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What's the Strongest Dota 2 Region at TI12?
The International 12 is over and Team Spirit has been crowned the champions. It is the second time their players have lifted the Aegis, a record achievement matched only by OG Esports.
Team Spirit's victory raises an important question, is Eastern Europe the strongest region? How does it compare to China and Western Europe?
In this article, we will rank the Strongest Dota 2 region, based on the overall performance of each team from the area.
Ranking Methodology for Strongest Dota 2 Region at TI12
In this article, we will compare the average placement of each region at TI12 and see which one is ahead in the meta and which regions are lagging.
It's important to note that Dota 2 tournaments can have several teams finish in the same placement.
Teams that are eliminated in the quarterfinals have a 5th-6th placement. For this article, teams in such situations will have the same average placement for all of them.
In the previously mentioned case, BetBoom Team and Team Liquid finished in the 5th-6th spot and both will use placement of 5.5 for calculations.
With all that out of the way, here's how we ranked each region's performance, going from the worst to the best:
6. South America
Credits: Valve
Team Placements: Thunder Awaken (17-20), Beastcoast (17-20), Evil Geniuses (13-16), Keyd Stars (13-16)
There's no way to sugarcoat it, South America underperformed at TI this year and by quite a lot.
Beastcoast and Evil Geniuses have attended every Major this year and while they have been inconsistent, they did manage to secure top six in Lima and fourth place in Berlin for EG, while Beastcoast placed top eight in Bali.
Both teams were expected to at least make it to the playoffs, yet Beastcoast got eliminated in the group stage and EG lost in their first round of the lower bracket.
Overall it was a disappointing result for the region, and it is not all that surprising that teams are making big roster changes.
Keyd Stars did quite well for themselves, despite being in a dangerous group, they survived and put up a decent show in the playoffs. Overall they had the best performance from the region, even though they are an open qualifier team.
5. Southeast Asia
Team Placements: Team SMG (17-20), Talon Esports (9-12)
Another region that has regularly underperformed this year (and frankly, most years) is Southeast Asia.
The region is highly competitive during the DPC Tours, which means that different teams from the region would qualify for each Major. This led to DPC points being too spread out and only Talon earning a direct invite to TI12.
Outside of the region though, SEA teams rarely shine and we saw that with SMG. They went 2-6 in the group stage and lost their tiebreaker against EG, sending them home.
Talon Esports has been the bright spot for SEA this year. They were third at both Lima and Riyadh Masters 2023, so there was a lot of hope for Talon to carry the region.
Unfortunately, 9-12th wasn't the best result, especially when Talon had game two against BetBoom in the bag and threw it all away.
A disappointing result for SEA, but hey there's always next year right?
4. North America
Team Placements: Shopify Rebellion (13-16), TSM (9-12), Nouns (7-8)
Turns out 2023 is not Artour "Arteezy" Babaev's year. Neither was 2022, 2021, 2020...
Shopify Rebellion entered the tournament as the best team from North America, but over the years people have learned to temper their expectations of the lineup and TI12 was no different.
Losing the first round of the lower bracket sent Shopify home, disappointing but not completely unexpected.
The surprises came from TSM and Nouns, who managed to go quite a bit further, especially Nouns who took down Tundra Esports to start in the Upper Bracket.
One thing that helped and hurt NA is that the region ended up cannibalizing itself. TSM sent Shopify home and Nouns eliminated TSM in return.
The last hope for NA was eliminated by Gaimin Gladiators and the region averaged a placement of 11, a big jump from SEA and SA.
3. Western Europe
Team Placements: PSG.Quest (17-20), Tundra Esports (13-16), Entity (9-12), Team Liquid (5-6), Gaimin Gladiators (2nd)
After several tournaments that saw WEU as the strongest Dota 2 region, it's a surprise to see them "only" take third place, in terms of region ranking, at TI12.
The first shock was seeing PSG.Quest eliminated at the group stage. Quest placed fourth in Bali and looked very dominant in the open qualifier, but a 2-6 score was not enough to advance.
After that Tundra got relegated to the lower bracket by Nouns and eliminated by Entity, two unexpected results for the TI11 champions.
Entity had a 9-12 placement finish, which was expected of them. Team Liquid ended their curse of taking second place by getting eliminated in the top six. They missed their former curse at that point.
Gaimin Gladiators entered the tournament as one of the heavy favorites and they did not disappoint. The team crawled through six rounds of the lower bracket to get second place against Team Spirit. They had a phenomenal 12-1 score before the grand finals.
Western Europe had an overall strong showing, though slightly held back by the early eliminations of two teams.
2. Eastern Europe
Team Placements: 9Pandas (9-12), Virtus.Pro (7-8), BetBoom Team (5-6), Team Spirit (1st)
Despite winning the Aegis, Eastern Europe comes second in terms of regional ranking, with an average team placement of sixth place.
Team Spirit peaked at just the right time of the year, winning Riyadh Masters and TI12 back-to-back. Since July, Spirit has almost $7 million in prize winnings.
BetBoom Team has been a wildcard in the tournaments they attended. Made up of some of the best players from the region, BetBoom puts up lackluster performances in general.
TI12 was different though, as BetBoom made a deep run in the lower bracket and eliminated Keyd Stars and Talon, the two best teams from their regions.
If there's one team that didn't live up to the hype it's 9Pandas, who struggled in the group stage then went 0-4 in the playoffs. To be fair they lost to LGD and Gaimin, but it's still an underwhelming result.
Overall, EEU had a great showing and took the Aegis home, only one region had a better performance and it's...
1. China
Team Placements: Azure Ray (4th), LGD Gaming (3rd)
The year did not start well for the Chinese Dota 2 scene. The region bombed out of the Lima Major and then had a huge part of the competitive scene suspended or banned.
LGD has been a powerhouse in the past but this year they looked shaky, only making it to the top eight in one tournament, the Bali Major.
A third-place finish for LGD was an extraordinary result, and it is the sixth time the organization has made it to the top three at The International.
LGD's success is no surprise, but Azure Ray came out of nowhere to take the tournament by storm.
Created a mere five months before the tournament and made up of players who have been inactive competitively, Azure Ray's fourth-place finish might be the most surprising result of the tournament.
TI12 was full of surprises and incredible comebacks. Here's hoping 2024 brings even more Dota 2 action.
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Image Source Provided by: Valve
