The International 2014: review and tournament retrospective
Yuriy SheremetPeople were hungry for more after the epic end of The International 2013. They received it almost a year later. But the majority of fans, including Valve themselves, were not happy about The International 2014. We remember what was remarkable about the most experimental and, as it appeared, failed The International.
The prize pool
The first thing, which is worth noticing: the crowdfunding by Valve worked as it had to work. The company improved the Compendium in 2014. It had more interactive elements, opportunities, rewards. The community enjoyed the tradition, which started in the previous year. Of course, it did. The prize pool of The International surpassed 10 000 000 dollars at the fourth tournament in The International series. Such a boost compared to the previous year sent some kind of shockwaves. Now, the prize pool of the championship was able to compete with prizes at the world-class tournaments, which are hosted in traditional sports. Valve definitely knew what they were doing.
The venue
Despite Seattle was still «the capital» of The International, a venue had changed. Instead of Benaroya Hall, the championship moved to KeyArena – a home arena for local sports teams. Of course, this decision was made in favor of the official status of the event but after all many fans loved Benaroya’s intimate atmosphere. As a result, this decision appeared to be successful and all the following tournaments right up to TI 8 were hosted at KeyArena.
The format of the event
We have said that this The International was experimental. Experiments started from the venue and ended with the format of the event. Valve did not make a mistake in the case of the local but the format was unsuccessful, to say the least.
Unlike the previous year, only 11 teams received invites. Four more teams advanced to the championship through the qualifiers, which were divided into 4 regions: America, South Asia, Europe, and China. The last 16th place was up for grabs at the wildcard tournament. Everything was clear with the qualifiers.
The standard distribution into two groups was canceled that year. Instead of this, all teams were playing bo1 matches. On the outcome of these matches, only 10 teams proceeded further. The rest 6 teams were eliminated from the tournament without playing a match at the arena. But that’s not all.
The first two teams out of ten made it to the winner’s bracket directly. The rest 8 were playing at a mini-tournament, which determined the playoff seeding. As a result, the following teams advanced to the playoffs: Vici Gaming, Newbee, EG, DK, Cloud9, Na`Vi, IG, LGD Gaming.
The remarkable thing is that the previous year’s champion, the team The Alliance did not pass the first part of the group stage and was eliminated from the tournament, placing 12th. This moment confirms one more time that the format was really «difficult».
The introduction of Techies!
The introduction of Techies was one of the funniest moments of The International 2014. The Dota 2 community had been waiting for the appearance of Techies for a long time, so Valve were creative when they introduced it. The hero was presented during the showmatch between professional players who had been chosen by the Compendium owners.
After the draft of heroes, the popular miner appeared instead of Sniper, which was played by Arteezy. Techies lost that match with a disastrous score but provided lots of positive emotions.
The character of Newbee
Newbee’s performance was definitely the most memorable thing at The International, they became the champions of the tournament as a result. Then, the future champions were one step away from being eliminated.
The road to the championship started with a mediocre play in the group stage. The team headed Xiao8 was close to being eliminated from the tournament but they managed to beat Mousesports and LGD in decider matches and to make it to the top ten. Later, they played three rounds of matches to seed. The team won all three matches, having defeated Titan eSports, Natus Vincere, and IG on their way. Due to this, the team, which had been playing decider matches to have an opportunity to stay at the tournament, proceeded to the upper part of the bracket.
The compatriot team Vici Gaming was the team’s first opponent. Newbee managed to beat the colleagues on three maps and advanced further through the bracket. Xiao8’s team defeated EG with a score of 2-0 in the second round, which was the winner’s final, and made it to the grand final of the tournament.
In the grand final, Newbee were joined by their opponent from the first round – Vici Gaming. The final match started not in favor of Newbee. The team lost the first map in 20 minutes. But Xiao8 cheered up his team on the second one, which was clear. The following three maps were played in the control of Newbee. As a result. the score was 3-1 and the Aegis of Champions was taken by «the Knights».
This final has become the first and only one in the history of TI where there were two Chinese teams. Besides, this is one of the fastest finals among all The International tournaments. Subsequently, Chinese teams would be able to win the main tournament of the year one more time but it would be later. The teams from the Celestial ruled at The International 4. Stay tuned.
Yuriy Sheremet – Expert in mobile gaming and esports among shooters and MOBA games.
At EGamersWorld, Yuriy, as in 2020 when he joined the portal, works with content, albeit with adjustments to his area of responsibility.