TI4 South East Asia: Under the SEA May 15th, 2014 15:07 GMT Text by rabidch TI4 SEA

Under the SEA

SEA Quals Preview



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Turn off Focus Mode [x] SEA Quals Preview TI4 South East Asia:

Under the SEA

by rabidch and riptide

Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor

Since ages past, the SEA scene has remained secluded from the rest of the Dota world, existing in the liminal space between China and EU. Unlike its big brother, SEA doesn’t have regular LANs, large prizepools, or many truly professional teams, and yet it has historically done quite well at TIs. At the first,



Then, at TI3 last year,





Such wonderful things surround you, what more are you lookin' for? Such wonderful things surround you, what more are you lookin' for?

The SEA region has always been China’s little brother, and as such many of its top players such as



Last year, Orange and MUFC were invited to the event, and no other SEA teams made it through in the



This SEA Qualifier for TI4 is a welcome shot in the arm for SEA Dota. It will feature teams from all over the South East Asian scene, along with a couple of the best teams from the Korean scene, all of which have talented players who are very new to being at the top of the region and many who have never participated in TI, let alone a TI qualifier.



With only Titan being invited from this region to TI4, the competition between the teams will be some of the fiercest in any of the four international qualifiers. All these teams exist under the shadow of Titan, who have dominated the scene post-TI3, in the wake of Zenith disbanding.





Titan are the kings of SEA Dota right now, and rightly so.

(This GMPGL intro video has their old, Yamateh-less lineup)

None of these teams are quite up there with Xtinct and co, but that does not mean that there won’t be any surprises, as SEA is home to some of the most maddeningly bizarre and erratic forms of Dota 2!



The Plankton



FD are nowhere near where they were when Meracle played for them FD are nowhere near where they were when Meracle played for them

Ever since TI3, Mith.Trust and First Departure have struggled to maintain their historically healthy position in the SEA region. For the past year, MiTH, Thailand’s most famous Dota 2 team, attempted to adopt the aggressive style the new Dota 2 patches called for, and did so with lackluster results. As for First Departure, they never recovered after Meracle and Poloson, their most integral players, departed the team. Both of these teams have not much going for them recently despite upsets here and there, unable to place high in recent events, and it's going to be tough for them to even make the Wildcard spot.





Korean Sea Cucumbers



Zephyr may have dominated Korea, but this is SEA, not Seoul. Zephyr may have dominated Korea, but this is SEA, not Seoul.

Similarly, the teams from Korea,





Dangerous Jellyfishes

The two Filipino teams of the Qualifier,



Just six months ago, Mineski were splitting SEA LANs with Titan. They beat the ex-Orange squad 2 - 0 in the GMPGL SEA Season 5 LAN Finals, and did so convincingly.





On a good day, Mineski are right up there with the best of SEA. #pinoypride On a good day, Mineski are right up there with the best of SEA. #pinoypride

However, it is not this lineup that will play in the SEA Quals this week. They’ve replaced Julz and Jhoven with Gio and Paseo, and though one could argue that this roster is more stable than their last, they’re yet to post any noteworthy results as the rest of SEA has risen. However, in



Mineski has traditionally been a very flexible team in terms of roles, and if they find what Owa calls the right mix, they just may give the top SEA teams a run for their money. For those of you who are not familiar with them and their play, here’s them playing Titan in the GMPGL Season 5 LAN Finals.



Mineski SEA dota in nutshell. SEA dota in nutshell.

Another favourite to make Top 4 in these quals is Orange Esports, who despite



But in the AOC Pro Cup that ended in March, Orange bested some of SEA’s best teams, Titan and Arrow, to win it all. Last week they took a game off both iG and LGD in WPC, no mean feat, and seeing that the competition in these quals is going to be nothing like the Chinese leagues, you can expect them to make a solid bid for the playoffs in these quals, if not go for the top two slots themselves. In fact, as you will see at the end of this piece, Titan’s Yamateh and kyxy predict that Orange will end up in 1st place.





Execration are the other pinoy team here, and they will likely play like one. Execration are the other pinoy team here, and they will likely play like one.

Rounding out the pinoys in these quals is



Finally, we have Rex Regum Qeon, or RRQ, a team that has improved by a longshot since their first LAN appearance at the Asian Cyber Games 2013. Similar to Orange, two respected veterans of Dota, Koala and Gehenna, anchor this team, once having played on the famous Indonesian team Fnatic/XcN.



While they have proven that they are a team that can post good results, much like Execration and Orange, they are eaten up by the top fish in SEA. They sometimes go for interesting strategies and decisions, such as triple Bracer-Nature's Prophet, 1 position Vengeful Spirit, standard Rod of Atos-Axe, that usually hurts them, because they lack the skill and experience to carry through with such daring and questionable strategies against top teams. But usually in every other game, they will try to draft Invoker and follow up with Doom and Axe. If RRQ do what they do historically, what will likely happen in these qualifiers is that RRQ will dumpster SEA’s bottom feeders but struggle against everybody else.



RRQ.NFR Dunking for Koreans RRQ.NFR Dunking for Koreans

In the end though, the only consistent thing about these middle tier teams is that they are the very definition of SEA inconsistency. They could go either go on a winning spree against the qualifier’s finest or a losing spree against the qualifier’s worst, or both. Anything can happen in the grueling gauntlet format of a 4 day qualifier, and these teams just have to have enough momentum for 4 days to get a trip to Seattle.





Kunkka and Tidehunter, at your service

The simplest way to define the strongest SEA teams at the moment is to look at them as the ones who can take the most games off of Titan. The two teams that have done that the most are the Singaporean team



Arrow, previously known as Lowyat, is a newcomer to SEA's apex and has been gaining more and more steam since they formed under their new sponsor Arrow and recruited JoHnNy. However, Scythe has had the better results in matches between the two, galvanized by the young talent Meracle. Starting Dota at the tender age of 12, he began his Dota career on SEA team First Departure, which he captained at just 17 years of age. In 2013, he followed a long established SEA tradition of playing for Chinese teams when he was picked up by Rising Stars. His stint with the chinese amateur team was short though, and his next run was with the newly formed Titan, which he joined in late 2013. Playing for them in





Can Meracle get Scythe to Seattle again? Can Meracle get Scythe to Seattle again?

Throughout the tournament, his famous Naga Siren helped Titan give the Chinese a run for their money. However, the Singaporean team could not qualify for the playoffs, and Meracle’s run with them ended at the end of the year. In early 2014 he was drafted by Scythe, and has been playing #1 for them since. Scythe has a storied past in TIs, and name of Scythe competing in Seattle is something that any SEA fan can get behind. The question is, can Meracle, the rat king, get them there?



In any case, both Scythe’s and Arrow’s playstyles reflects their two players, Arrow's team-oriented style reflecting JoHnNy and Scythe's split-and-spread style reflecting Meracle. Both of these teams have had good and consistent results against all of SEA (minus Titan), but like all SEA teams, are unable to escape from the region’s tentacles of inconsistent play. Arrow in particular has lately fallen time and time again to the Greek Sirens, being occasionally upset by teams like Orange and Execration. No surprise, the team that has mastered Naga Siren and our favorite to win the TI4 SEA Qualifier is none other than Scythe Gaming.



Whatever way you look at it though, we are in for a week of SEA Dota on the international stage. To prepare you, here’s a quick highlight reel from the GMPGL Season 5 LAN Finals in the Philippines starring host





"This is how we do it in the Philippines!"



Welcome to SEA Dota "This is how we do it in the Philippines!"Welcome to SEA Dota



Predictions

Personality 1st 2nd Titan.Ohaiyo Scythe Arrow Titan.Xtinct Scythe Arrow Titan.Net Scythe Execration Titan.kyxy Orange Scythe Titan.Yamateh Orange Arrow GoDz MiTH Scythe



Community Poll

Poll: Who will finish #1 in the TI4 SEA Quals?



Scythe Gaming (70)

34%



Arrow Gaming (27)

13%



Team Zephyr (25)

12%



MVP Phoenix (21)

10%



Mineski (17)

8%



Orange Esports (14)

7%



Rex Regum Qeon (12)

6%



First Departure (7)

3%



MiTH.Trust (6)

3%



Execration (5)

2%



204 total votes (70)34%(27)13%(25)12%(21)10%(17)8%(14)7%(12)6%(7)3%(6)3%(5)2%204 total votes Your vote: Who will finish #1 in the TI4 SEA Quals? (Vote): Mineski

(Vote): MiTH.Trust

(Vote): MVP Phoenix

(Vote): Scythe Gaming

(Vote): First Departure

(Vote): Arrow Gaming

(Vote): Rex Regum Qeon

(Vote): Team Zephyr

(Vote): Execration

(Vote): Orange Esports







CREDITS

Contributors: rabidch, riptide, phase, mithhaike

Gfx: heyoka, miwi^

Editors: riptide, rabidch

Images via: Contributors: rabidch, riptide, phase, mithhaikeGfx: heyoka, miwi^Editors: riptide, rabidchImages via: Liquipedia Gosugamers and Mineski



Since ages past, the SEA scene has remained secluded from the rest of the Dota world, existing in the liminal space between China and EU. Unlike its big brother, SEA doesn’t have regular LANs, large prizepools, or many truly professional teams, and yet it has historically done quite well at TIs. At the first, Scythe placed 3rd, a feat that has now been immortalised in Free to Play Then, at TI3 last year, Orange Esports made a blistering run through the Lower Bracket after being dropped down by Na`Vi, dispatching Chinese juggernauts DK and Tongfu on the way. Then, in the Lower Bracket finals , they lost once again to Na`Vi , and while the cameras panned over Benaroya Hall, what they didn’t show was Malaysia, and the thousands of fans that had gathered outside in the early hours of a warm tropical morning to watch their heroes.The SEA region has always been China’s little brother, and as such many of its top players such as Chuan and Mushi have gone on to play on the mainland. Though not particularly widespread, this brain drain certainly affects the region. For one, though the majority of the Orange lineup that placed third at TI3 now play for Titan, their star mid, Mushi, is now with Team DK . This is symptomatic of the problems SEA Dota faces on the world stage: they generally don’t do all that well, and when they do, they get sniped by China, or in the case of Zenith , by the real world.Last year, Orange and MUFC were invited to the event, and no other SEA teams made it through in the East Qualifiers . Thus, it’s with a lot of excitement that fans of the region look to the TI4 SEA Quals , a qualifier that will seed one team into the event itself, and another into the wild card match for the 16th slot in Seattle.This SEA Qualifier for TI4 is a welcome shot in the arm for SEA Dota. It will feature teams from all over the South East Asian scene, along with a couple of the best teams from the Korean scene, all of which have talented players who are very new to being at the top of the region and many who have never participated in TI, let alone a TI qualifier.With only Titan being invited from this region to TI4, the competition between the teams will be some of the fiercest in any of the four international qualifiers. All these teams exist under the shadow of Titan, who have dominated the scene post-TI3, in the wake of Zenith disbanding.None of these teams are quite up there with Xtinct and co, but that does not mean that there won’t be any surprises, as SEA is home to some of the most maddeningly bizarre and erratic forms of Dota 2!Ever since TI3, Mith.Trust and First Departure have struggled to maintain their historically healthy position in the SEA region. For the past year, MiTH, Thailand’s most famous Dota 2 team, attempted to adopt the aggressive style the new Dota 2 patches called for, and did so with lackluster results. As for First Departure, they never recovered after Meracle and Poloson, their most integral players, departed the team. Both of these teams have not much going for them recently despite upsets here and there, unable to place high in recent events, and it's going to be tough for them to even make the Wildcard spot.Similarly, the teams from Korea, Zephyr and MVP Phoenix , have displayed less than stellar results against SEA's stronger teams. While MVP Phoenix is known as the other team besides Alliance that took a rax from DK in the last SL LAN Finals, they have not had much success in SEA. Interestingly enough, Zephyr, the American team that has romped MVP Phoenix time and time again in Korea, has always posted extremely puzzling results, managing to have a dismal win rate in SEA competitions. Still both these teams can’t be counted out, as their form has only gotten better by leaps and bounds since we first saw them, and maybe they'll surprise everybody in SEA's most important competition.The two Filipino teams of the Qualifier, Mineski and Execration , the Indonesian team Rex Regum Qeon=, and the Malaysian team Orange , have all recently shown flashes of strength against the top teams in SEA. They show better results than most SEA teams, being evenly matched with each other, and occasionally having poor showing against teams considered to be weaker than them.Just six months ago, Mineski were splitting SEA LANs with Titan. They beat the ex-Orange squad 2 - 0 in the GMPGL SEA Season 5 LAN Finals, and did so convincingly.However, it is not this lineup that will play in the SEA Quals this week. They’ve replaced Julz and Jhoven with Gio and Paseo, and though one could argue that this roster is more stable than their last, they’re yet to post any noteworthy results as the rest of SEA has risen. However, in in a recent interview , Owa remarked that they were confident they’d do well in the quals: "I'm confident that we'll find the right mix. We've spent a lot of time already to find that right composition."Mineski has traditionally been a very flexible team in terms of roles, and if they find what Owa calls the right mix, they just may give the top SEA teams a run for their money. For those of you who are not familiar with them and their play, here’s them playing Titan in the GMPGL Season 5 LAN Finals.Another favourite to make Top 4 in these quals is Orange Esports, who despite a lackluster WPC run have been showing some form lately. While their new lineup is nowhere close to their TI3 roster in terms of individual skill, they do benefit from WinteR and Sharky’s years of experience to round out the rookies Ysaera, InsidiousC, and SXOCXS.But in the AOC Pro Cup that ended in March, Orange bested some of SEA’s best teams, Titan and Arrow, to win it all. Last week they took a game off both iG and LGD in WPC, no mean feat, and seeing that the competition in these quals is going to be nothing like the Chinese leagues, you can expect them to make a solid bid for the playoffs in these quals, if not go for the top two slots themselves. In fact, as you will see at the end of this piece, Titan’s Yamateh and kyxy predict that Orange will end up in 1st place.Rounding out the pinoys in these quals is Execration , a team that Titan’s Net predicts will make the top two (see predictions below). They've been around for quite awhile now, and are arguably one of the strongest teams in SEA right now. A team made of players from the Philipinnes most prolific, and led by ninjaboogie of Duskbin fame of HoN and early Dota2, they are pretty much the "Fnatic" of SEA, consistently middle-tier, able to take games off SEA’s big three but failing to place well in tournaments. Execration play the well known volatile style of Dota that Filipino teams are famous for, and just like Mineski they are very flexible in their roles, meaning that it’s very difficult to guess how they will draft and lane, and how they’ll do in these qualifiers.Finally, we have Rex Regum Qeon, or RRQ, a team that has improved by a longshot since their first LAN appearance at the Asian Cyber Games 2013. Similar to Orange, two respected veterans of Dota, Koala and Gehenna, anchor this team, once having played on the famous Indonesian team Fnatic/XcN.While they have proven that they are a team that can post good results, much like Execration and Orange, they are eaten up by the top fish in SEA. They sometimes go for interesting strategies and decisions, such as triple Bracer-Nature's Prophet, 1 position Vengeful Spirit, standard Rod of Atos-Axe, that usually hurts them, because they lack the skill and experience to carry through with such daring and questionable strategies against top teams. But usually in every other game, they will try to draft Invoker and follow up with Doom and Axe. If RRQ do what they do historically, what will likely happen in these qualifiers is that RRQ will dumpster SEA’s bottom feeders but struggle against everybody else.In the end though, the only consistent thing about these middle tier teams is that they are the very definition of SEA inconsistency. They could go either go on a winning spree against the qualifier’s finest or a losing spree against the qualifier’s worst, or both. Anything can happen in the grueling gauntlet format of a 4 day qualifier, and these teams just have to have enough momentum for 4 days to get a trip to Seattle.The simplest way to define the strongest SEA teams at the moment is to look at them as the ones who can take the most games off of Titan. The two teams that have done that the most are the Singaporean team Scythe and the Malaysian team Arrow Arrow, previously known as Lowyat, is a newcomer to SEA's apex and has been gaining more and more steam since they formed under their new sponsor Arrow and recruited JoHnNy. However, Scythe has had the better results in matches between the two, galvanized by the young talent Meracle. Starting Dota at the tender age of 12, he began his Dota career on SEA team First Departure, which he captained at just 17 years of age. In 2013, he followed a long established SEA tradition of playing for Chinese teams when he was picked up by Rising Stars. His stint with the chinese amateur team was short though, and his next run was with the newly formed Titan, which he joined in late 2013. Playing for them in G-League 2013 , he was instrumental in helping them take games off teams like Speed Gaming.int and the then newly formed Team DK.Throughout the tournament, his famous Naga Siren helped Titan give the Chinese a run for their money. However, the Singaporean team could not qualify for the playoffs, and Meracle’s run with them ended at the end of the year. In early 2014 he was drafted by Scythe, and has been playing #1 for them since. Scythe has a storied past in TIs, and name of Scythe competing in Seattle is something that any SEA fan can get behind. The question is, can Meracle, the rat king, get them there?In any case, both Scythe’s and Arrow’s playstyles reflects their two players, Arrow's team-oriented style reflecting JoHnNy and Scythe's split-and-spread style reflecting Meracle. Both of these teams have had good and consistent results against all of SEA (minus Titan), but like all SEA teams, are unable to escape from the region’s tentacles of inconsistent play. Arrow in particular has lately fallen time and time again to the Greek Sirens, being occasionally upset by teams like Orange and Execration. No surprise, the team that has mastered Naga Siren and our favorite to win the TI4 SEA Qualifier is none other than Scythe Gaming.Whatever way you look at it though, we are in for a week of SEA Dota on the international stage. To prepare you, here’s a quick highlight reel from the GMPGL Season 5 LAN Finals in the Philippines starring host Eri Neeman and our very own WinteR and GoDz. Staff Only a true king can play the King.