TI5 American Qualifiers will kick off on Monday, May 25, at 19:00 CEST. The nine invited teams – Not Today, Wheel Wreck While Whistling, Void Boys, North American Rejects, Leviathan, Root Gaming, Mousesports, Complexity Gaming, and Team E-Hug, along with the qualified team, Unknown, will compete over four days to attain the coveted spot at the most prestigious event of the year.
UPDATE (August 6):
Stay on top of the TI5 main event: results and brackets, schedule, fixtures, streams, broadcast times.
Three countries will be represented in the TI5 American Qualifiers: United States, Canada and Peru. Evil Geniuses is the only team from the region that has received a TI5 direct invite. With a region that is lacking in representation, the winning qualifier team will have a lot to prove at the main event in Seattle.
TI5 American Qualifiers format
- The ten teams have been divided into two Round Robin groups of five.
- Top two teams will advance to a double elimination bracket.
- First place team will start in the Upper Bracket.
- Runner-up team will start in the Lower Bracket.
- The first place team from the TI5 American Qualifiers will advance to the main event in Seattle, Washington, August 3rd through 8th, at the Key Arena.
- The runner-up will compete against the other regional runner-up teams in a Wild Card series in Seattle, for the final two TI5 spots.
TI5 American Qualifiers streams
The TI5 American qualifiers will be broadcast in English as part of the “Mega Hub” coverage provided by Twitch and the PGL studios. The Mega Hub coverage will bring 35 Dota 2 personalities under the same roof.
The following Twitch channels will provide coverage of all of the matches:
- main casting stream: TI5sange
- secondary casting stream: TI5yasha
- third casting stream: TI5skadi
- lounge stream: TI5mango
The TI5 American Qualifiers series will begin at 19:00 CEST on Monday, May 25, and end on May 29th.
TI5 American Qualifiers Group A
Group A past encounters (since January 2015)
- Not Today 5 : 4 Wheel Wreck While Whistling
9 matches 55% winrate - Not Today 2 : 1 Void Boys 3 matches 66% winrate
- Not Today 6 : 2 Leviathan 8 matches 75% winrate
- Not Today 0 : 2 North American Rejects 2 matches 0% winrate
- Wheel Wreck While Whistling 7 : 2 Void Boys 9 matches 77% winrate
- Wheel Wreck While Whistling 1 : 2 Leviathan 3 matches 33% winrate
- Wheel Wreck While Whistling 0 : 2 North American Rejects 2 matches 0% winrate
- Void Boys 5 : 3 Leviathan 8 matches 63% winrate
- Void Boys 0 : 1 North American Rejects 1 match 0% winrate
- Leviathan vs. North American Rejects 0 matches
South and North American teams seeded into the first group have had shaky performances lately. However, Not Today, North American Rejects and even Wheel Wreck While Whistling are expected to give the TI5 American Qualifiers group stage a fair shake.
Not Today
Not Today is a Peruvian team that has had a strong presence in the region. Freddy “SmAsH Sina and Ricardo “Mstco” Román have been playing together since before 2013, when they were part of Artyk Gaming.
The team was picked up by Denial Esports, in June 2013. Two months later, they were switching to Revenge Esports. On May 5, 2014, Revenge eSports withdrew from the TI4 qualifiers, after asking if they were allowed to make roster changes. Benjamin “Benjaz” Lanao Barrios left the team on the same day, while Alex “Masoku” Dávila and SmAsH parted ways with the team on the following day, on May 6, 2014.
Six days later, Revenge was handed out a TI4 qualifiers invite again, with SmAsH, Benjaz, and Masoku returning to compete. The team placed sixth in the qualifiers and left the organization on June 17.
In February 2015, the team added Juan “VaNn” Tito and Jesús “Ifrit” Valencia. The went through their most recent change in March, when Steven “StingeR” Vargas joined the squad.
Under the Not Today tag, the team won several minor tournaments, such as The Battle Fury, joinDOTA League/Season 3/America, Elpadrinoth American Cup, BoraDota Stars and Dota Regions Season 2. Not Today took part in several major LAN events, such as The Summit 2 and 3 and the joinDOTA MLG Pro League Season 1.
Not Today during The Summit 3
Not Today roster
Juan “VaNn” Tito
Freddy “SmAsH” Sina
Jesús “Ifrit” Valencia
Steven “StingeR” Vargas
Ricardo “Mstco” Román
Wheel Wreck While Whistling
Wheel Whreck While Whistling is an unsponsored North American Team. The team was founded in November 2014, by Michael “ixmike88” Ghannam and made its first appearance a month later, at the Battle of America, which they ended up winning. The team placed second in the JoinDOTA League Americas Season 4, Dota 2 Canada Cup Season 4, and third in the CEVO Season 6 and Dota 2 Canada Cup Season 5.
ixmike88 attended TI3 with Team Liquid, placing seventh-eighth, and came up third in the TI4 American qualifiers as part of Sneaky Nyx Assassins.
ixmike88 at the 2014 D2CL LAN finals
Wheel Wreck While Whistling roster
Jason “sleisel” Kim
Hassaan “Relic” Khan
Michael “ixmike88” Ghannam
William “Gudii” Aguilera
Erik “DurpDurp” Kamerling
Void Boys
Void Boys is Canadian team established in November of 2014. The team placed third at the Battle of America and first in CEVO Season 6 Open Division 2. Their roster has been relatively stable since their inception with Zheng “PatSoul” Yukai having left for Team Tinker for three months and then returned to Void Boys for only one month before departing again.
Void Boys
Jie “mercy plz” Du
Eric “747” Dong
“OmegaPwner”
Yao “fly.” Linhui
Yixuan “xuan” Guo
North American Rejects
North American Rejects was originally created in April 2014 by Theeban “1437” Siva, Braxton “Brax” Paulson, Allan “Dismek” Garcia, Ioannis “Fogged” Loucas, Steven “Korok” Ashworth, and JingJun “Sneyking” Wu, in order to participate in The International 4 qualifiers.
The team won the regional qualifiers and were picked up by Natus Vincere on June 2, 2014, and renamed Na’Vi.US. After placing 15th at TI4, the team pushed on for a few months longer before disbanding in December 2014.
Original members Korok and Fogged reformed the team on March 24, 2015 and the team received a TI5 qualifier invite from Valve. North American Rejects have recently won the Dota 2 Canada Cup Season 5 after defeating Boreal, 3:2.
USH, North American Rejects
North American Rejects roster
Chris “USH” Usher
Steven “Korok” Ashworth
Arif “MSS” Anwar
Scott “bLeeK” Jensen
Ionnas “Fogged” Loucas
Leviathan
Leviathan is a starter gaming organization consisting of a group of friends who decided to get serious about their careers and moved into a team house located in Florida.
The squad – Eric “Shredder” Sheeder, Andrew “Jenkins” Jenkins, Jason “Nesham” Newsham, and Josh “Shiibbyy” Trenholm – was picked up by Flipside Tactics in June 2014. They left the organization in October 2014 when they decided to venture out into a full organization themselves.
Michael “FlyingZebra” Stanus-Ghib joined Leviathan in January. The team has placed second in Cevo Season 5.
Team Leviathan
Leviathan roster
Eric “Shredder” Sheeder
Josh “Shiibbyy” Trenholm
Andrew “Jenkins” Jenkins
Jason “Nesham” Newsham
Michael “FlyingZebra” Stanus-Ghib
TI5 American Qualifiers Group B
Group B past encounters (since January 2015)
- Root Gaming 0 : 2 Complexity 2 matches 0% winrate
- Root Gaming vs. E-Hug 0 matches
- Root Gaming 1 : 0 Mousesports 1 game 100% winrate
- Root Gaming vs. Unknown 0 matches
- Complexity 9 : 4 E-Hug 13 matches 70% winrate
- Complexity 0 : 6 Mousesports 6 matches 0% winrate
- Complexity vs. Unknown 0 matches
- E-Hug vs. Mousesports 0 matches
- E-Hug vs. Unknown 0 matches
- Mousesports vs. Unknown 0 matches
Unknown was formed for the TI5 Open Qualifiers, so they have not played as a team versus any other opponents in their group. Mousesports records include Team Tinker games.
In the second group of the TI5 American Qualifiers, Mousesports seem to hold all the aces.
Mousesports
Most widely recognized team in the TI5 American Qualifiers lineup, Mousesports (often abbreviated “mouz”) is a German multi-gaming organization originally founded in 2002, as a Counter-Strike team. The organization’s DotA team was established in 2007, and managed to become one of the most successful teams in Europe during the following two years.
Mousesports switched to Dota 2 in 2011, when they picked up a roster including Weh Sing “Singsing” Yuen, Visar “twiSta” Zymberi, and eventually Alaan “Sexybamboe” Faraj. As an organization, Mousesports competed in the TI2 West Qualifiers and ended up losing to mTw. At TI3 they placed second to last in their group with only four wins. Last year, the organization placed 11th-12th at The International 4.
On May 8, Mousesports picked up Team Tinker, which had just been invited to participate in the TI5 American Qualifiers.
Team Tinker was created on August 11, 2014 by Steve “Excalibur” Ye, Weh Sing “SingSing” Yuen, Per Anders “Pajkatt” Olsson Lille, Sam “BuLba” Sosale and Max “qojqva” Bröcker. After numerous roster changes, Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier was the last member to join the current lineup, in March. The team sparked up heated debates over their team composition and regional affiliation, as it is composed of primarily European members, but is situated in a North American team house.
The squad placed first in several minor tournaments such as GIGABYTE, Celebrity Deathmatch, EIZO Cup, Megafon Battle Arena. They placed fifth-sixth in several major tournaments such as Dota Pit, The Summit, DreamLeague, StarLadder and most notably second in the D2CL Season 4 and fourth in the StarLadder Season XII LAN finals.
Mousesports
Mousesports roster
Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier
Max “qojqva” Bröcker
Sam “BuLba” Sosale
Peter “Waytosexy” Nguyen
Johan “pieliedie” Åström
Root Gaming
ROOT Gaming is a North American multigaming organization originally created in March 2010. In June of 2011 the group was acquired by compLexity gaming but was reformed in May 2012 with their first Dota 2 team.
After a series of various squads, ROOT announced the acquisition of the team formerly known as The ThunderCats in March 2015. Several weeks later, it was announced that Brian “FLUFFNSTUFF” Lee had joined the squad. The roster had two more quiet changes after that, including the addition of Tyler “TC” Cook and David “Moo” Hull.
Root Gaming placed third-fourth in the World Cyber Arena 2015 American Qualifiers.
FLUFFNSTUFF, Root Gaming
Root Gaming roster
David “Moo” Hull
Tyler “TC” Cook
Jaron “monkeys-forever” Clinton
Jason “Fun” Teodosio
Brian “FLUFFNSTUFF” Lee
Team eHug
Team eHug is an eSports organization founded in 2013 with a strong presence in the region’s professional scene. The organization was privately founded by a group of anonymous Dota 2 fans who wanted to create their own team because of their passion for the game.
Team eHug was originally scheduled to participate in the TI5 Open Qualifiers, however they were upgraded to the main regional qualifiers to replace Summer’s Rift who were disqualified from due to last minute roster changes.
Most recently, Team eHug were invited to compete in the Canada Cup Season 5, where they lost to Wheel Whreck While Whistling, 0:1 ,in the Lower Bracket Round 3. The team has placed second in Dota Regions Season 2 and CEVO Season 6.
Team eHug roster
Frankie “Inphinity” Pravo
Michael “mjw” Nguyen
Justin “justin” Rosselle
Matthew “jaH” Penaroza
Daniel “Bloody Nine” Foster
Complexity Gaming
compLexity Gaming is one of the oldest eSports teams in North America. The organization was founded in 2003 by Jason “1” Lake and has a long history of championship titles in several different games.
In February 2011, team FIRE got picked up by compLexity Gaming as their first Dota 2 squad. After Jio “Jeyo” Madayag left the team in October, the group went inactive for a Dota 2 squad and Team Liquid picked up the remaining members of the squad. In 2014, the organization ventured back into Dota 2 and picked up a NA team called stayGreen. After several roster changes (including European players such as Linus “Limmp” Blomdin and Niklas “Wagamama” Högström), the final roster was confirmed in May to include Tal “Simbaaa” Aizik formerly of Fnatic.
The team placed third in the Dota 2 Canada Cup Season 3, second in Battle of America, seventh-eighth in Dota Pit League Season 2 and third in Dota 2 Canada Cup Season 4.
Complexity Gaming Roster
Luiw “Zyzzy” Perez
Kyle “swindlemelonzz” Freedman
David “MoonMeander” Tan
Tal “Simbaaa” Aizik
Zakari “freek” Freedman
Unknown
Unknown.xiu is a Peruvian Dota 2 team that was founded especially for the TI5 American Open Qualifiers. Some of the team’s members are previously known from Union Gaming – which reformed recently after they were disqualified from the Canada Cup Season 4 for cheating.
Unknown
“Kotarō Hayama”
“Atun”
Alexis “greeeeedy” Ventura
Jesus “Ztok-“ Alberto
Christian “Accel” Cruz
The International 5
The International 5 is being held August 3rd through 8th at the Key Arena, in Seattle, Washington, the same venue as last year. The Key Arena has a total seating capacity of over 17,000. The total prize-pool has so far reached $8,948,932.
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