If the G-1 League was a small skirmish of teams recovering from the International, then the G-League prelims are rumours of war, war on a scale we have not yet seen. China's Dota monarchs will soon meet their challengers in the kingdom's most prestigious Esports competition, a championship that has just transitioned into Dota 2. While most of the groups at these preliminaries turned out more or less as expected, we still got a small taste of what's in store for us when the tournament proper gets under way.

Group A:

VG 2:0 NA

VG crushed NA in this series. The first game was a fairly one-sided affair as the NS - QoP combo played by a pair of the best individual players in China annihilated NA. NA appears to be on its last legs after its poor results in the previous ACE league, failures in G-1, and an inability to transition effectively to Dota 2. The team also recently lost it's sponsor. The second game featured a very shaken NA in a desperate struggle, running Weaver mid and using a Juggernaut against a very standard lineup from VG. Needless to say, it did not end well.

Group B&C

For Love 2:1 Invasion.int
TongFu 2:1 Natural9

Both series were somewhat unimpressive, with a pair of now middling Chinese teams facing foreign foes. In both cases, reasonably convincing first game victories on the part of the Chinese were reversed easily in game two.

The third game of FL vs Invasion.int involved FL drafting the "facerush" lineup of NS, BH, and Sven and rolling over their opponents in a rather humdrum fashion. On the other hand, TongFu vs N9 developed into an hour-long slugfest between a pair of teamfight-oriented lineups anchored by Naix and Syllabear, respectively. The game was reasonably exciting and was continuously back and forth until TongFu found a series of good team fights which they then developed into a lead, and then a win.

Group D

LGD walked over Mineski due to scheduling problems and miscommunication.

Group E

MUFC 2:1 Orange

This series between two longtime rivals of the SEA scene gave us perhaps the best games of the G-League preliminaries so far. We saw yet another round of the familiar clash, albeit with unfamiliar results.

The first game featured an Orange Naga Engima combo thwarted by the unorthodox push lineup of Nyx - DP. Helped along by thethe teamfight staples of Magnus and Undying, the Nyx fulfilled a small part of Puppey's TI2 vision of him as a counter to Kotl, and MUFC rolled through game. A decent early game for Orange turned sour when they misplayed a teamfight in the mid game, leading to a breached base and an insurmountable advantage for MUFC.

The second game saw a 4-1 lineup reminiscent of the Chinese foes Orange had just campaigned of, with Mushi on the Faceless Void backed up by some fantastic QoP and Magnus play. MUFC's NS, CK, Clinkz, a variation of the facerush lineup, obtained a huge early game advantage, but a crucial teamfight and a farmed Void suddenly ended the fun for them. Orange won.

In Game 3, Orange surprisingly attempted something that they themselves had been soundly defeated with. An Axe mid sounded good when combined with the Void that had just been successful, but an early game smoke FB for TA allowed her to get a quick bottle, completely and utterly nullifying the lead that the Axe might have had. Gaining a significant advantage via a strong midgame lineup of TA, Panda, and Potm, with a Nyx once against proving surprisingly effective, MUFC rolled over Orange and earned their chance to challenge the Chinese Dota machine on LAN.

Group F

Though LGD.int is perhaps the biggest draw of the qualifiers, their entry into the scene after months of practice was against the Chinese team LW, a virtually unknown team who've somehow found themselves onto the SMM roster. Our very own shostakovich talks more about the debut of most anticipated team in Asia.

Who in the world is VG?!

People have always talked about how strong Chinese DotA is overall, or how "tryhard" the Asian ladder is, but have you ever wondered what would happen if you randomly took a bunch of high level Chinese pubs, threw them into a team, and then waited for them to pwn face?

Well, it turns out that if you do that, VG happens. Starring VG.Cty, a player who was able to best 430 in a recent solo mid competition, the team is composed of 5 of the strongest players from the Chinese Ladder. Debuting by absolutely crushing an established team and looking every bit as strong as the LGD.int team in their breakthrough performance, here's a chance to learn a bit more about these guys.

Looking Forward

Drawing for the G-League groups took place at the very end of qualifiers. Incumbent teams iG and DK were seeded at the top of two groups, and DK was drawn to be top of Group A. The six qualifiers were then drawn randomly into the six remaining slots. Group play is in round robin best-of-three format, and the group stage will run from Dec. 24th onwards. And yes, there will be an English stream, so stay tuned!

Ancient Chinese mythology teaches that only he who possesses the celestial way (Tian Dao, 天道) deserves to be called a Son of Heaven (Tian zi, 天子), the one who brings celestial order (Tian Dao, 天道) to the world under heaven (Tian Xia, 天下). The Son of Heaven mimics the sun's movement and travels to the four corners of the empire, receiving recognition from the people, thus establishing the center of the empire. As such, he deserves to be called King (Wang, 王) because he possess the royal way (Wang Dao, 王道), being The Man through which Heaven, Humanity and Earth can communicate.

In the spirit of this epic journey, LGD.int starts their run to the top of the realm of Dota 2. With Pajkatt, MiSeRy, Brax, God and 1437, LGD.int has a powerful lineup. In fact, the first reaction from fans was to say that LGD.int lacked support players, since all of them but 1437 are known to play either carry or solo mid. Depending on the heroes fielded, we can expect to see God, Brax and MiSeRy often swapping positions.



The way LGD.int distribute roles will decide how we project their future. Pajkatt is likely LGD.int's hard carry, and this in game he plays a Luna. Brax plays the solo mid, G plays Dark Seer on the hard lane; MiSeRy is jungles offensively with Enchantress and 1437 plays Rubick. LGD.int runs an aggressive trilane against the LW trilane on the bottom lane, creep-skipping with Dark Seer and quickly taking a lead. This lead only gets bigger as LGD.int continues to get kills and destroy towers, and they eventually take Game 1 with ease. Of course, at one point the game takes a turn for the weird when, after a successful gank on the top lane, the entire LGD.int team drops from the game and are teamwiped in the process.



LGD.int swap some player roles for game 2: Pajkatt is still the main carry, MiSeRy and 1437 are still the support crew, but God and Brax have been swapped. Now Brax is soloing the hard lane with Clockwerk and God is soloing mid with Templar Assassin. While they don't get an early kill lead, LGD.int wins mid and bottom, getting a lot of farm on Chen, Templar Assassin and Luna. While the LW Nature's Prophet uses his treants very effectively to scout possible ganks and deny runes, LGD.int continually dive for their kills. As towers start to fall, the lead increases. While LW wins a big fight in the top lane, LGD.int pushes the LW base, destroying the tier three tower and threatening the barracks.

On the back of a very farmed Luna, LGD.int uses Clockwerk's immense initiation range to find ganks and bring about 5v4s, forcing numerous buybacks from LW. In the end, LGD.int claim the barracks on the bottom lane and get themselves a lead that they never concede again.