American Dota League Preview

Team Previews By Carbonyl

Peru - Artyk Gaming

We saw them as Gamer University a short time ago in The Defense Season 3, where they acted as the bar other teams needed to get over to be in a good position. Whether Artyk becomes the bar again, or can step it up and prove that they’re a force to be reckoned with remains to be seen. They’ll have a good chance to mix it with fresh blood on the scene as well as some of the best teams Western Dota has to offer.

Brazil - Insight eSports

An up-and-coming Brazilian team that, like many of their counterparts, will have a chance to display Brazilian Dota on a bigger stage. While we can’t expect an unknown to defeat International invitees, we can look to watch and see what they have to bring to the table.

Brazil - Nex impetus

Their last main event was an invitation to The Defense Season 3, where they just barely didn’t make it out of group stages, placing 5th of 8 against the likes of Team Liquid, Virtus.pro, and mousesports. This will mark their next foray into a big league tournament, and will let them see if they’ve improved since last time.

Argentina - paiN Gaming

paiN gaming's new team consists of a full Argentinian squad with former ROOT Gaming Dota 2 player DDX- as their captain. As far as we know, none of their squad has professional experience besides DDX- and that was limited to some poor showings online. DDX- has had a few minor accomplishments so far in Dota 2, mainly qualifying for events such as the Thor Open, TD3, and placing 3rd in the Netolic Pro League 2. So far this new lineup, consisting of DDX-, Zurdo, Ektoplazm, MIL, and Gengar, have only played in 3 professional matches, and have lost all 3. So ADL will be a great avenue to see their new potential as a team.

NA - Typical Mistakes

Winners of the DotaCinema Rosh Pit Qualifier tournament, they will be playing in the Rosh Pit Tournament sponsored by Denial Esports, against teams like Kaipi, Fnatic.EU, QPAD, and Mouz. But this tournament will begin first, and will give them a chance to get experience against top teams. While they’re a definite underdog, maybe they can pull an upset or play evenly against other relatively unknown teams in the American Dota League.

NA - Denial eSports

Until recently they were un-sponsored as Eosin+4, and winners of the Alienware Arena NA Winter Season Invitational. Now they get to join in the American Dota League as North America’s only newer team. While they shouldn’t be expected to go far, their ability to put up a fight or not against some of the teams here will show whether the team has potential.

NA - EG

After an outstanding and dominant showing the first day of the Western International Qualifiers, EG wasn’t able to pull it together on day two, losing to RoX.KIS and then mousesports for a quick exit. With no International on the agenda, we’ll see how serious EG plays at the American Dota League. Maybe they’ll be looking to pick up smaller tournament wins such as this, or maybe they’re intent is to practice as hard as they can for any future events.

NA - Liquid

What’s there to say about Team Liquid that you don’t know? They’re the favorite to win this tournament heading in, and arguably the second best team in Western Dota after Alliance. They’ve also recently competed in the G-1 League LAN Finals, and are currently training hard for The International. This tournament ought to be good practice for Liquid if they want to try out any new styles of game-play or special strategies before the International gets underway. They’ll also get a chance to polish up their form against another invitee in team Dignitas.

NA - Dignitas

Dignitas has been chugging along in the scene since their invite to the International 3. After getting knocked out of the WePlay Dota 2 League early by Liquid, they proceeded to take second in the recent Curse Invitational to who other than Liquid again. Dignitas is a strong competitor and will be favored or evenly matched against every team here. And who knows, maybe they have got some extra motivation when it comes to beating a certain blue horse team.

NA - Fnatic.NA

The team was picked up by Fnatic in October of 2012, and has since undergone a rebuild around Smurf to get where they are today. As far as we know they’re relatively untested, so hopefully they’ll live up to the Fnatic name and bring entertaining games.

Sean Conlin Speaks By shostakovich

TL: Sean, thank you for letting us interview you. Let's start with an easy (or not) question: who is Sean Conlin? Please, introduce youself to us.

Sean: Well, I'm just a dude trying to do someting I love full time. I've been playing Dota for over 7 years and I recently helped ROOT Gaming put together the Avermedia Cup. I loved it, and wanted to see if I could do Esports league organizing as a job

TL: Tell us about your experience at Avermedia Cup. Was it your first time organizing a tournament?

Sean: Yeah that was the first time I did anything like that. I mostly helped with the small webpage and admining. I made a lot of good connections through it, connections that helped me put together the American Dota League.

TL: What exactly ignited the fire and made you want to make a jump from a cup to an American Dota League?

Sean: Well, first of all the experience of seeing a project I worked on out there live with tons of people watching was a great thrill. But more importantly I felt there was a need for a major tournament that catered to the Americas scene. The timing also worked out for me personally to go all out on the league.

TL: What's your take on the reason why there aren't big LAN events/leagues in North America? This question seems to trouble a lot of people, since Dota 2 viewership is kinda high.

Sean: Some of it has to do with people's perception that the scene is weak. I think a big part of it is that there are so many established, proven leagues in the European and Asian scenes that when more events pop up the people making the decisions are looking at what will definitely work.

TL: You're running ADL without a sponsor, if I'm correct. Tell us more how you managed to get the league going, how you surrounded youself not only with Ayesee but also the top teams from North and South America.

Sean: I starting talking to Ayesee back in December about the possibility of doing a league, and he was on board with the idea immediately. Getting to know the teams has just been part of the natural networking process. It didnt take a lot of push to get the teams to commit, mostly all of them are just excited about a league specific to their scene.

TL: What are the longterm plans for the American Dota League?

Sean: What are the longterm plans for any League? I have a lot of vision for what I want the American Dota League to become. I'd love to have a LAN, bigger prizepools, and solid coverage and highlights for the league, but for now I'm trying to work within my resources and get it off the ground. I'd love for it to be known as THE league for the Americas.



I really love what the GD Studio and Beyond the Summit are doing, their projects are definitely something to aspire to.

TL: Valve recently started selling a interactive compendium for TI3. Do you think such thing could be implemented for leagues and other relevant tournaments?

Sean: I think for big LANs such as Dreamhack, it could definitely work, and it's one of the best ideas for Esports in general. It's fun, it raises money, and it informs the audience about players and teams. I really hope it takes off, but I don't see it being a reasonable thing to have for most online tournaments.

TL: Organizations like NASL and MLG have been teasing a lot about them picking up Dota 2. Let's imagine that ADL will hasten their move into the scene. What do you think about them? Would you rather continue developing ADL or join and help them?

Sean: I'd welcome them into the scene with open arms. It can only improve the standing of the scene to have such big and professional organizations commit to it. I don't know which I'd rather do, develop or join. I'd have to take a hard look at the situation. I think it would definitely be hard to leave my own project behind, especially if it was doing well and had been established for a while.

TL: Sean, thank you for this interview, we wish you all the success with the American Dota League. Feel free to say any last words and give any shoutouts you want.

Sean: HUGE shoutout to my wife for supporting this crazy, ridiculous idea. Shoutout to Ayesee for being so encouraging and commited to the cause. And shoutout to my team, Glory Push Mid, for keeping me addicted to this game.

Writers: Carbonyl, shostakovich, TheEmulator

Gfx: Shiroiusagi, TheEmulator

Editors: TheEmulator



The American Dota League is a brand new venture in the Dota 2 scene, which aims to bring together the top teams in the Americas. ADL is a month and a half long event, with a prize pool of $10,000. One of NA's premier casters, Ayesee, will cast the tournament.Are you a fan of American Dota? Then you should know these teams! Just in case you don't though, we have TL Writer Carbonyl here today with some Team Previews . We also sat down this week with Sean Conlin, the man behind everything, and the creator of ADL . Read on to see what he thinks about the future of ADL, and this current season.We hope you enjoyed our ADL preview! You can find the full schedule here. Finally, be sure to join us on game day in our LR thread as well!