The U.S. team Evil Geniuses won on Dota 2‘s biggest stage last night, earning a $US6.6 million prize and becoming the first American squad to win the International tournament.
Evil Geniuses defeated the Chinese team CDEC, generally considered to be an underdog, 3-1 in the best-of-five Grand Finals late Saturday night, capping off a week of non-stop Dota 2. The prize pool for this year’s International, hosted by Valve at the KeyArena Center in Seattle, was a whopping $US18 million. CDEC took home $US2.8 million.
All five players who competed for Evil Geniuses — FeaR, ppd, Aui, Sumail, and Universe — are now millionaires. Sumail’s story is particularly fascinating — the 16-year-old Pakistani says that when he was growing up, he sold his bike so he could play more Dota. Now he’s the youngest millionaire in eSports.
You can watch the entirety of the Grand Finals here:
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13 responses to “American Team Wins Dota 2 International, Takes Home $6.6 Million”
And what a match it was
I don’t really follow the international, but even my twitter feed imploded with the epicness.
Aside: I still don’t know how the match actually went down (beside the winner, obviously)
1 game each way then EG slogged it out for 2 more. The last two games were real power struggles, lasting almost and hour each, which isn’t all that common in pro matches at that level, especially in a row
Crazy!!
Such a great tournament.
Upsets, underdogs, close games, amazing plays, impossible comebacks and non stop action.
MUCH better than TI4.
Given that the first EG-CDEC match lasted basically as long as all of the Newbee-VG games combined…. yeah.
CDEC weren’t “generally considered the underdogs” they were the biggest underdog story of the International so far. Coming second in the Chinese qualifiers, CDEC made it to the main event by winning a wild card slot. After an okay showing at the group stage (including an 0-2 loss to EG) they tore through the winner’s bracket and in their rematch with EG in the winner’s bracket finals, they won 2-0.
EG then had to beat LGD, a top tanked Chinese team that poached CDEC’s top player back when CDEC was LGD.CDEC, LGD’s b-team.
This is the first time an American team has won The International. This is the first time a wild card team has made it to the finals. It might even be the first time a wild card team has made it to the top 8 (both wild card teams managed that feat this year).
It was a truly fantastic tournament. Anyone with even the slightest bit of interest should track down the replays and watch. I recommend pretty much any CDEC, EG or Vici Gaming match.
Did I read somewhere else that Sumail is now considered to be the youngest self-made millionaire in the world because of this?
Wow, that’s a heap of money, I wonder if it’s too late for me to take up e-sports as a profession?
Fantastic end to arguably the best International so far.
I still can’t believe that Techies was the #1 pick/ban in a TI final.
Meanwhile in LoL, we’re just wondering which Korean team is going to win it this year, or whether there’s going to be an upset and a Chinese team takes it. Even the European and American teams are filled with Korean imports.
With that much money, they should be able to BUY a life now. Good job 😉