Evil Geniuses (EG) is an American esports organization based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Fortnite Battle Royale, Halo,League of Legends, StarCraft II, Rocket League, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, and World of Warcraft.
Newbee is a Chinese esports organization, which has a Dota 2 division and formerly ones in League of Legends and Hearthstone. Newbee won The International 2014, taking $5 million in prize money, setting a Guinness World Record for the greatest prize money in an esports competition at the time.
The International 2014 (TI4) was the fourth edition of The International, an annual esports Dota 2 championship tournament, which took place at the KeyArena in Seattle. Hosted by Valve, the tournament began on July 8 with the Playoffs phase and closed on July 21 with the Grand Final. The 2014 edition of The International featured nineteen Dota 2 professional gaming teams that competed for a Grand Prize of over US$5.0 million. Overall, US$10.93 million were awarded at the event, making it the largest esports event by prize money until it was topped by the next International.
Alliance is a professional gaming and esports organization based in Sweden that was formed in April 2013. They have teams in TrackMania, Dota 2, Hearthstone, the Super Smash Bros. series, Fortnite, Apex Legends and VALORANT, and previously had teams in League of Legends and StarCraft II.
Vici Gaming (VG) is a Chinese professional esports organization based in Shanghai. It has teams competing in Dota 2, League of Legends, StarCraft II, WarCraft III, FIFA, Hearthstone and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Vici Gaming's Dota 2 team has been a top contender in numerous tournaments, most notably as runners-up of The International 2014.
PSG.LGD is a professional Dota 2 team based in China. They were formed as a partnership between PSG Esports and LGD Gaming in April 2018. PSG.LGD has finished as the runner-up in The International 2018 and 2021.
Gustav Magnusson, better known as s4, is a Swedish professional Dota 2 player. As a member of Alliance, s4 won The International 2013.
Team Secret is an esports team based in Europe formed in 2014, best known for their Dota 2 team.
Syed Sumail Hassan, better known mononymously as Sumail, is a Pakistani and American professional Dota 2 player for Team Aster. He has played in five iterations of The International, winning in 2015 as a member of Evil Geniuses.
Artour Babaev, better known as Arteezy, is a Canadian professional Dota 2 player for Shopify Rebellion. He is also one of the most popular streamers among the community.
The Dota 2 Asia Championships 2015, also known as DAC 2015, was a professional Dota 2 tournament that occurred in Shanghai, China from January 5-February 9, 2015 at the Shanghai Grand Stage. It was organized and hosted by Perfect World. The tournament resembled The International, in that there were a number of teams directly invited and that there was a compendium released which contributed to the tournament's prize purse.
Peter Dager, better known as ppd, is an American former professional Dota 2 player. He was the former CEO of the esports organization Evil Geniuses, where he also won The International 2015 as a player-captain, later playing for OpTic Gaming and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
OG is a professional esports organisation based in Europe. Formed in 2015, they are best known for their Dota 2 team who won The International 2018 and 2019 tournaments. They also have a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team.
The International 2016 (TI6) was the sixth iteration of The International, an annual Dota 2 esports championship tournament. Hosted by Valve Corporation, the game's developer, the tournament began in June 2016 with the qualifier phase and ended after the main event at the KeyArena in Seattle in August. The tournament awarded the biggest prize pool in esports history at over $20 million, surpassing the record set at the previous International, with the champion team, Wings Gaming, winning over $9 million.
The International 2017 (TI7) was the seventh iteration of The International, an annual Dota 2 esports world championship tournament. Hosted by Valve, the game's developer, the tournament began with the online qualifier phase in June 2017, and ended after the main event at the KeyArena in Seattle in August. The Grand Finals took place between the European-based Team Liquid and Chinese-based Newbee, with Liquid defeating Newbee 3–0 in a best-of-five series, winning nearly $11 million in prize money.
The International 2018 (TI8) was the eighth iteration of The International, an annual Dota 2 world championship esports tournament. Hosted by Valve, the game's developer, TI8 followed a year-long series of tournaments awarding qualifying points, known as the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC), with the top eight ranking teams being directly invited to the tournament. In addition, ten more teams earned invites through qualifiers that were held in June 2018, with the group stage and main event played at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver in August. The best-of-five grand finals took place between OG and PSG.LGD, with OG winning the series 3–2. Their victory was considered a Cinderella and underdog success story, as they had come from the open qualifiers and were not favored to win throughout the competition.
LGD Gaming is a Chinese professional esports organization based in Hangzhou. It is one of the oldest esports organizations in China and currently has players competing in Dota 2, Honor of Kings, League of Legends, Overwatch, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Kuro Salehi Takhasomi, better known as KuroKy, is a German and Iranian professional Dota 2 player for Nigma Galaxy. He was a member of Team Liquid that won The International 2017.
Topias Miikka Taavitsainen, better known as Topson, is a Finnish professional Dota 2 player. As a member of OG, he won The International 2018 and The International 2019.
Wang Chunyu, better known as Ame, is a Chinese professional Dota 2 player for PSG.LGD.
