Digital Chaos and the wings gaming. One will be the greatest team in the world, and one will be second place. DC’s firecracker run through the Loser’s Bracket put any doubt about their caliber to bed, but they were still coming into this Grand Finals as the underdog to wings, who absolutely destroyed the Winner’s Bracket, even going so far as to draft a Pudge-Techies duo at one point. It was a grand old series of top quality Dota, and a fitting cap to one of the greatest esports tournaments of all time.
Game one saw Moo on his signature Timbersaw and Resolut1on play a great Faceless Void, but the real success was a last-pick Skywrath Mage for w33 to take mid, and he dominated bLink’s Storm Spirit. To combat Resolut1on’s Chronosphere lockdown, iceice played Pudge, but he never got a lot of kills going for his team and struggled to make any great saves. shadow played a carry Silencer, but he and Faith_bian’s Slardar were trampled by the unusual five-man combination from DC. wings had to call “GG” at 33 minutes and 27-15.
The second game was a tightly fought match between Resolut1on’s Razor and shadow’s Faceless Void. Both teams wanted to get up in each others’ faces, with Moo and w33 on Doom and Mirana and Faith_bian and bLink as Slardar and Invoker. Even with all of that skirmish and pickoff potential, the final score was a rather low 27-15 through the 40 minutes. DC struggled with controlling shadow during the Chronosphere, and that opened up the team fights for wings to divide and conquer. With the series tied 1-1, the next game would decide who took the first meaningful advantage and forced the elimination match.
Game three had w33 back on Mirana and Moo with his Timbersaw, but even with Resolut1on’s Clinkz pouring out the damage, wings had too much team fight and pushing presence courtesy of shadow’s reprised Faceless Void and bLink’s Death Prophet. Faith_bian in particular had the game of his life on Nyx Assassin, constantly outplaying and out-thinking the DC side, anticipating their movements and warding patterns and staying a move ahead the whole way. w33, Moo, and MISERY on Sand King were nothing but food for wings, each having twelve deaths. DC were forced to concede after 45 minutes at 49-24. Going to 2-1 in the series meant that DC had to win every game remaining, while wings only had to win one.
MISERY picked Mirana, Slark, and Timbersaw for his cores, looking to find a much needed victory through comfort picks that w33, Resolut1on, and Moo have shown they can dominate with. That game plan fell by the wayside as w33 played Slark in the mid-lane and Resolut1on took Mirana to the off-lane. wings took Anti-Mage for shadow and rotated Faith_bian into mid as Axe, punishing w33’s greed with an early solo kill. bLink played Batrider in the safe-lane so that shadow could face up against Moo, a pairing that favours the Anti-Mage quite heavily. Moo handled it very well, keeping himself alive and finding a surprising amount of farm, but was unable to contest shadow’s acceleration. Through a mid-game that went DC’s way, they never quite managed to crack the high ground of wings, and once shadow hit his power window there wasn’t much that DC could do to stop the snowball that was kicked off with a bad Roshan fight at around twenty eight minutes. Perhaps desperate to make the kind of miraculous play that some now expect from him, w33 took his Slark for a walkabout in the Secret Shop of wings, looking for a pickoff that could keep them on the back foot. Instead, after scouting that there was four wings players and not just the one he wanted, w33 went in anyways, was easily controlled up, and punished for his hubris by wings, who took the opportunity to group up behind shadow and take out four towers and four barracks in the bottom and middle lane. DC threw body after body at the Chinese team of previously unknown players, grasping at the straws of holding out one last time. wings stayed disciplined and resolute, and won the game, the series, and The International 6 in the 39th minute, final score 30-27.
And so it goes. Digital Chaos went from the rejected scraps who formed a team more out of panic than preference to finish as the second best team in the world. Hopefully, they’ll stay together in the coming year and push on for another chance at it in TI7. the wings gaming, a team that was virtually unheard of outside of China, who entered the tournament through the Open Qualifiers and crumbled during the group stage, who attended The International 4 as spectators, who saw the incredible Team DK play from inside the booth and witnessed Newbee secure victory for Chinese Dota, and who said to themselves, “I want that”, emerged victorious after two years of grinding and struggling and bleeding for it. This has been a tournament of upsets and fairytales. the wings gaming proved that it doesn’t matter how long someone has been competing, it doesn’t matter which team won what through out the year, it doesn’t matter what all of the logic, the analytics, and the experts say. Anyone can find the passion and the fire and the drive, and can one day stand on a stage, in front of millions of fans all around the world, after winning a life-changing amount of money, and lift the Aegis of Champions as the greatest Dota team in the world.
This article was written by a past writer, Daniel Giroday.
