The Winter Major is, for obvious reasons, extremely important for all participants - but for Newbee, it might as well be an “all or nothing” event.
21.07.2014 - this is the date when Newbee reached the top of the hill only to go downwards after with no signs of recovery on the road.
Numerous roster changes, a lot of forfeited games, disastrous results throughout the entire 2015 year, a very disappointing run at the Frankfurt Major, where they lost the first lower bracket match-up against unknown.xiu, and a surprising withdraw from WCA a day after the tournament started are what we could see on a Newbee X-ray.
Here is the great twist of the Shanghai Major qualified Newbee:
At the beginning of September last year Newbee welcomed back their International 4 carry champion Chen "Hao" Zhihao along with a very talented young offlaner namely Meng "Xiao2lei" Lei who made his professional debut at Energy Pacemaker.
Two days before the winter roster lock deadline, Newbee made another surprising acquisition and announced Wong "ChuaN" Hock Chuan joining the team.
image from Newbee's facebook page
Newbee roster:
Chen "Hao" Zhihao
Zhang "Mu" Pan
Meng "Xiao2lei" Lei
Wong "ChuaN" Hock Chuan
Zhang "le" Xuanhao
With three TI Champions (Hao and Mu -TI4, Chuan -TI2) on their current roster, Newbee grabbed a qualifying spot for the Shanghai Major. One may argue that the competition in China for the Winter Major spots was not very tight, Newbee having to defeat the young squads of CDEC and IG to qualify.
But looking at their performance at the recently ended MDL we discover a fresh "Dream Team" that looks more ready than ever to stand against the big favorites.
At the MDL group stage they’ve been on par with EG’s performance, losing one single series to OG and managing to end all the other match-ups with a draw score:
Newbee vs Team Spirit: 1-1
Newbee vs Vici Gaming: 1-1
Newbee vs Evil Geniuses: 1-1
Being forced to play a best-of-one tiebreaker with EG for the upper/lower bracket seeds, Newbee started the main event from the lower bracket and eliminated Team Secret with the first series played. Unfortunately, they got knocked out afterwards by LGD Gaming and with that Newbee’s official game history pre-Shanghai Major ended.
That makes it hard to discuss their drafting patterns in the current patch. But judging on their individual players, Newbee are distinguishing themselves, right now, from the rest of Chinese Dota with two cores that are embracing the high risk high reward playstyle. On top of that, Chuan is known for playing aggressive supports with early impact in the game. Witch Doctor, Enchantress, Mirana or Lion are still reliable picks in this patch.
Apart from that, for all three of them; Mu, Hao and Chuan, this Major is quite crucial for their careers and surely they will fight hard in Shanghai. Nobody can say exactly what to expect from Newbee and that will make their Winter run extremely exciting to watch.
