The Frankfurt Major was the western region's best performance at a multi-million dollar Dota 2 event, making it the second consecutive event where a region performed better than expected.

The International 5 was supposed to be dominated by western teams: Team Secret handily crushed teams from across the globe in one of the most ascendant and sustained runs in Dota 2 history, Evil Geniuses were the defending DAC champions, and Virtus Pro had continued their rise from the regional European ranks to become an international competitor.

Despite a short-lived success after signing legendary Chinese carry Chen "Hao" Zhihao, Vici Gaming had been perpetually placing beneath western teams at many of the spring and early summer tournaments.

The odds-on bet put Secret and EG at the top, with VP and Cloud9 in the Top 6. If there were an upset, many would have expected it to be in the west’s favor.

Yet when TI5 arrived, it was Chinese teams who stepped up their game. With Secret wildly under performing, second place went to CDEC, the Chinese Wild Card.

That regional shift left four of the Top 6 spots claimed by Chinese teams. It's also worth noting that MVP Phoenix also over-performed at the event at the west’s expense.

Prior to Frankfurt, no Valve-sanctioned event had a majority of western teams place in the Top 4 as three of the past six events have mostly seen Chinese teams score podium finishes while the rest have been split between the east and the west.

So why did the east suffer such poor results at Frankfurt, a tournament where half of the direct invites and two additional qualifier seats were Chinese?

Bracket Design

Part of the issue comes down to bracket design with one exception: strong Chinese teams were not pitted against each other in the group stage, meaning that they ended up frequently facing each other in the brackets. There was an entire arm of the lower bracket with only one Chinese team, while five Chinese teams eliminated each other in the other arm.

Only one eastern team was eliminated by a western team other than OG.

With five of the eight first matches featuring the likes of an eastern team facing off against a western team, the bracket could not have been designed more diversely with the same groups. There may be an argument for poor group stage design as three eastern teams were put in Group D while three western teams were put in Group B.

Had EG and Secret been put into the same branch of the upper bracket, they would have faced off in the second round. That would have forced one of them to face OG for elimination at sixth place, leaving one additional seat in the Top 4 open for a Chinese team.

Bracket theory has impacts. The fact that China’s top teams eliminated each other before the Top 4 while the west’s Top 3 teams didn’t face off until the bracket finals gave the west a distinct statistical advantage.

China Didn’t Care?

Before his team was eliminated, Daryl "iceiceice" Koh claimed that Chinese teams generally didn’t take the Major seriously in an interview with joinDOTA.

"The $3 million USD prize pool in comparison to TI, where it was $18 million USD, does not seem so significant or impressive," he said.

He followed up that comment by saying that while the prize pool is still large, the entire concept of a Major is still too new to be rooted for Chinese teams.

"I’m not really taking it seriously myself," he said in the interview.

Iceiceice has a track record saying that his team either isn’t trying or, more often, should be performing better. He is also known for his candor when discussing the east vs, the west in Dota 2, having made claims that western players are lazy last spring.

Even if just a few players from a few teams saw the tournament as less-than significant, it could have radically downshifted the region’s overall performance

Another issue may be that one of China's qualifier seats went to its seventh-best team due to Invictus Gaming's visa issues, watering down their representation. Had Invictus Gaming arrived, groups may have been designed differently.

China was unprepared for 6.85

China’s most unique hero picks simply fell flat at Frankfurt, even when played by the west. Lina and Gyrocopter are prime examples of heroes played more by Asian teams, but with a negative winrate for both regions. China was the only region to pick Lion during the tournament, with six picks and no wins.

There was a time where China's love for specific heroes, such as Enchantress in late 2014, gave the region an advantage against Western teams due to relative unfamiliarity.

The west struck back with Tiny/Io, Meepo, and Bane. Prior to this tournament, China barely saw any of these heroes in competitive play while every Western team had frequently faced these foes.

In fact, multiple Western players have commented on this advantage, from EG's PPD explaining how he used CDEC's unfamiliarity with Shadow Fiend for a draft advantage to OG's Cr1t declaring that Chinese teams aren't prepared to face Meepo.

More than Heroes

At ESL One, CDEC claimed they could approach 6.85 with the same strategy they used at The International. As sand slipped through the hourglass, Europe’s OG, Vega Squadron, and Secret turned impressive wins on an increase in mobile physical damage dealers.

China is also historically known for farming-based strategies, although their most successful teams at recent years’ premier events have been their most offensive ones (Newbee in 6.81 and CDEC in 6.84b). Games are not always longer, but they average four fewer kills and deaths per game these days.

That cultural metagame preference seems to put them at a disadvantage in a game where aggression has been increasingly linked to top-tier success.

Many Chinese teams have been adapting to the modern game; they used to be even less offensively-minded than European teams.

At Frankfurt, the only Chinese team with that reputation was CDEC. Nearly every other Chinese team in attendance earns a low average for early-game kills, but even CDEC has been slowing down.

By the time they reached Frankfurt, their average tier three tower time had decreased by about six minutes, a drastic shift from The International.

The west approached this patch from a more successful tactical perspective and a drafting perspective. Western victories at Nanyang, MLG, and ESL One were the warning bells over the course of the fall.

With a new patch likely arriving in mid-December, it will be interesting to see how the regional preferences between China and Europe are represented in the newly shifting sands.

Ryan "Gorgon the Wonder Cow" Jurado writes about Dota 2 and freelances for theScore esports.