Bleacher Report Dota 2 Awards: 2016's Best Team, Player, Play and Tournament

2017 is in full swing, but it's still worth taking a look back on Dota 2 in 2016.

It was a critical year for the game. The tournaments were as grandiose as ever and Valve-sanctioned "Major" events became the centerpiece of the competitive scene, with the Shanghai, Manila and Boston Majors all delivering the goods. More skilled players entered the pro scene, making the talent pool significantly bigger than it was this time last year.

And naturally, there was plenty of entertainment to be had. 

But what was the best of 2016? Bleacher Report's Steven Rondina is here to sort through all of the action this year and pick out the winners for the first-ever Dota 2 Awards.

Tournament of the Year: The International 6

Daniel Najarian, @missing_data

It might seem like a cop-out to pick the biggest, most glamorous, most lucrative tournament of the year to be the 2016 tournament of the year, but it's impossible to pick anything else. Everything at The International 6 was perfect. 

Going into the tournament, just about everything lined up perfectly. The controversial roster rules that sent Evil Geniuses and Team Secret into the open qualifiers didn't result in any serious casualties, and it yielded a compelling field of teams for the tournament. The storylines were rich, with deep-seated rivalries and sudden roster changes adding a personal element to the business of an event with a $20 million prize pool.

The games themselves offered anything a fan could want. Exciting, competitive matchups were the norm, and the meta accommodated various play styles and an absurdly large pool of heroes.

The presentation was phenomenal, as PGL did an excellent job of making the event look and feel amazing. The commentators, analysts and casters fired on all cylinders and delivered plenty of memorable calls while keeping the show feeling lighthearted and fun. And of course, the results were defined by gargantuan upsets to favorites Team Liquid and OG, Cinderella runs from Fnatic and Digital Chaos, and an all-time great performance from eventual champions Wings Gaming.

TI6 was a perfect storm of greatness at every level, and Dota 2 fans will be lucky to get another tournament that even compares.

Game of the Year: EG vs. EHOME Game 1, TI6 Upper Bracket Round 2

No professional game of Dota 2 has ever had so many "yup, it's all over now" moments as the upper bracket Game 1 between Evil Geniuses and EHOME at TI6. The swings in momentum were so hard and frequent that, even watching highlights five months later, it's easy to forget who came out on top.

A series of well-executed rotations saw EHOME score an early kill lead and turn that into a systematic demolition of EG's tier 1 and tier 2 towers. By 18 minutes, EHOME was already looking for high ground, but a well-executed defense helped EG economically to the point where they evened up the statistics and began looking to take barracks themselves. 

EHOME was no slouch on defense, however, and repeatedly repelled attacks on their middle lane. A two-man gank led them back towards EG's bottom lane, this time with a well-farmed, aegis-wielding, Wang "old chicken" Zhiyong-controlled Juggernaut but, once again, EG managed to hold the proverbial line and keep their base intact.

A gank on Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang allowed EG to take EHOME's middle barracks down, and a two-man pickoff seemingly sealed the Chinese team's fate not long after. Somehow, EHOME managed to swing a three-on-five fight into a quadruple kill which gave them the chance to take high ground. A destroyed set of bottom barracks was followed by a fight at EG's middle barracks and, while they managed to defend for a time, the waves were pressed to the perimeter of EG's base for minutes on end.

Eventually, EHOME went for the death stroke and turned a slobberknocker of a team fight into mega creeps. What followed was an amazing series of plays that allowed EG to pull off one of the most astounding victories imaginable.

Syed "SumaiL" Hassan and Ludwig "zai" Wahlberg sneaked a kill on full-health iceiceice Timbersaw with a ludicrous series of magical bursts that bought Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora enough time to respawn. When the rest of EG was alive, the five marched down mid lane and began the fight for all the marbles.

A two-man Chronosphere from UNiVeRsE's Faceless Void yielded an easy kill, and a turn from EHOME was stifled by a once-in-a-lifetime Sacred Arrow from SumaiL's Mirana, catching Old Chicken as he finished an Omnislash. EHOME was whittled down until only Old Chicken remained and, rather than attempt to defend, he teleported into EG's base to try to sneakily take out their ancient.

Alas, he just couldn't quite pull it off. EG rotated three home, took him down and went right back to EHOME's base, destroying the ancient and sealing the game. Seventy-five minutes, 89 kills, three dagons and five emotionally drained EHOME players.

The game, to some degree, seemed to drain the life from both teams. EHOME lost the match with EG 2-0 and had their tickets home punched by Digital Chaos the next day. EG, similarly, lost 2-0 to Wings Gaming the next day and were then eliminated by DC.

Still, even in a year full of blistering action, this game was the runaway winner of this category. EG and EHOME combined for something truly special in this game, and it's a game worth remembering long into the future.

Play of the Year: KingR's Five-Man Rubick Black Hole

It's always tough picking top plays, no matter what sport they're in. Weighing style against stakes will almost inevitably lead to dissatisfaction unless that one moment combines both, or is just too darn impressive to deny.

This was part of the latter category.

At ESL One Manila, the Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora and Artour "Arteezy" Babaev version of Team Secret seemed to have Team Empire on the ropes. A six-slotted Arteezy Invoker amped by a six-slotted Drow Ranger is an all-but-unstoppable force, and Empire had few ways of dealing with it. Fresh off Roshan respawning, Secret just needed to secure a clean kill in order to safely claim Aegis. If they could pull it off? The game was all but won.

They made their move on Roman "RAMZES" Kushnarev and looked to guarantee a kill by committing Black Hole. It might have worked, too, if Rinat "KingR" Abdullin's Rubick wasn't waiting off to the side. He blinked in, stole Black Hole and caught all five members of Secret inside. A five-man impale from Nyx Assassin followed and a massacre began. 

Secret unloaded every spell they had up and, while they successfully took down RAMZES, a quick buyback and a rotation from Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov saw the fight turned on its head. 

Not long after, Empire would roll over Secret's ancient to even and then win the series, sending Secret home from Manila and starting the team on a downward it still hasn't recovered from.

Player of the Year: Aliwi 'W33' Omar

PGLesports

Picking the best Dota 2 player within a certain span of time is always difficult. Weighing, measuring and balancing factors like individual skill, memorable plays, year-over-year improvement, outside-the-game accomplishments and overall success of the player's team is an inherently inexact science.

Because of that, plenty of players could have fit into this spot. Tal "Fly" Aizik and Johan "N0tail" Sundstein amassed a great deal of hardware over the year with OG. Zhang "Faith_bian" Ruida was the MVP of the TI6-winning Wings Gaming. Syed "SumaiL" Hassan received some recognition away from the keyboard, and looked generally phenomenal on it. Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao was the biggest newsmaker of the year, winning the Shanghai Major, making a slew of unflattering allegations against Team Secret and founding his own team, Team NP, that quickly became one of the most popular in the world.

The player that offers the best blend of all those factors, however, is Digital Chaos midlaner Aliwi "w33" Omar.

After spending a year on the European circuit, w33 stepped into the international scene with Team Secret during the post-TI5 roster shuffle. His presence was felt instantly, too, as Secret enjoyed an amazing boom, winning or placing second at ESL One New York, the MLG World Finals, the Nanyang Dota 2 Championships and the Frankfurt Major in the span of two months.

2016 rolled in and Secret started its year off right in March by winning the Shanghai Major...then started getting it very, very wrong by booting w33 and support player Rasmus "MiSeRy" Filipsen. The news shocked the Dota 2 world but, luckily, w33 wasn't a free agent for long, joining Digital Chaos just a few days later alongside a number of other free agent players.

The squad slowly, but steadily, gelled into one of the best teams in Dota 2 until, at The International 6, w33 and DC were cemented as genuine elites on the scene with a second-place finish.

It was both a transformative and a lucrative year for the Romanian. Dota 2 fans will be lucky if they see anything similar in 2017.

Team of the Year: OG

PGLesports

OG entered 2016 as the best team in Dota 2. And, when it was all said and done, OG exited 2016 as the best team in Dota 2. Of course, there were plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Starting with its rampage through the lower bracket at the Frankfurt Major, OG was unanimously regarded as an elite-level team, despite forming just three months earlier. Entering a new year, the European supergroup carried high expectations and, for the most part, lived up to them. 

A strong run at the Winter MDL answered questions about whether they were a flash in the pan and, by Summer, OG looked truly unstoppable. A strong run at EPICENTER gave way to three consecutive first-place wins at LAN tournaments, best remembered for their win at the Manila Major where they became the first team ever to win two Valve-sanctioned Dota 2 events.

That high, unfortunately, was followed by a tragically low low. Despite entering The International 6 as the clear-cut favorites to win, a shocking loss to MVP Phoenix in first round of the upper bracket was followed by an even more shocking loss to TnC Gaming, which saw OG eliminated on the tournament's second day. That implosion rocked the team to the core and nearly saw it disbanded. 

The "power of friendship" that allegedly led them to so many LAN wins couldn't survive a disappointing defeat and, as three of its five players departed. Andreas Franck "Cr1t-" Nielsen, David "MoonMeander" Tan and Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi left for EG, DC and Team Liquid, respectively. Only Tal "Fly" Aizik and Johan "N0tail" Sundstein remained and, while strong replacements were found, OG was buried into the middle of the crowded second tier of the Dota 2 scene.

That didn't last long. In December, OG silenced doubters and reclaimed their place at the top of the Dota 2 scene by taking the top prize at the Boston Major. 

It wasn't a smooth road, and it remains to be seen how the OG lineup will hold up in this wild version 7.01 world, but in 2016 both iterations of the Green Team pulled off some amazing things. Because of that, OG is more than deserving of Team of the Year honors.