This article is part of our Dota 2 series.
With the Boston Major officially starting Friday, let's take a look at who should have the most success at the tournament.
Group A
The first thing that stands out about Group A is the rematch of The International 6 grand finals. Fans will get to see Wings and Digital Chaos face off again as soon as the major starts. Although it is a rematch of the grand finals, those finals were quite one sided in Wings' favor. This group should work itself out in much the same way as this should be a relatively easy group for Wings to take first place in. Their main competition will be Digital Chaos and LGD Forever Young, but these games should all be well within Wings' ability to win. The real competition will be among the rest of Group A, and it will likely be very difficult. The battle for second place is one that any of the three remaining teams could take. WG.Unity is the most unknown quantity in Group A, and they definitely have the potential to upset the balance of things. Their run through the Southeast Asian qualifiers was very impressive as they managed to upset Fnatic and Mineski, sending two of the favorites from SEA packing. LGD Forever Young is Zhang "xiao8" Ning's newest squad. They formed in the wake of the TI6 roster shuffles, and since then have posted mediocre results. They did extremely well in the Boston Major qualifiers however, only dropping two games in the group stage and none in the playoffs. Xiao8 is a player that can never be counted out at a Valve event, there is a clear reason why he manages to qualify for almost every major even with different rosters. Digital Chaos has been in a slump since their impressive run at TI6. They disappeared from the competitive scene for weeks, allowing players to get some rest and relaxation. Since returning to competition, Digital Chaos has appeared in the Summit 6 and the MoonduckTV Elimination Mode tournament. In both events, Digital Chaos looked sloppy and out of practice. Hopefully for Digital Chaos fans, the two weeks in between the Summit and Boston Major were extremely productive.
Group B
Group B is the most difficult of the three groups by far. Each other group has a clear bottom team: WG.Unity in Group A, compLexity in Group C and iG.Vitality in Group D. There is no clearly worst team out of these four, and each team is fully capable of beating any other. Many might cite Team NP as the clear last place team, but every time they play NP improves. Their last games at the Summit 6, although losses, were very well played. In addition to the team's obvious improvements, there are few people with as much drive to win as Jacky "EternalEnVy" Mao. NP has been living together for weeks now, and should be more than ready to take on a major event. That said, if the group pans out like it should on paper, NP will have a difficult time taking a top spot. Newbee's new roster after TI6 has shown some excellent results. Newcomers to the team, Xu "uuu9" Han and Song "Sccc" Chun have wasted no time settling into the Newbee team. Their first event after TI6, the MarsTV Autumn finals, ended with Newbee in second place. It was an impressive result for a new team, and since then their results in China have been equally impressive. Newbee also represents a relative unknown for NP and Virtus Pro, the two Qestern teams in Group B. MVP Phoenix has been looking very weak in the time between TI6 and now. Their online results have always been poor, and this season was no exception. While this may look like a bad sign, this is really just classic MVP Phoenix. There aren't a lot of teams like MVP Phoenix who transform on LAN the way they do. The team also recently got Lee "FoREV' Sang-don back after a brief stint on Team Secret. FoREV won't be playing offlane, instead he will take over the role of position one carry from Kim "Febby" Yong-min. Febby is going back to support, a very good move for the team as a whole. The final team in Group B, Virtus Pro, is probably the hottest team at the moment. Their insane run at the Summit 6 definitely put them on the map going into the Boston Major. They seemed to be on a totally different level than any other team at the event. Virtus Pro only lost a total of two games in their entire run. Once to an EHOME Huskar lineup (that Virtus Pro actually almost won), and a crazy 11 minute loss to OG.
Group C
Group C is much more clear-cut than A and B. The clear top team of these four is Evil Geniuses; there's really no contest. The post-TI6 Evil Geniuses lineup has been very successful. They took first place at the MarsTV Autumn finals, followed by fourth at Northern Arena, third at the Summit 6 and second place in the MoonduckTV Elimination Mode tournament. These results were all against other top teams. In addition to their recent general results, Evil Geniuses has recent wins against both compLexity and Faceless. LGD Gaming was the team invited to fill in for Execration after visa issues left Execration unable to attend. Although the team is by no means bad, they lack the experience and raw skill to compete with a team like Evil Geniuses. LGD should be able to secure an easy win against compLexity, but Faceless will likely wind up finishing ahead of them in the group. Faceless has been absolutely dominating the SEA Dota scene since TI6. Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang's new squad quickly carved out a niche as the best team in SEA, unseating Fnatic. They didn't transfer this domination to the international scene however. Their first major appearance on the world stage, the Summit 6, ended in disappointment. Faceless finished tied for last place after consecutive losses to Evil Geniuses and then Digital Chaos. They will almost certainly lose to Evil Geniuses again, but the rest of Group C should be relatively easy pickings for Faceless. compLexity is the clear last place team in Group C. Their post-TI6 roster changes were very weak, and they actually kicked Justin "jk" Rosselle for Jaron "monkeys-forever" Clinton after only two months. Since adding monkeys-forever to the team, compLexity has continued to put out results ranging from mediocre to outright bad. It's a mystery how they even qualified for this event. Their opponents in the finals of the qualifiers, Infamous, arguably defeated themselves more than compLexity won.
Group D
Group D is also very clearly defined in terms of who the top dog will be. OG should come out of this group in first place, although it won't be an easy feat. Their competition is very legitimate, although it is mostly from EHOME and Ad Finem. OG's results since TI6 have been good, but not outstanding. Their second place finish at the Summit 6 comes with a mark of shame, considering how one-sided the grand finals were. OG looked impressive up until their final encounter with Virtus Pro, who absolutely demolished them in the grand finals. Even including this result, OG looks to be the clear frontrunner in Group D. Coming in behind OG is EHOME, a team that consistently finds its way to Valve events, but has always failed to finish in the top three. This current EHOME team is captained by Zhang "LaNm" Zhicheng, one of the few players to attend all six Internationals and a legendary Chinese player. His teammates are all individually very skilled, especially offlaner Ren "old eleven" Yangwei. However EHOME's past few tournament appearances have been disappointing, but old eleven has consistently played well. While EHOME probably won't be finishing in the top three at Boston, they should advance in second place from their group. Third place will probably go to Ad Finem, who will be playing with their conventional roster unlike iG.Vitality. Ad Finem have been delivering solid results over the past year, and December 4th will actually mark the anniversary of the team's current roster. Although they continue to place outside the top three at events, their games are usually well played. They have a diverse hero pool, especially of supports, and are one of the few teams that use Io to great effect. While placing over OG is likely out of their reach, Ad Finem could upset EHOME and take second in Group D. iG.Vitality is in the extremely unfortunate position of playing with two stand-ins. Xu "BurNing" Zhilei and Fu "Q" Bin from the Invictus Gaming main squad will be taking the place of Su "super" Peng and Gao "dogf1ghts" Tianpeng. If this weren't bad enough by itself, super is the team's captain. Playing with two substitutions is enough to cripple almost any team, and iG.Vitality is going to suffer greatly because of it. They only had two weeks to practice with this new roster, and it will take a miracle for them to advance deep into the placings at Boston.
