Who is the second best team Dota 2 in the Americas region?

It’s redundant to ask who the best is ever since Evil Geniuses reformed their roster in early 2014. Since then, it’s been a tight race between two teams at best, and it’s not unlike a destabilized third world country at the worst. The answer to this question seems to vary from week to week: is it Void Boys? Is it Team Tinker? Summer’s Rift? eHug? As time has passed since the end of the fourth International, it’s been getting more and more contentious. With the regional qualifiers coming up, let’s take a look into how the tumultuous waters of the Americas have thrown veterans and rising stars alike into endless reconfiguration.

We’ll do this in three parts. First, a look into the teams that have formed and subsequently disbanded since the end of The International 4. In future posts we’ll look at teams that have undergone significant roster shifts, teams that have endured each other throughout the year, and new teams that have sprung up to try and eke out a qualifier invitation for The International 5. For now, though, we remember those who have gone before us.

Part One: The Obituaries

SNA/Fire

From the ashes of The International 2014, many new teams were formed in the forge of the global player reshuffle. Following their Cinderella run and subsequent heartbreak, Team Liquid’s core players split into two teams. Bulba and Qojqva went east and founded a European squad, Team Tinker, while TC stayed on his home turf and reunited with his former Liquid teammates, Fluff and ixmike, to rebuild the NA qualifier 3rd place finisher team, Sneaky Nyx Assassins. Throughout the lifetime of the team and its renaming into Team Fire, these three would remain constant on the roster.

Of the American teams that competed between the end of TI4 in July and the Dota Asian Championships in February, SNA/Fire would definitively be the second more successful team in the region, next only the dominance of EG. Sadly, despite their regional success, being a constant second is still being second and as such would see them missing out on the coveted American qualifier spot for international events. These near misses included a clowny regional final in Star Ladder season 10 against EG, a clean sweep at the hands of Cloud9 for i-League season 2, and another heartbreaking set against Cloud9 in the Dota Asian Championships.

For the LAN events they did qualify for, the results were underwhelming. Eliminated first round by Cloud9 at ESL New York, finishing dead last at the hand of Team Empire at D2CL season 4, and only claiming one set in the lower bracket prior to getting eliminated by Viruts.Pro Polar, SNA and Fire experienced plenty of disappointment.

The team’s roster saw its share of changes, showcasing a lot of the region’s well-known talent. Fogged, wayto, whitebeard, and the eponymous SNA all played support at different times for the team while USH and Brax would join TC and ixmike as core players. After a failure to qualify for DAC, TC, ixmike, and Fogged left the team and from there, Fire was snuffed out quietly. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

NaVi.NA

The North American Rejects, as they were formerly known, banded together in mid-April 2014, made up up veteran players Sneyking, Brax, Korok, 1437, and Fogged. After a string of successful results including earning a spot at the first Summit event and claiming the Americas qualifier spot for The International 4, European organization Natus Vincere saw their potential and signed them as their first North American squad. The team pledged to stick around well after TI4 and go for TI5, and that they weren’t just another team that comes together to try and get into TI for a quick payday from a low finish. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t a totally empty promise.

After TI4, NaVi.NA would try and replicate its earlier success, but to no avail. A promising group stage for The Summit 2 only led to them getting eliminated first during the qualifier playoffs. They would be swept by Sneaky Nyx Assassins for the D2CL 4 qualifier finals after only dropping one game in the group stage, and then eliminated by them again during the Star Ladder 10 qualifier playoffs, and then AGAIN during the finals for Canada Cup season 3. Their lone success would be qualifying for ESL New York, where they were handed a first round exit by the European powerhouse of Team Secret.

These repeated shortcomings led to infighting, ultimately leading to an unofficial ejection of Sneyking. USH would fill in and was almost signed by the team, but not before they formally disbanded, bringing Natus Vincere’s North American experiment to an end.

Monib Baray

While largely insignificant, I feel Monib Baray is worth noting in the graveyard of NA Dota simply because it’s almost a caricature of the North American scene. It’s got all of the stereotypes: a newcomer’s first team (Monib), displaced pros (TC, Fogged), community figures getting back into the game (Clairvoyance, Merlini), and an atomic lifespan of only two official games. They have no noteworthy achievements, no roster shifts, no rivalries, no story lines, no anything. A footnote in the history of professional Dota 2, we’ll remember Monib Baray not for what they achieved, but for what they represented: a hyperbole of the instability in teams that have been plaguing the majority of NA teams.

Stay tuned as we focus on existing teams and dive deeper into the troubled waters of the NA Dota.

Team logos courtesy of Liquipedia