Dota 2: The Results of Manila

While everyone has been desperately waiting for the third and final Human Resource Machine article, I must confess it will not be forthcoming today. The reason, as one might have predicted by following these video game articles regularly, was the Dota 2 Manila Major. This was the third Major, a premier event created by Valve after last year's International, and it was a twelve hour affair from Tuesday to Saturday.

But it really began on June 3^rd (or all the way back on April 29^th, if you want to be a stickler). The third of June was the day the Group Stage began. In this part of the event, the sixteen teams were divided into groups of four. In these groups of four, 1 would play 2, while 3 would play 4 (Note: All match-ups, unless otherwise specified are best of three). Then the winners would play each other, while the losers did the same. A final fifth series would be between the loser of the winners and the winner of the losers (follow me?). The two teams with the best results advanced to the upper bracket in the Main Event, and the other two will be in the lower bracket. (In the upper bracket, a loss in a series sends the team down to the lower bracket. A loss in the lower bracket knocks a team out).

Interestingly, in each group of four, two teams do not play each other; the one that wins its first two games, and the one that loses its first two. It seems unreasonable that placement of a team into the Main Event bracket was determine by its record against only two of the sixteen teams at the event. This was entirely unlike the International 5, where two groups of eight played everyone in their group.

The creation of the groups is also something of a mystery. One assumes that the goal of Valve is to create, not group parity, but groups each of disparity. Each group would contain a top four team, a five to eight team, a nine to twelve team, and a thirteen to sixteen team. If this was Valve's intent, they failed.

Shortly before the event, ESPN released its power rankings for the sixteen teams. Judging Dota teams is notoriously difficult, much more difficult than professional sports because both the teams and the game changes so often it is difficult to assess any organization's continuing skill. As on every per-competition appraisal, it was possible to discover some truth in the evaluations, but also bogus analysis mixed in.

As an owner of a Compendium (an electronic program for the Spring and Summer season) I had to make some predictions about the Teams at Manila, most crucially, which team would win. It's not easy to pick one out of sixteen, unless you're a delusional fan of one team or another, especially when the the top eight all have a reasonable chance of victory.

Eventually I settled on Team Liquid: based on their previous performances and the stability of their roster, while placings some lesser bets on OG. I never made a complete sixteen team power ranking, like ESPN, but I did hastily sketch out a group prediction. Now, because of the results of the actual groups, you don't have to believe that I produced this in advance. I have no method by which to prove I predicted these, but I did write them in a notebook before the event began.

Here are the results:

	Groups
Rank		A	B	C	D
	Upper	Newbee	Natus Vincere	Team Liquid	LGD
		OG	Digital Chaos	Fnatic	MVP Phoenix
	Lower	Team Empire	Wings Gaming	Alliance	Evil Geniuses
		Complexity	Team Secret	Vici Gaming Reborn	Mineski

And here are my predictions:

	Groups
Rank		A	B	C	D
	Upper	OG	Natus Vincere	Team Liquid	MVP Phoenix
		Newbee	Digital Chaos	Alliance	Evil Geniuses
	Lower	Team Empire	Wings Gaming	Vici Gaming Reborn	LGD
		Complexity	Team Secret	Fnatic	Mineski

With luck, I predicted six of the eight teams going into the upper bracket, but this doesn't tell the whole story.

For that we need the Main Event Bracket:

 

OG came out on top, the first organization to win two Majors, even though there'd only been three. They are a strong team that embraces stability: a very underrated attribute prior to the Major. Yet, the trophy could have easily fallen into the hands of two other teams: Newbee and Liquid. All were in the top three at Epicenter (a recent, smaller, competition), each had a great record at Manila (OG 13-5, Liquid 15-8, NB 10-5), and of those loses four of each came from each other. Earlier in the group stage, Newbee had even beaten OG in a best of three, though the result was then reversed in the Main Event.

Going into Manila all three would have qualified as strong picks for the championship, and since the roster lock is in place, and there won't be a major patch between now and the International, these three are likely to dominate the summer season.

Speaking of the roster lock, it used to be that after every major tournament, or perhaps at any moment, teams would disintegrate and reform. With the new Major system, Valve has introduced a roster lock, whereby for a season, teams must register and are not allowed to change their roster. For Dota tournaments there are three parts; the Main Event. Normally each has sixteen teams, eight of whom are invited, but the other eight must qualify. Before the Main Event is the Regional Qualifiers, where teams from the four regions (Americas, Europa/Russia, China, The Rest of Asia) contend against other teams in their region to go the Main Event. Some teams are invited to the Regionals, but others must go through the Open Qualifier. The Open Qualifier allows up to one thousand teams (for each region) to compete in single elimination matches, all hoping to make it to the Regionals.

Breaking the roster lock means that a team must go through the Open Qualifiers, where in a best of one, anything could (but probably won't) happen.

Valve instituted an extended lock for the combined Spring and Summer season, meaning that teams had to decide on their players for the entirety of April through September. And two teams decided to void their warranty after their performance at Manila. Both Secret and EG decided their poor play would destroy their chances to win the International, and they were probably right. Now they will venture through the Open Qualifiers with the threat of single elimination hovering over them.

How many teams will bend after Manila, and how many will break?

Two last thoughts. After the group stage, both Navi and DC looked strong; Navi having lost none of its four games, and DC entering the upper bracket. This was later proved to be a fault of the group stage format. While Navi claimed an eighth place finish, both of them failed to prove anything, with Navi going 2- 5 after the group stage, and DC losing four of its next six games before being forced out. Judging by the outcome of the Main Event, group B was significantly weaker than the other three, achieving a dismal 4 – 11 record in the Main Event.

Yet, DC still outperformed expectations, simply by making it to the upper bracket and taking a game from Newbee. As the best performing team from the Americas they could conceivably receive a direct invite to Seattle (the location of the International), and if not, they will definitely be favorites in the American Qualifiers. The two other teams to outperform expectations were Fnatic and LGD, who earned fifth and fourth place respectively. It could be because they played poorly at the Shangahi Major, but few expected them to do so well. Undoubtedly, the fact that LGD changed three of its players had something to do with it. In two months at the International they could threaten Europe's dominance of Dota.

So look for another article about the International near the end of August.

Human Resource Machine will finish next Monday.