There are only two completely new franchises attending The Boston Major. Although every team except Wings Gaming and Ad Finem has made roster changes ahead of the event, and older clubs like LGD are bringing new chapters, only Team NP and Team Faceless are starting off wholly fresh.

That makes them underdogs — but it also makes them dangerous. Unpredictability is one of the core factors that led to Wings' TI6 victory. So was long-term dedication. NP may have both in their favor.

The team is filled with players that have a history of unconventional success. Not only was Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling a TI5 winner before he was practically kicked off the podium, he was also a founder of Digital Chaos, which he left just before the modern European cast was assembled for a TI6 silver medal.

Another founding member of Digital Chaos (who left prior to seeing its success but certainly aided its progress) deserves much of the credit for Team Secret's many successes since the Dota 2 Asia Championships. Theeban "1437" Siva helped them spot exploitable patterns in opponents and maximize jungle or lane efficiency to define would become their signature style. Although he's since taken a new name, Rose, his is still the same analytical mind that helped create an atmosphere of success for one of Dota's meteoric success stories.

Theeban "1437" Siva with Team Secret

Then there's Jacky "EternalEnvy" Mao, whose time on NoTidehunter helped shape Alliance, the team that would become TI3 champions. Whose time on Cloud9 would lead them to be the highest in-the-money tournament placers of their time, despite failing to win a single premier tournament. Whose appeal drew Arteezy away from the safety of Evil Geniuses to Team Secret for a second time, and whose greedy and often high-risk style so thoroughly failed to mix with the greedy styles of the rest of Secret that the team crashed and burned beyond repair.

Though they have had no shortage of road bumps, NP have proven themselves to be disproportionately threatening for the team's experience. In the past several weeks they’ve taken series wins over Digital Chaos and EHOME, and they beat perpetual NA powerhouse Evil Geniuses in a one-game series at the Northern Arena BEAT Invitational at the top of the month.

New teams rarely come together and immediately dominate the scene, especially without many games. OG, formerly Monkey Business, is the historical exception. With 92 ticketed games to date, Team NP is outpacing the 59 that OG played ahead of The Frankfurt Major. However, OG was facing far more formidable opponents, and the lack of high-tier games and traditional LANs for NP is likely slowing their progress.

NP's members are aware of this, and have said that no placement at this event is likely to deter their progress. Their goal is The International, and the major is just the first report card. That's a good attitude considering three of their members are recovering coaches trying to relearn their practice habits, execution and mechanical skills.

"It was a little difficult the first two weeks. I felt like nothing was feeling right, but I wanted to get into some sort of a rhythm," 1437 told theScore esports at Northern Arena. "I think after three weeks of playing straight I got my vibe back as a player."

The good news? NP have already hit many metrics of successful teams. Putting EternalEnvy into the mid lane has given the team a playstyle that revolves around his success (or failure), which is increasingly common. The "farming mid" was popularized by Aui's former team, EG, when PPD and Arteezy shifted the team’s resource allocation as the meta became less trilane-based. Since TI6, the resource-hungry mid lane has become more of a necessity for teams looking to fight near the end of the laning phase without relying heavily on tower gold (which was reduced in 2014).

The only team to see success since TI6 without their highest GPM on a mid player is Digital Chaos (Resolut1on had the highest GPM of any carry at The Summit 6). The decision to put Aui_2000, who has been maligned as a greedy, inactive farmer, in a carry role instead of back on support left EternalEnvy on mid and seems to be heading in the right direction, or at least the same direction as other successful squads.

NP are also the only team attending Boston with a heavy Sven priority, along with a fifth-most-played Razor. Beastmaster, who has fallen out of favor for most teams, is still regularly played by NP. Unlike many teams, they have widely distributed bans, implying that they may be less predictable drafters. These are all good signs for NP's eventual success.

But that doesn't imply we’ll start seeing consistent results as early as Boston. Communication still suffers in their play, where individual players frequently fail to move with the team, and the experience simply isn't there. Most of NP's games have been against teams such as Friendship, Dedication, Love or the new (and not improved) Alliance rather than top opponents. They bled losses to Evil Geniuses and Wings, also losing their few matches against Virtus.pro and OG.

"I'd probably say the team to beat the most is ourselves,” NP's Avery "SVG" Silverman said at Northern Arena. “We're still a fairly new team and we're improving pretty fast. But in any new teams you have hiccups or throws or whatever. Ultimately, our performance at tournaments is going to come down to how much we can come together as a team."

Past results alone would indicate that NP have negligibly low odds against at least a quarter of their Boston opponents, which is an extremely dangerous position in single-elimination. That implies that, barring an unfathomably fortunate bracket, NP are likely to see elimination in their first main-stage series.

We haven't seen much from them since their bootcamp, which was intended to bring the team closer together and work on some of those communication and coordination issues. Whether that will increase their odds of defeating Dota's top contenders is anybody's guess.

"No one killed each other, so that's a good sign," Arif "MSS" Anwar said at Northern Arena regarding the team's progress.

"That's all I expect," SVG added.

Many of NP's Chinese and Southeast Asian opponents that have had to field subs due to visa issues will be facing similar obstacles with communication and synergy. That could play to NP's favor as well — they may be new, but at least they've had more time to iron out whatever communication issues they've faced. As an all North-American team, they're also playing on home-turf, likely giving them an edge over Asian opponents in health, sleep patterns and concentration.

With a favorable group stage performance, Team NP may be reasonably projected to take a 5th-8th finish (with slightly better than 1:3 odds of an immediate elimination), which really isn't bad for a new team with limited top-tier play. However, some unexpected improvement and a favorable bracket may be all they need to take Boston by storm.

Ryan "Gorgon the Wonder Cow" Jurado writes about esports and freelances for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.