THE INTERNATIONAL 2018 TEAM INTRODUCTIONS – VICI GAMING

Founded in 2012, Vici Gaming is a Chinese Esports Organization based in Shanghai. They compete in several games like League of Legends, Starcraft II, Hearthstone and of course, Dota 2. Vici Gaming also has two sub organizations namely VGJ.Storm and VGJ.Thunder that are owned by the American basketball player, Jeremy Lin. All the 3 teams have qualified for TI this year and I will be writing an article on all 3 of them. In this article, I will be covering the main squad of Vici Gaming.

Vici Gaming’s current Dota 2 roster:

1. Paparazi灬
2. Ori
3. eleVeN
4. LaNm
5. Fenrir

On September 6^th 2017, Hao, Yang, ChuaN and END left the team, and Paparazi, eleVeN and Fenrir replaced them. LaNm who was the coach for the team switched back into the roster as the position 4 player for the team. Since then, their current roster stuck together.

Looking at their run in this season, VG reminds me of EternaLEnVy’s old team Cloud9 which was infamous for their second-place curse. Vici Gaming did not win a single DPC tournament this season but they got a lot of second and third place finishes, securing them 6^th place in the DPC standings. They also got second place at TI4, 3 years back.

Recently, they got 3^rd place in the MDL Changsha Major and they finished 5-6^th at the China Supermajor. All in all, they seem like a force to be reckoned with.

Check Here: Dota 2 Ranking 

About The Squad:

VG has a mix of both young blood and veteran players. Their support duo, LaNm and Fenrir are both players with a massive amount of experience. They both came extremely close to winning a TI. LaNm was a finalist at TI 1 with EHOME and Fenrir was a finalist at TI 4 with the old Vici Gaming Squad.

Their offlane player eleVeN, is famous for his time in EHOME when he replaced rOtk. Many assumed that he would not be able to fill in the shoes of the legendary rOtk, but he carried his team by qualifying for Nanyang Dota 2 Championships and ESL One New York, back in 2015. This cemented his spot as a tier 1 offlane player.

Vici Gaming’s Solo Mid and Carry are both young and versatile players. Ori, the mid laner is known for his flashy plays on heroes like Puck and Invoker. Paparazi, their carry player is an alarming impactful player, carrying his team in the worst of games. He is also a two-time solo mid champion at the DAC tournaments.

Vici Gaming is definitely one of the teams to keep an eye out for at TI8. They are arguably the best Chinese squad at the tournament. If the TI tradition is real, it will be really interesting to see which one of the Chinese teams will claim the Aegis of Champions this year.