the runner-ups of TI7 stayed together. And you can’t blame them for Liquid’s amazing team-play, Gh’s plays or Kuro’s captaincy. Liquid just appeared to be the best team on that day. Last year SCCC was a monster in midlane, Moogy was unstoppably carrying every game and kpii managed to turn even the worst offlane situation to his favor. Kaka’s position 4 support was a headache for every team Newbee played against. Newbee still depends on Kaka to make plays in most of the situation. I mean you don’t see a 9k MMR support giving his best every day, do you?

Last year Newbee made one amazing run just to get trashed and humiliated in the Grand Finals. The team that did not break a sweat to reach finals was destroyed by Team Liquid with a 3-0 whitewash win. The only team to win a TI with a 3-0 scoreline. Their loss gave us the moment of SCCC’s “Super Villain” look when “True Sight” was released. We also saw moogy’s heartbreak. That moment created the hype that this year Newbee will be back with a vengeance.

DPC summary of Newbee

Even though Newbee has gotten their revenge on Team Liquid early on this season but they seem to be not confident enough on the Majors. Newbee won ESL One Genting and Perfect World Masters but both were minor with low DPC point. Every time they played in a major they seem to be lost. They finished 3rd and 4th in multiple Majors but that is definitely not enough for a team that’s aiming TI. Newbee really needs to get on the line if they want to win this year’s TI.

Winning Chances

Newbee has not won a single Major this year but that does not mean they will perform awfully in this TI. Honestly, it’s just like the last year when Newbee only won Galaxy battles and Zotac Cup in the whole year then proved themselves in the TI. With the extended period between last DPC event and TI8 giving them a lot of space to practice and also giving them a huge time to work on the last patch with the patch being released. A lot of people might just say Newbee is going to be a No-show in this TI but Newbee has proved themselves before.

#2 PSG.LGD

Team PSG.LGD

PSG.LGD roster is a very interesting one. Just like Newbee, they had unexpected success run at TI7 but unlike Newbee they have made several roster swaps.

Here is PSG.LGD lineup for this year’s TI

Wang “Ame” Chunyu

Yao “Somnus” Lu (Maybe)

Yang “Chalice” Shenyi

Xu “fy” Linsen

Yap “xNova” Jian Wei

Ame and Maybe are the only two remaining players of the last season’s LGD team. PSG.LGD brought xNova and Chalice, two very talented players but they have yet to prove themselves at TI. And then there is fy. A legendary man known as God of Rubick. He is not only a Rubick God but also a legendary and very composed captain. Even though the last season was more of a downfall for him but this season with the new team you can never guess the heights he can reach.

DPC summary of PSG.LGD

The very first roster that LGD had after TI7 did not really work out great for the team or the players. As they finished 2nd place at the PGL minor, they had to face failure after failure. After some hard time, it was pretty clear that change was needed in the roster. PSG.LGD finished 2nd last at MDL Macau and Last position at Dota Summit 8.

They recruited xNova and started the long process of rebuilding the team. After a 2nd place finish at DAC and a big win at EPICENTER, fy and team PSG.LGD was suddenly the hottest team around. After this, they even finished as the Top Chinese team on DPC standings as they end the season in 3td place and now they are suddenly one of the favorite Chinese team to enter TI.

Winning Chances

While most of the pro players and pretty much 80% of the fan base supporting Virtus.Pro this year, PSG.LGD is probably the biggest team who can stop Virtus.Pro. This is not because it's 2018, TI of even year or anything imaginary. PSG.LGD has the quality to make an unstoppable run at TI8 with fy being their captain and they being the 3rd ranked DPC team. They have beaten other top tier teams later this season and their other successful ranking in various events cemented them as the biggest hope of China this year. If they manage to keep up the tempo they have right now, they are going places and no other team can stop that from happening.

#3 Team Serenity

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Honestly, covering Team Serenity is a trouble. The DOTA2 circuit barely knows anything about them. The team that is getting called “Wings Gaming” of 2018 is a newly built team with new players that have no history in the scene whatsoever.

Let’s have a look at the Team Serenity’s Roster

Jin “zhizhizhi” Zhiyi

Zhang “Zyd” Quanda

Zhao “XinQ” Zixing

Xiong “Pyw” Jiahan

Xiao “XCJ” Chaojian

Team Serenity is a new team, they have not been into any LAN yet they shocked the whole community by qualifying for the TI8. All we know about Serenity is that their owner went to last year TI and was inspired by watching other Chinese teams playing in the event. The team did not see the face of success whole season yet somehow they managed to qualify for TI8. And guess what? This will be their first ever LAN event.

Many have started calling them the Wings Gaming of 2018 but honestly, it's unfair to compare this team with Wings Gaming. Wings had early success before the TI run and crushed the Chinese qualifiers. Wings Gaming was way more convincing than Serenity is now. While Wings had amazing map movement and team-play Serenity’s plays are mostly 4-protect-1 scenarios. Serenity’s gameplay moves around zhizhizhi. They either crush their enemy successfully with their 4-protect-1 style or they fall apart. Keep an eye on zhizhizhi and you will know how well Serenity will perform then again its the year 2018 with TI8 knocking on the door and we are talking about a Chinese Team here.

Winning Chances

Even though I am not ready to compare Serenity with Wings yet that does not mean they are a bad team. This year’s Chinese qualifier was relatively easier than the years before but they did manage to beat IG and LFY. Two legendary teams that can beat any top tier team on a good day. So’ I would rather wait and watch instead of saying Serenity has no chance.