The International 2015: review and tournament retrospective
Yuriy SheremetWhy do we like esports? We like it for emotions, speed, and a play. Why do we love Dota 2? Of course, we love it for The International. Everyone who is even indirectly related to Dota has heard about the phenomenon of TI. Yes, the phenomenon. Because The International has grown into something more than just the most prestigious tournament in the year, it is the culmination of esports and an example to be followed. In this series of materials, we will tell you how the championship was changing and we will remind you what was remarkable about it. Let’s go back to The International 2015. Have a nice reading.
Evil Geniuses – the triumphant of the season 2015
Let’s start with probably the main thing. The champions of the tournament are definitely the most memorable moment. The North American team Evil Geniuses achieved victory in 2015. Then, Evil Geniuses were represented by ppd, Aui_2000, UNiVeRsE, SumaiL, Fear. The five headed by Peter «ppd» Dager passed the group stage confidently placing first and made it to the winner’s final without losses. There, they faced CDEC who were little-known at that moment and stepped down to the lower bracket, having lost with a score of 0-2. Despite the sad loss, Evil Geniuses crushed LGD in the loser’s final and entered the main stage of Key-Arena well-prepared.
ECHO SLAMMA JAMMA, Wow-wow-wow what has just happened, IT’S A DISASTAH
All of us remember the one-million Dream Coil. But The International 2015 brought us the six-million Echo Slam. CDEC decided to kill Roshan after the elimination of SumaiL on the 4th map of the grand final. EG, in turn, are ready to fight. Evil Geniuses’ pick includes Ancient Apparition and Earth Shaker. After AA’s accurate Ice Blast, UNiVeRsE with Blink Dagger finished the job. The one-moment kill of four CDEC players brought EG the first place in the championship. And this highlight provided us with one of the most epic phrases: “echo slamma jamma” by the Filipino casters, “wow-wow-wow what has just happened” by V1lat, and “IT’S A DISASTAH” performed by TobiWan. Evil Geniuses had written their name on The Aegis of Champions and UNiVeRsE with his play had written one of the most epic phrases, which Valve added to its compendium later.
The youngest champion in the Dota history
EG’s victory brought not just highlights and epic phrases, it presented the youngest champion of The International in history to the world – SumaiL. Syed raised Aegis over his head when he was 16. By the way, he did it almost during the first year of his professional career. The esports community got to know SumaiL at DAC 2015 where he, being a stand-in, helped EG to win the championship. It is a pretty good start of the career, isn’t it?
CDEC – the dark horse
It is said that those who lost are not remembered. This quote might be useful somewhere but it is not the case of The International 2015. CDEC Gaming has probably become the main breakthrough of the year. The Wildcard format was used at fifth The International. The last slot was up for grabs there. CDEC hitched their wagon the last. The team went to Seattle with their own money, won Wildcard against famous MVP and had won the open qualifiers before that. Sounds good, right? But very few people could predict that they would place second at the tournament of the year.
The team from the Celestial attracted attention to itself in the first matches of the group stage. All talents admitted a very aggressive gaming style, which was very non-typical for Chinese teams in 2015. Agressif deserves special applause. At that moment, the young player was playing brilliantly Phantom Lancer and Gyrocopter. The unusual gaming style with the individual performance allowed the Chinese underdogs to make it to the grand final and create a struggle for the world’s top team. CDEC showed the world that Pudge + Techies was a working strategy.
The kick of the champion
The International 2015 was remembered not only from a positive side. The loudest “upset”, which left after the tournament, was related to EG. A few weeks after the victory at The International, the team’s support Aui_2000 announced on his Twitter that he had been kicked. There was a real drama after that.
The Dota community divided into two camps: the first one supported Aui, the others agreed to the club’s decision. EG’s captain, ppd, add fuel to the scandal. He told pretty negative things about Aui: ppd noticed that he had created problems for the team and had not suited the team in terms of temper. A lot of negative was sent to Peter after such statements and later, he secured the role of a very rough and frequently incorrect player with a huge person’s status. Everything might be okay with PPD’s person’s status because ppd is the world champion after all, and there are very few of them.
Virtus.Pro’s performance and Team Secret’s failure.
2015 can be called the golden year of VP. Yes, they were not the best in the world and did not win every second tournament during the season. But there were very few sad losses. Having played the whole season stably, the team deserved a direct invite to TI 5.
One more very promising team emerged on the esports scene in 2015 – Team Secret. At that moment, the team seemed to be very perspective and it was, actually. The roster was really decent: Arteezy who had left EG to join Secret, Zai, the champion of third The International in the face of s4, the Dota Legends – Puppey and KyroKy. It was a miraculous roster then. But as it often happens, the super-star roster did not achieve greatness.
Virtus.Pro finished the participation in the group, placing 5th, and started their way at the tournament from the lower part of the bracket. Secret held the 2nd place in the group and went to the winner’s bracket. But Secret lost the first match and stepped down to the loser’s bracket where faced VP in two tours. Surprisingly for everyone, Fng and the company managed to defeat the strong opponent, which marked the end of this roster of Secret and showed the best result of the organization at TI at the same time.
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.