WINGS - THE NEW GENERATION

Wings Gaming comes to The International as the first place finisher out of an extremely challenging Chinese qualifier field. Among the Chinese teams, the team is a new power that has broken into the Chinese and International scenes within the last year. Founded with its current roster shortly after the completion of last year’s The International tournament for the Frankfurt Fall Major tournament, Wings Gaming started strong with a top four finish after group stages in the Chinese qualifiers, but promptly crashed out with two straight series losses.

Seemingly disappearing into obscurity of amateur teams following a first setback, a hardworking and resilient WIngs Gaming reemerged by securing a berth to WCA in its regional open qualifiers. And with WCA as international debut, Wings distinguished themselves with a highly respectable fourth place finish. Since then, Wings have put together strings of strong performances against some of the best teams in the world, and they have suffered two highly disappointing results at each of Valve’s Major events.

The first of their strong performances, Wings Gaming took ESL Manila by storm and thoroughly surprised fellow finalists, Team Liquid, in a crushing 3-0 stomp of a Grand Finals that served as thrilling coda to 6.86. A month later, Wings Gaming came out of a series of mixed initial performances on 6.87 to deliver defeat after defeat to an imperious NewBee team that had just then swept through Chinese Qualifiers of Manila and finished second at Epicenter Moscow. Most recently, Wings Gaming built up a head full of steam in BTS to successively defeat two time Major finalist Team Liquid, and two time Major winner, OG, in three straight series and by an aggregate game score of 5-1 over OG. On their best day, Wings Gaming are unplayable for opponents.

At the other end of the spectrum, Wings Gaming were unlucky losers of tiebreaker in the Chinese Qualifiers of the Shanghai Major. In the Manila Major, Wings Gaming underperformed in groups and in a Bo1 loss to compLexity that saw them finish in the 13-16 places. In a mirror of their strong performances against the strongest of the opponents, Wings are surprisingly vulnerable and prone to mistakes against weaker competition. At BTS 5, their tightest set was arguably against Na`Vi rather than top finishers Liquid or OG. In the Chinese Qualifiers, Wings Gaming shockingly dropped their last game against NewBee Young and were forced into a tiebreaker game after powering through seven consecutive teams.

Yet no matter what happens in Seattle, Wings Gaming is going to be an attraction for fans and neutrals alike. Loyalty and perseverances, where three of the five teammates have stuck together for nearly two years since last year’s Speed Gaming, is rarely found in a competitively environment of vigorous shuffling and what have you done for me lately. One-of-a-kind strategies and viewer friendly play stuff that provide breathes of fresh air to even the stalest of meta make for great games to watch regardless of who you are rooting for.

PLAYSTYLE

As the new kids atop the Chinese professional scene, Wings Gaming represents the bleeding edge of Chinese professional dota. Over past year, Wings Gaming has fearlessly fielded a wide variety of heroes and wide variety of strategies in their games against even the best of opponents and have succeeded in the highest stakes of games. With each high profile victory, Wings has been an influential force in the direction of the meta of Chinese scene as well as the international scene. A good example of this that western viewers might know about is their breakout performance at ESL One Manila.

The professional scene approached the end of 6.86 on the conservative play of Team Secret and the limited meta of Starladder. Instead of sticking with the same old heroes, Wings Gaming revived Alchemist as an unstoppable farmer, uncovered Keeper of the Light in moving around the map, and fashioned Venomancer into a excellent Outworld Devourer counter. Following ESL One Manila, other Chinese teams as well as some international teams would embrace farming Alchemist to such a degree that he became a ubiquitous scourge in professional play. Keeper of the Light would become a niche in lineups that want split push and counterpush. Venomancer never really caught on as the Outworld Devourer that Wings wanted to counter got hit by the nerf bat in 6.87.

Underpinning all the variety and innovation is a deep understanding of the game by their drafter, innocence, strong individual play by the three cores, shadow, blink, and faith_bian, and impeccable farm allocation and team execution. Wings are uniquely dangerous in the 10-15 minute mid-game phase when heroes get their first items and players start making itemization decisions. Even some of their crazier and more dubious lineups appear workable and playable because Wings hit item timings at the same time and then immediately work to solidify their grips on the game or wrestle the game away from opponents. Their play during this period is best characterized as a high tempo objective-to-objective gaming where they push the envelop of what is prudent. Like a pufferfish that makes itself as large as possible when under threat, Wings Gaming look and feel like they are everywhere on the map. If not handled well, opponents will be intimidated into yielding many objectives or be overwhelmed by giving up kills along with objectives and collapse.

After this phase of the game, Wings do not follow the stereotypical Chinese or EG style of safely seeing out games. Unlike LGD or NewBee who will be far more solid in victory, Wings push the envelop of prudence and place as much pressure as they can on the opponent. With the greater pressure, Wings can finish out some of their games faster, seemingly bullying the opponent out of the game. But they can also run into the double-edge of overconfidence and get lured into a premature high ground attempt. This can turn into a back and forth game where the outcome is still in limbo.

PLAYERS

SHADOW:

Shadow has matured into one of the best carries in the Chinese scene. No matter what kind of farm allocation or space creation from supports, Shadow pays back his team in the middle to late game as a game winning hard carry or a space creating tempo-carry. On highly self-sufficient carries, like Juggernaut or Venomancer, he’s more than comfortable being left alone in a one-on-one. On weaker carries, like Antimage or Drow, he’ll make the most of support to farm as greedy as possible and really pay back the time invested by supports to win the game for the team. Shadow garnered attention within the Chinese scene as early as December 2014 prior to DAC. As part of Immortal Magneto Gaming, Shadow showed glimmer of what has come to be. At this International, Shadow may prove that he will become even more and grow into a superstar among new generation of Chinese Dota2 players.

BLINK:

When talking about bLink, one hero comes to mind, Invoker, and specifically EW Invoker. And when Invoker was at his strongest in 6.86, bLink was a constant fixture on the hero, playing it as the faster farmer in the game, fastest tower pusher in the game, best late game carry in the game, etc. At the time, Invoker was perhaps slightly overpowered, but in the hands of bLink he was undoubtedly so. These days, none of bLink’s heroes are as eye catching as Invoker, but all of them are played at an extremely high level.

As part of the trio that have stuck together since Speed, bLink demonstrates the virtue of perseverance and hardwork to finally break out and step into the limelight. Much of the team success is due to the excellent teamwork and rapport that has development between these three long-time teammates.

FAITH_BIAN:

A year ago when Speed Gaming played in the second tier of professional teams, Faith/Bian was attracting a following for his play on some heroes. Today he has matured and filled out his hero pool, playing Axe, Bat, Tidehunter, Dark Seer, and numerous other in the meta heroes as a high level. To describe his play perhaps it’s best to compare him a more well known player, iceiceice. In the lanes, Faith/Bian is as slippery, hard to gank, and annoying in the lanes as Iceiceice. Surely not as trolly, for the sake of trolling, Faith/bian also does not iceiceice’s high variance results of single handedly winning games and chain feeding into ineffectiveness.

In past few years, Chinese offlaners have been weaker in the laning phase, falling back on tempo carrying, middle game experience,, leadership abilities of players like Yao and Rotk to counterattack and recover any lost ground. Among the new generation of offlaners, Faith/Bian will have to compete with Yang, Kpii, and others, to distinguish who will take over the mantle of the best offlaner in the Chinese scene.

INNOCENCE/Y':

At only 17 years of age, Innocence is short on experience both real world and dota. However, his impact in the game can only be characterized as huge. Innocence on roaming supports or greedy supports are tremendously high impact heroes. At his best, he is always in the right place at the right time and will make life tremendously easy for his cores. Some of their success would be more rightfully credited to Innocence. As the greedy support, watch out for Ogre Magi, Rikki, and Oracle in the current meta as standout heroes he will be playing.

While no slouch after the blaring of the opening horning, innocence’s most impressive phase of the game is no doubt on the drafting board and in preparations as Wings have to plan, consider, and then play a complete shmorgousboard of strategies. But like the offlaner role, the youth movement once again brings competition, as Innocence faces Kaka for the title best new captain. Once again, a performance at The International will be oversized factor in how we will ultimately judge among the players.

ICEICE:

Of all the players on Wings, iceice is the player with the greatest success prior to wings. As part of Big God team that finished 4th at DAC, iceice was the newbie player amongst established and “retired” superstars. In theory, Big God was four highly experienced veterans carrying iceice along for the tournament. If that same team were to happen today, who would be carrying whom on Big God certainly would have a different answer.

Iceice’s greatest impact heroes are Wisp and Keeper of the Light where his ability to move heroes around the map is central to Wings strategy and can be decisive during the game. Whether it be to split push, gank, or saving an ally, Iceice’s mastery of Keeper of the Light is especially glorious to watch. However, his performance on more traditional supports such as Witchdoctor, Rubick, and Dazzle for his underappreciated impact.