posted by Malystryx.GDS,

The TI4 winners Newbee came out the victors of the WCA, a $470,000 competition that left the players as well as the viewers recovering from bouts of stress, anxiety and frustration. Both Alliance and Cloud9 reached the top3 after "the game that will never end", whilst VG had to settle for fourth place. What are your memories of the WCA?

Newbee, happy as usual post-victory (Replays.net)

It was a strange run to the final for Newbee, who managed to avoid facing any Chinese opposition thanks to iG and VG being drawn against each other in the first round and then Alliance knocking down Vici Gaming in the second round. THe TI4 champions did mix it up over the course of their four encounters, picking up a variety of heroes but Death Prophet remained their favourite with Mu playing the hero in 4 of their 9 matches.

Their opposition clearly knew Newbee's strong points with Bat Rider, Panda Brewmaster and Death Prophet often banned out in the first phase, but with such flexility in terms of their hero pool, it made little difference.

It was a shame that Newbee's performance was overshadowed by the technical issues surrounding the competition but when the games were on and not glitching, the games were good. It was also Cloud9's consecutive 2nd LAN finish in China post-TI4 having also secured a silver medal at WEC last month - not to mention their 1st place at NVIDIA GAME24, meaning they have earned almost $80,000 in prize money over the last four weeks. Meanwhile, Na'Vi had a rough time after being first drawn against

Newbee and then

LGD, losing both and crashing out of the competition without a win.

Final Standings

~$470,000

1st place

Newbee
2nd place

Cloud9
3rd place

Alliance
4th-8th place VG, Na'Vi, LGD, TM, iG

~$325,000
~$89,400
~$40,600
~$3,250

WCA - Bit of more than they could chew

The HyperX girl team (Replays.net)

The competition had its fair share of issues, with Alliance and C9's 100 minute game ultimately declared a draw due to game crashes. Tournament match scheduling was also a shambles, with many matches heavily delayed or forcing the participating teams to play at untimely hours.

The alleged DK showmatch which was supposed to see DK's former line-up return to put on a performance for the fans was cancelled, with a an-all girl team sponsored by HyperX taking to the stage instead. Whether this is actually a disappointment or an improvement is up to personal intepretation.

Even the official English broadcaster BeyondTheSummit were growing increasingly frustrated with the competition and struggled to keep up with the ever-changing match schedule. At one point Bulba and 1437 stepped in to take over one of the match streams.

The WCA was a large-scale event featuring a total of 9 games, including Hearthstone and Warcraft3. However, given the chaos in relation the DOTA2 and HS event, it was perhaps too big of a gamble for them to try to run such a big event straight off.

Signs of life for Alliance

Chessie courtesy of @KellyMilkies

The competition went favourably for the new Alliance line-up who defeated Team Malaysia before going on to take a 2-0 victory against Vici Gaming in the second round. "I'm very proud of my team, that we were able to come here to our first LAN event together with the new lineup and show that we have what it takes to beat anyone," said Loda in his tv6.se blogpost.

"Losing against c9 really sucked, especially after our super long game that kept bugging out and crashing. There was a lot of different talks going on around this game, since admins did not really know what to do, but in the end they wanted us to play a new bo3 vs each other, or trying to finish the 97+ minute game that was crashing. After long talks back and forth both us and C9 wanted to just play a new game."

Heated discussions - courtesy of @KellyMilkies

Alliance's new addition Chessie by this point was struggling with back pain which was becoming increasingly worse as the games dragged on. "I couldn't ask him to play a new bo3 while in pain, it just doesnt work. We approached admins about using a standin even, but in the end Cloud9 agreed to play a bo1, instead of a bo3, if they got first pick." Alliance lost the bo1 but can leave China knowing they are on the path to happier days.

They will attend ESL One New York later this week but without Chessie, who according to Loda will be taking a short break, with the new addition having met with back specialists in Stockholm ahead of the WCA. This means that Alliance will be attending the ESL One this week with a stand-in.

This article was written by

Lawrence Phillips, joinDOTA's Editor-in-Chief.Malystryx has been in eSports since 2004 working as eSports Editor for Razer and Editor-in-Chief of SK Gaming in the past. He misses the days of Warcraft3 but makes do with the world of DOTA 2.Location: Bristol, UKFollow him on @MalystryxGDS.