The exclusion of Rave from the invite list for The International 5 was no doubt a hit to the organization and its players. They’ve had a stable roster for nearly a year (a feat by eSports standards) and they’ve shown decent results in the post-TI4 season. However, this wasn’t enough for an a direct invite.

With The Summit 3 right around the corner, all eyes will be on Rave to see if they can prove that Valve has made the wrong choice.

The Rise

The team has largely been together since as far back as February of last year, back then they were known as EoT Hammer. At that time, ex-Evil Geniuses player Jio “Jeyo” Madayang was asked to leave North America, join EoT and compete in the Korean Dota League, a series of four small cups held solely for the Korean region.

It wasn’t completely uncommon for a players to jump regions, this was also the time when Team Zephyr, a team of North Americans, was dominating the Korean scene.

EoT progressed steadily through the KDL cups and along the way they rebranded to Rave and their hard support player Pyeong “pYung” Kwon switched to a coach/manager role. Replacing him was North American player, Michael “ninjaboogie” Ross, making the roster the one we are familiar with today.

In the fourth and final KDL cup, Rave defeated MVP Phoenix 3-2 in the Grand Finals and in the span of 10 short months the all-Pinoy squad became the strongest team in Korea.

Their performance in the KDL was undoubtedly what earned them a direct invite to the Dota 2 Asia Championships just over a month later, and it was there that the team truly made their mark on the game.

Rave clawed their way past the Group Stage after breaking a three-way-tie with TongFu and CDEC Gaming. They eliminated HellRaisers, who qualified for the tournament over ASUS.Polar and Team Empire. And they knocked out Invictus Gaming, but were eliminated by the Chinese super team, Big God.

Their Western-style of aggression at DAC secured them a 5-6th finished, tied with Cloud9. They earned over $150,000 and were not far behind the podium finishers of Evil Geniuses, Vici Gaming, Team Secret and the aforementioned Big God.

Rave kept their momentum going after the conclusion of DAC. They earned the SEA slot for The Summit 3, fighting past MVP HOT6ix, Mineski and bested MVP Phoenix twice. They also earned the SEA slot for MLG Pro League Season 1 by, once again, defeating MVP Phoenix. Their performances earned themselves a direct invite to the Major All Stars, but that’s where things took a turn for the worse.

2015 Tournament Winnings (latest at bottom) Place Prize i-League Season 1 3-4th ~$31000 Mineski Pro Gaming League Season 6 1st ~$17000 Korean Dota 2 League Season 4 1st ~$34000 Dota 2 Asia Championships 5-6th ~$144169 Major All Stars 7-8th ~$4000

The Fall

Rave’s performance at Major All-Stars was nothing short of disappointing. They traded games with Ninjas in Pyjamas and were ahead in Game 3, but after a grueling 80 minutes NiP brought the game back in their favour and knocked Rave into the Loser’s Bracket.

Their first opponent there was Team Redemption, easily one of the weakest teams in the tournament, but Rave still lost due to an abysmal defence of a Tier 2 tower. They finished last in the tournament.

Their poor performance was only the beginning of their troubles. Due to visa issues, Rave were forced to withdraw from Star Ladder 12 even before the qualifiers began. They did so preemptively to concentrate their efforts on The Summit and MLG, but just two weeks later Rave announced they have also been forced to withdraw from MLG.

Their visa issues could also be a factor in why they were not invited to participate in the i-League Season 3 SEA Qualifiers, but unfortunately the team continued to decline. They failed to qualify for both the Red Bull Battle Grounds and ESL Frankfurt after being knocked out by Team Malaysia and Underminer, respectively.

Post-DAC Tournaments (latest at bottom) Place The Summit 3: SEA Qualifiers Qualified MLG Pro League Season 1: Asia Qualifiers Qualified/Dropped Star Ladder Star Series 12: SEA Qualifiers Dropped Major All Stars 7-8th Red Bull Battle Grounds: SEA Qualifiers Did not qualify i-League Season 3: SEA Qualifiers Not invited ESL One Frankfurt 2015: SEA Qualifiers Did not qualify

The Summit

Fast forward to today, where Rave were passed over for the SEA invite to TI5; morale for the team is probably at an all-time low coming into The Summit. Not only that but they are one of the few teams in the tournament with zero competitive matches played in patch 6.84; outside of scrims, Rave are coming into the tournament blind.

There is some silver lining: Rave’s strongest heroes in 6.83c have also had strong showings in 6.84, namely Witch Doctor, Anti-Mage, Enigma, Batrider and Brewmaster.

Hero Player Rave 6.83c (# of games) All 6.84 (# of games) Witch Doctor Cast 83.3% (18) 53.7% (82) Anti-Mage Jeyo 83.3% (6) 60% (15) Enigma ninjaboogie 75% (4) 64.3% (14) Batrider Chrissy 100% (5) 58.8% (17) Brewmaster Chrissy 75% (4) 65.4% (26)

Coming out of patch 6.83c (Feb 12), Rave maintained a decent win rate of 56.1 percent, which is the second worst of the participants of the tournament. It’s above Not Today’s poor 46.6 percent, but below LGD Gaming’s 59.2 percent. All the other teams maintained above 60 percent win rate for the patch, while Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming broke 70 percent.

At The Summit, everything seems to be stacked against Rave. More than just the tournament is on the line with not only the prize pool, but also the pride of those who vouched publicly for their TI5 invite. If Rave under-perform, a lot of people will be eating crow, but if they somehow make it past the group stage, GabeN and Icefrog were wrong and balance is somewhat restored.

Hopefully Rave can scale this mountain of a tournament.

Dennis Gonzales is a Toronto eSports writer who enjoys whiskey, Dungeon & Dragons and first-picking Timbersaw. You can follow him on Twitter.