Wings Gaming Take Top $9 Million Prize at Dota 2's The International 2016

Wings Gaming is your new Dota 2 champion. The young Chinese squad posted an astoundingly strong performance during The International 2016, working its way through the winners bracket in impressive fashion and defeating Digital Chaos 3-1 in the grand finals. 

The series featured some back-and-forth action but was both defined and won by Wings' amazing, mechanical teamwork.

DC dominated the first game, repeatedly ganking Zhou "bLink" Yang and preventing Wings from getting their economy going. That opened the door for Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok's Faceless Void to take over fights, set up massive burst damage for his teammates and overwhelm Wings' base. 

Game 2 was considerably more competitive, as Wings and DC were neck-and-neck in terms of net worth, experience and kills through 27 minutes of play. Eventually, a successful Wings gank was turned into a Roshan kill, which gave Wings a modest lead. That seemingly put DC into desperation mode, as they dropped consecutive fights in the pit, catapulting Wings toward a win.

The third saw Wings take complete control. Wings' damage output had a fragile, Clinkz-led DC lineup reeling right from the start, and the Chinese squad snowballed from there, sieging towers down at will while manufacturing pickoffs with Zhang "Faith_bian" Ruida's Nyx Assassin. While DC did well dragging the game out, Wings was never really in a disadvantageous position, not even ceding a Tier 2 tower. 

Both teams posted incredibly exciting performances in the fourth game, with Wings pressing the action early and DC overcoming and taking over the mid-game. Wings' amazing teamwork shined brightly late in the game, however, as they exploited over-aggressive play from Aliwi "w33" Omar and quickly overran their ancient to seal the series.

It was a sad end for DC—which entered TI6 as bottom-tier underdogs but jelled on the fly into one of the most formidable teams in the world—but an astounding beginning to Wings' days as an elite Dota 2 squadron.

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Dota 2 eSports prize pool eclipses $20 millionhttps://t.co/CftqESKblC via @GIBiz pic.twitter.com/oPrKZ2uMqb

— Mikael (@mikaelbertheau) August 9, 2016"

Prize Pool and Payouts

The TI6 Battle Pass proved to be as lucrative as ever for Valve...oh, and for the players, too. When all was said and done, the prize pool settled in at a whopping $20,770,460. A breakdown of the payouts for each team can be found in the table below.

Place	Team(s)	Payout
1	Wings Gaming	$9,139,002
2	Digital Chaos	$3,427,126
3	Evil Geniuses	$2,180,898
4	Fnatic	$1,453,932
5-6	EHOME, MVP Phoenix	$934,671
7-8	TNC Gaming, Team Liquid	$519,262
9-12	OG, LGD Gaming, Alliance, Newbee	$311,557
13-16	Vici Gaming Reborn, Team Secret, Escape Gaming, Natus Vincere	$103,852

While by no means official (coaches, substitutes and some teams all get a say in the payout distribution), a straight five-way division of each team's payouts yields just under $1.83 million each for Wings, roughly $685,000 for DC and just over $436,000 for Evil Geniuses.

From a historical standpoint, TI6 beat out TI5's record for largest prize pool in an eSports event ($18.4 million). As for the players, according to eSportsEarnings.com, the Wings Gaming crew jumps right into the thick of the highest earners in eSports history, with each member settling into No. 4 through No. 10 spots.

They find themselves behind Evil Geniuses' TI5-winning team strictly due to their past success and could easily step over them by year's end with a few more wins.

Chinese Dota Defies Expectations

From 2011 through 2014, Chinese Dota 2 was largely diminished by fans. Teams like Invictus Gaming, LGD Gaming and Team DK were "too safe," "too defensive," "too four-protect-one." They were looked at as the boring alternative to Western teams and were pointed to as proof that League of Legends was the more exciting and, therefore, superior title for spectators. 

It wasn't true, of course. There were plenty of thrills to be found in Chinese Dota with players like Luo "Ferrari_430" Feichi and Zhang "Mu" Pan and there was no shortage of low-risk teams in the West (including TI3 champions Alliance). That sweeping perception, though, was far easier to digest than the nuanced reality.

At TI6, though, the Chinese teams proved to be every bit as exciting as their European and North American counterparts. 

Wings Gaming was the boldest, most versatile team at TI6, picking fan-favorite characters like Techies and Pudge and playing with a fast-paced, smashmouth style that no opposition could withstand. EHOME delivered one of the most exciting games in tournament history opposite Evil Geniuses in Round 2 of the upper bracket. Newbee, arguably, was the most consistently entertaining team in the tournament. 

Will Chinese Dota start getting the respect it deserves? That's anyone's guess. But there's no question that China's top players deliver everything a fan could want. 

Roster Changes Incoming

In its own right, TI6 was downright amazing. The action was intense, the storylines were compelling and the drama was high. Unfortunately, while The International is always fun, it is always followed by ugliness. With so many star-studded underachieving teams and so many players from smaller groups posting amazing performances, major shakeups are likely across the board.

Team Secret, which has been constantly retooling its roster since a disappointing performance at TI5, could disband following a last-place finish. The same goes for fellow last-place finishers Natus Vincere, who purged last year's team after a similarly underwhelming showing. Finally, Alliance has been struggling for years to emulate the success they found at TI3 and could benefit from a shakeup.

Teams will be working around a new, Valve-implemented roster program that forces teams into defined "drop" and "add" periods, which could increase some players' job security. Still, the competitive Dota scene will look very different in a few months. That's kind of sad, considering how great TI6 was.

Production Proves to Be Excellent...Mostly

A whole lot of effort goes into an event like TI6, and for the most part, Valve did an amazing job of making the tournament feel like a genuine extravaganza. From the coverage of the group stages to Lindsey Stirling lighting a violin on fire (figuratively) in the opening ceremony to the amazing promo packages for each player during the main event, it was home run after home run. 

But while it was generally excellent, there were a few cringe-worthy misses. The all-star game suffered from an incredibly long introduction as sideline reporters Jake "SirActionSlacks" Kanner and Kaci Aitchison took what felt like an eternity to pull fans out of the crowd to play alongside the pros.

The cosplay contest felt rushed and lacked the grandiosity of what was seen at the Manila Major. A number of other wacky sketches fell flat as a board.

That isn't to say that TI6 should have been a stuffy, serious affair. Segments with the more colorful fans added to the experience and the puppet panels were beyond fun. That said, a little less emphasis on how wacky the broadcast team can get would go a long way.

Credit: Valve Software

Greatest eSports Tournament Ever?

With that macabre look into the future and that minor gripe aside, these were 11 genuinely amazing days.

With very little hesitation, this writer is willing to label TI6 as the greatest single eSports tournament of all time. From the very beginning to the very end, it delivered more heart-fluttering moments and more shocking twists than any other event in recent memory.

There were inspirational stories like that of Digital Chaos, a group of rejects from other pro teams that came together in 48 hours to become one of the greatest crews in the game. There were crushing disappointments, like seeing Team Liquid's Kuro "KuroKy" Salehi Takhasomi send his former team, Natus Vincere, home on the first day.

There were even moments of genuine shock, like when Evil Geniuses overcame EHOME's mega creeps to take the win in a 75-minute game.

TI6 did something that few other tournaments have done. It consistently evoked emotion from viewers.

Every player was a star. Every team was a contender. Every game was the Super Bowl. 

That's special. Everyone involved deserves credit for making TI6 such a treat. From the production crew that highlighted the stories of each player, to the competitors who thrived under that pressure to the broadcasters who put in some strong work. 

It's been fun beyond words. Now when's TI7?