Today, Alliance is best known to Dota 2 fans as the Swedish roster that conquered
The International 3, in one of the most dramatic grand finals ever.
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But, in the lead-up to TI3, many fans would have been surprised to see a CIS and a European
team duking it out in the finals.
That’s because a different region had dominated the previous International.
China.
"IG is your champion for International 2."
"They're going home with a million."
"Everyone hugging, the Chinese flags come in. The pride on this team."
China took five of the Top 8 spots at TI2, with Invictus Gaming winning it all.
And besides Na`Vi, who faced off against IG in the grand finals, the remaining teams in
Top 8 were from Southeast Asia.
Some fans had begun to wonder if Dota 2 would resemble its DotA 1 roots, where the
Chinese and SEA teams were dominant, secretive and seemingly insurpasable.
"Yeah China was the be all end all."
"There was no one that was able to stand up to them but the Chinese also very secretive."
"They never even released their replays for six months after a game was played just out
of fear that someone would be able to see their strategies and analyze them in high detail."
"Southeast Asia, was insanely strong.
Singapore and Malaysia had rivalries back
then."
"Vietnam was a huge hub as well."
But Alliance, already one of the strongest teams in 2013, set out to prove the scene wrong.
They set out to show that a European team had what it took to dominate this new game.
And they did it by bringing the fight to China, and beating the Chinese teams on their home soil.
Well, “beating” is putting it mildly.
Alliance made a statement at G-1 League Season 5.
They dominated the Chinese teams by going undefeated.
The G-1 Champions League was one of the largest tournaments in the world leading up to to TI3.
And though the tournament itself only boasted six teams, the lengthy qualifier
saw many of the best teams in the world compete.
The top two teams from the Western Qualifier, Alliance and Team Liquid, both earned spots
in the round robin group stage.
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Team Liquid struggled in the Group Stage,
going 1-4.
It was, to a certain extent, what we’d come to expect from foreign teams on Chinese soil.
In 2012, during the first Dota 2 G-1 season, Evil Geniuses made it to the online Round
of 6 but fell just short of the LAN semifinals.
Meanwhile, Alliance carved a path through the Group Stage.
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They beat China's best teams, they beat Team Liquid, they beat everybody.
They went 5-0 and qualified directly for the grand finals.
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The second-place team in the round robin, LGD Gaming, 2-0ed SEA’s Orange Esports
to make it to the grand finals.
And so the stage was set in Shanghai.
A hyped crowd, top teams, a huge prize.
It was even Akke’s birthday.
A win for either team would mean a sizable chunk of money.
But it would also give the winner a ton of momentum heading into TI3.
But Alliance were there to make a statement, they were there to put the international community on notice.
"You have Alliance, the foreigner, the weaker teams coming from this
unknown country to these Chinese guys to China and they are just beating up on everybody."
"They were flawless they were 5-0 through the group stage, undefeated. And made it look pretty easy."
The thing to understand about Alliance at this time, is they were known for a very particular
style of Dota.
A style that emphasized Admiral Bulldog’s Lone Druid and Nature’s Prophet,
allowed S4 to abuse a very overpowered Batrider and focused on farming up unassailable carries.
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And what you have to realize about the Chinese Dota squads — then and now — is that they're
often unwilling to bend to Western meta trends.
If a Western team is convinced that a certain strategy is meta-defining, Chinese teams will be sometimes
reluctant to ban it.
Even if they lose to it.
In the grand finals, LGD did not ban Bulldog’s Lone Druid.
They did not ban Batrider.
They would not bend to the Western meta.
And Alliance took advantage of that.
"You give away Lone Druid Lifestealer, it's very hard to stop both of them from farming later on."
"It's hard to deal with at least one of them, if not both."
"I completely agree, it's really hard, there you go."
"I mean, it's not surprising at all."
Game 1 got off to a slow start, but it was exactly the start Alliance wanted, with
their core Lifestealer  and Lone Druid combo getting comfortable farm leads.
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They took Rosh at 20 minutes,
and then, a huge teamfight 10 minutes later.
There was nothing LGD could do.
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So, Game 2. LGD gave Alliance whatever they wanted, and LGD got stomped.
Surely, they had to make an adjustment, right?
Well...
“Lumi, should LGD have given this all away?” “No.”
Alliance looked comfortable heading into Game 2.
They got everything they wanted out of the draft.
"We’ve got admiral bulldog on his signature hero, on the Lone Druid."
"We'll have s4 on one of his signature heroes, the Batrider."
And though LGD got some picks that could take a beating, and win late-game team fights, it wasn’t enough.
Alliance got everything they wanted out of the game too.
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Alliance came to China ready for a fight,
ready to take on some of the best teams in the world. And they conquered them all.
“Huge congratulations to Alliance, they are a flawless team, at least at this moment. They've taken down,
absolutely everyone going undefeated."
This tournament, three months before TI3, set the tone for the rest of the season.
And though there were plenty of great teams that entered Dota 2's biggest tournament that August,
Alliance cemented themselves as the team to beat at TI3.
And no one did.
But, why are we talking about G-1 League, five years later?
For one thing, it was the first time a Western Dota team had won a Premier tournament against Chinese teams
on Chinese soil.
"It means something when a foreign team comes onto Chinese soil and wins there."
"Or at least it meant a lot back then."
And for China, G-1 was a wakeup call.
"And it kind of kicked the Chinese into gear."
“I remember ChuaN actually coming up onto stage as well,
trying to rally most of China and Southeast Asia because he was like,
‘We’re all playing like crap right now. We’re all accepting streaming gigs and we’re not practicing enough,
we’re playing RPGs on the side, we should be doing so much better than this
because these teams that are here as so much better than us…'”
Today, it’s easy to remember the breathtaking highs of TI3, to remember those incredible Grand Finals,
to take ourselves back to those Dream Coils.
But the TI3 season wasn’t just about Alliance’s incredible win.
It was a time when the Swedish team was redefining analysts’ expectations of the West.
Eventually, China fired back, of course.
Newbee won TI4, and took the Aegis back to the East.
And so the cycle has continued, on and on, for years.
But without that incredible 2013 season, without G-1 League, without TI3, maybe that Newbee
roster would never have happened.
Maybe the Chinese teams would have never have been jolted out of their complacency and into eventual victory.
But that win at G-1 League, was one of the first signs that showed that Alliance had what it took,
to take their place in the TI cycle.
