World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) | DotA2 Grand Finals Results

12 – 15 January 2017 | Changzhou, China

The Bravado Gaming DotA2 squad travelled to China to take part in the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG). This tournament took place between the 12th and 15th of January 2017 and saw 24 teams from around the world compete for a share of the $1 500 000 prize pool. The tournament started off with a Round-Robin styled group stage. The 24 teams were split into four groups of six, where each team played the other five in a Bo2 series format. A 2 – 0 victory earned a team 3 points, while a 1 – 1 draw earned a single point, and a 0 – 2 loss earned no points. The top 3 teams from each group at the end of this stage advanced to the Bo3 Single Elimination Playoffs. Bravado Gaming were seeded in Group A; up against five strong opposition teams from around the world. With the whole country behind the boys from Bravado Gaming, the pressure was on for them to perform. The Bravado Gaming DotA2 squad at WESG consisted of: Donio “Doni” Teixeira, Wesley “Odu” Rose, and Leon “Flarez” Wong, Travis “Castaway” Waters, and Nicholas “Schlinks” Dammert. Both Castaway and Schlinks were on loan to bvd from White Rabbit Gaming.

Bravado Gaming | Group A #DotA2 Results

Group A consisted of Bravado Gaming (South Africa), To.Be.Or.Not.To.Be (China), T Show (Brazil), Horde (Sweden), Team DileCom (Peru), and MVP Revolution (Kyrgyzstan) who played as NoLifer5.Reborn during the regional qualifiers. Each team played a Bo2 series the five other teams in the group; scoring 3 points for a victory, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss.

Bravado Gaming finished in 5th position with the following results:

  • Bravado Gaming 0 – 2 To.be.or.not.to.be
    • Match IDs 2910349739 & 2910406242
  • Bravado Gaming 0 – 2 Team DileCom
    • Match IDs 2910123291 & 2910188355
  • Bravado Gaming 0 – 2 MVP Revolution
    • Match IDs 2910779749 & 2910897119
  • Bravado Gaming 0 – 2 Horde
    • Match IDs 2912102698 & 2912164957
  • Bravado Gaming 2 – 0 T Show
    • Match IDs 2912426934 & 2912545257

We have provided the Match IDs for these matches so that you can download and watch them in the DotA2 client if you would like to watch the replays yourself. For the most part the first two games of Day 1 (against To.be.or.not.to.be and Team DileCom) were the most showing for a variety of reasons. It was clear after these opening four matches that things weren’t working the way Bravado Gaming would have wanted. Whether it was the addition of Schlinks and Castaway to the roster very late in 2017, the loss of Seem and Habibi, the lack of practice together as a team, or a combination of all three isn’t clear. Bravado Gaming just appeared disoriented and unready, and over the first four gruelling matches you could really see the fatigue already start to set in.

The third and final series of the day, against MVP, would turn out to be even more of the same for bvd. In one of these matches in particular, Castaway seemed targeted from minute 1. In addition to mid being shut down, the laning phase just wasn’t working out at all for bvd either with MVP just snowballing through bvd engagement after engagement. After an intense day of DotA, the bvd players must have been emotionally and mentally drained. I honestly expected there to be no fight left in them at the start of Day 2.

But I was pretty wrong about that! Against Horde, with some really big names coming up against them, bvd showed some of the most grit they’d shown us yet. Although outclassed and often outplayed, bvd fought tooth and nail to do everything they could to at least earn a point. With social media back home burning with messages of support, you could see how badly bvd didn’t want to go home with zero points. But the PA/TA crits in Game 1, and the marauding Tiny in Game 2, would hand Bravado Gaming their fourth defeat.

It wasn’t until Bravado Gaming met T Show that South Africans would be rewarded with our first bvd victory of the tournament. For both games bvd managed to get crucial pickups in the form of Castaway’s Invoker, Doni’s Faceless Void, and Flarez on a Sven. The drafts for this game seemed to lean more towards what we all know and expect from Bravado Gaming. As a result bvd finally managed to dominate at WESG, building off a solid early game with their comfort heroes. The first game against T Show was an absolutely flawless display where bvd controlled the game from start to finish. The second was equally as one sided, but with T Show making more than enough errors to help themselves to the series loss.

Bravado Gaming | Some Noteworthy Stats

Bravado Gaming’s tournament, while short lived, provided some interesting insights into some of the strengths and weakness of RSA DotA2. First off, some of the worst performances from Bravado Gaming in China came whenever they tried their hands at the Drow Ranger strat. On both occasions the games went against bvd very very quickly. The stats from these games speak for themselves. Against Team DileCom bvd had a KDA of 10/32/21 (Team KDA Ratio: 0.96875). Against Horde their KDA was considerably worse at 4/30/14 (Team KDA Ratio: 0.6). When Bravado Gaming didn’t go with the Drow strat against these teams, their stats were a little better. Against DileCom their KDA was 18/33/43 (Team KDA Ratio: 1.8484) and against Horde their KDA was 19/40/43 (Team KDA Ratio: 1.55). In both instances where they used the Drow strat, bvd heavily underperformed.

Some other interesting stats go to the preferences bvd have in drafting. Juggernaut, for instance, is pick up by three of the core bvd players, yet none enjoyed any success with this hero. Since patch 7.00 Juggernaut’s build is now considerably different and none of the attempts by bvd to utilize this hero brought these subtle variations to their matches. Flarez favoured Mirana in China, picking her up 3/10 matches. Doni had a fairly varied roster of heroes, only picking up Faceless Void more than once (2/10 matches). Odu went a step better and didn’t pick up a single hero more than once in his ten matches.

Castaway, in particular, suffered greatly in the early matches and performed pretty poorly. Yet, as soon as he was allowed to pick up his Invoker, this changes drastically. Over the entire tournament in China Castaway scores a KDA of 38/58/65 (KDA Ratio: 1.77) but his Invoker scores a KDA of 23/9/31 (KDA Ratio: 6.00) which is considerably higher than his tournament average. Indeed, I’m pretty sure Castaway had one of the best plays of his life with that outrageous triple kill early on in the game against MVP.

The last bvd player at WESG I’d like to mention is Schlinks. With a tournament KDA of 28/52/92 (KDA Ratio: 2.31) Schlinks consistently provided support in even the toughest games bvd played, rotating successfully on multiple occasions. The majority of plays bvd made this tournament, Schlinks seemed to have a heavy hand in their success. And often teamfights that went unbelievably poorly only did so because Schlinks was either picked off early, or not present in the engagement to contribute. In the majority of the bvd games Schlinks has significantly better stats than his teammates.

This is made even more impressive as in many games when you are as far behind as bvd were, supports are usually food. Yet, somehow, Schlinks has the least amount of deaths out of all five bvd players during the WESG tournament. Coupled with his insanely high assist rate, his read of the map and enemy movements in China was just superb. Schlinks played Rubick in 5/10 WESG tournament matches, scoring a KDA of 21/22/40 (KDA Ratio: 2.77) which is well above his tournament average.

Bravado Gaming has certainly done well to get to international tournaments and represent South Africa to the rest of the world. But it’s clear that our teams need considerable more exposure at this level to raise our game even higher. It is also important that not one team, but two to three teams, get resources in place to be able to attend overseas tournaments. Sponsors that want to take their African brands to the global arena can do so with South African MGOs, that much Bravado Gaming has shown. Now that mantle has to pass to other consistent and sustainable South African MGOs.

Oh, in case you didn’t know… TNC Pro Team (Philippines) eventually won WESG. They even knocked out Alliance (Sweden)! TNC Pro Team beat Cloud9 (Denmark) 2 – 1 in the final.

Because, let’s be frank, bvd didn’t absolutely crushed at WESG. And within the space of five series, anyone who watched every match could see the giant strides in confidence, ability, and adaptability. South Africa may not be ready to dominate the world stage, but we clearly have teams that deserve to be there more often.

TL;DR Bravado Gaming place 5th in Group A and are sadly eliminated. Schlinks a dirty Rubick mainer. Icefraud pls nerf Castaway Invoker. TNC Pro Team win WESG, knocking out Alliance and Cloud9.


@SargonDotA2

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Abigail “Tenshimon” Kwan

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Allan “Pariah” Levitt

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