In the three major titles currently at the forefront of competitive gaming -- League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Dota 2 -- the words "North America" can sometimes be seen in a joking context.
Words uttered with futility.
Large clubs, little talent.
During the qualifiers running up to Dota 2's world championship in Seattle, The International, the head coach of two-time Majors champion OG, Sébastien "7ckingMad" Debs, posted out on social media:
"Watching [European qualification] all day and then watching this s***show [NA qualifiers], I can't believe the ratio to qualify is actually highest in this one, its bulls***."
To be fair, from an outsider's perspective, he was correct. North America did look like a mashup of recently shuffled teams, amateur clubs and high-level amateur players banding together for maybe their one shot at making Seattle. In Europe, which had produced every finalist team at a Major this year going into The International with OG, Team Secret, and Team Liquid, the competition seemed fierce to make it through the daunting qualifiers onwards to Seattle. Staples to The International such as Team Empire and Virtus.pro failed to qualify, while intriguing upstarts like Ad Finem from Greece were ousted.
"Feel free to put together another one of your s*** teams and come lose in the NA qualifier next year," responded defending world champion captain Peter "ppd" Dager of Evil Geniuses, never shy about sharing his opinion on matters.
For all the laughter at the expense of North America, ppd and Evil Geniuses were the one bastion of credibility for the North American fans. EG, following the 2014 tournament where it ended up third, ran through the gauntlet of clubs at The International 2015 to hoist the Aegis as a primarily American team in front of the home crowd fans. After watching South Koreans dominate in StarCraft II and League of Legends while the Europeans (and now Brazilians) devoured all the Counter-Strike hardware, the American fans had a team they could fully get behind with the ability to win it all.
This year, especially after those comments for the world to see, ppd could have ended up looking like a fool. Evil Geniuses had won the year prior, but nothing is a sure thing in the world of esports. It's especially the case in the topsy-turvy scene of Dota 2. The squad, which had recently reacquired former players Saahil "Universe" Arora and Ludwig "Zai" Wåhlberg, was forced to work its way through the open qualifiers due to changing the roster after the Manila Major.
The team climbed its way up the rungs of the ladder to eventually qualify for the tournament, but there were still some worries if it could perform. Universe was considered the MVP of the team from last year's run to the Aegis, yet he left the team in the middle of the year to follow fellow team member "Arteezy" Babaev to the Shanghai Major-winning Team Secret, which was putting together an all-star roster. Zai, also a former EG member who left the team to join Team Secret, had been out of professional play for almost a year, having decided to put pro-gaming on hold until he graduated from high school.
Rumors even swirled after Arteezy and Universe's departure that 17-year-old prodigy Syed "Sumail" Hassan and veteran Clinton "Fear" Loomis would also leave the world champion organization; however, those reports never came to fruition and the two stayed on the team. There was upheaval and drama abound for Evil Geniuses, just like a majority of the North American teams across the three major competitive gaming titles.
Yet despite the lukewarm debut of the new starting five at SL i-League StarSeries Season 2 (the team came in a disappointing fifth out of eight teams), Evil Geniuses thus far at The International has looked the part of a defending champion. It did well in the group stages to get second place for an automatic bid into the upper bracket, and the campaign at the main event up to this point has been awe-inspiring.
Newbee was EG's first victim at the KeyArena in Seattle with a convincing sweep, and then the upper bracket semifinal versus EHOME could, and probably will, go down as one of the best series in The International's six-year history. In the first game where it appeared as if Evil Geniuses were done and ready to roll over into game two with as Mega Creeps converged on the squad from all corners of the map, the pride of North America didn't break. The Chinese powerhouse continually attempted to knock down the heart of the EG base, but, again and again, the five Evil Geniuses held strong, playing like a team that had been together the entire year.
One. Two. Three times. On and on EHOME went to knockout the kings, and it broke open the door. EHOME's Wang "Old Chicken" Zhiyong went for a desperate individual backdoor play after all four his teammates were wiped away from the map by EG, but, like all the other attempts, it didn't succeed. As cool, calm, and collected as you like, the winners of last year's International fended off everything thrown at them and stampeded down to the Chinese team's base to take home the victory in one of the most memorable games in Dota 2 history. Seventy-five minutes in game one led to a relatively quick win for EG in game two, with EHOME never finding its bearings again.
"It feels a lot like last year," answered ppd in an interview immediately following the sweep over EHOME. "Two of my teammates left last year, and that sucks, but then we come to TI and I see all these European teams losing, and I find myself against China in the winner bracket. So I'm hoping we'll have something similar to last year, but we'll have to wait in see."
Evil Geniuses has made it to the top three of the last three Internationals.
At those events, EG has played 10 matches -- one against Complexity, a fellow North American organization, and nine against Chinese teams. Each of those tournaments, EG started in the upper bracket and never ran into a European team. Today, its 10th match against a Chinese team will commence, as the team will play the unpredictable and zany Wings Gaming.
You can say ppd's salty or arrogant, but his words have been backed up on the largest stage in competitive gaming. All of the teams based in Europe or from the European qualifiers have been eliminated, meaning 7ckingMad's comments lack merit. Here PPD and Evil Geniuses sit in the upper bracket finals, facing another Chinese team as the crowd chants "USA! USA! USA!" endlessly behind them with Europe mysteriously nowhere to be seen.
Not too bad for a team playing from a joke of a region, right?