watching NA dota

This afternoon is the final of an online NA dota2 tournament. The teams in the finals are Forward Gaming, which recently signed one of my favorite players, ccnc, and TeamTeam, an upstart unsponsored team who upset both FWD and J.Storm to qualify for the next major tournament.

TeamTeam recently picked up EE, a popular carry player with a big fanbase who hasn’t been to a major in awhile. They also have ixmike, another longtime NA player who hasn’t much success lately. Their mid player is Gunnar, a young pub star who, like ccnc, gained popularity through streaming and gaining mmr.

On FWD, ccnc is reunited with Yawar, who is SumaiL’s brother. Yaware and ccnc played together a couple of years ago and were one win away from qualifying for TI7.

I follow NA dota the way I used to follow football or baseball. I read what I can, follow scores, watch whatever is available, root for individual players and teams. Game 3 is about to start. I’m rooting for FWD, but TT might take the tournament.