Warning! Spoilers follow for the Dota 2 Frankfurt Major.

This was a fairytale ending. After seven fiercely-fought games across the lower bracket final and grand final, OG have become the first winners of a Dota 2 Major. They ll take home $1.1m.

Formerly known as (monkey) Business, OG picked up a sponsor late and arrived at the tournament through the European qualifier. Unlike the most of the teams they faced on the road to the final, they weren t invited. They also failed to qualify for the upper bracket during the group stage, meaning that they had to take the longest possible road to get here, facing elimination at every step of the way.

Yesterday, they surprised the world by taking out talented Chinese squad EHOME. That won them a spot against EG this morning: this being (mostly) the same EG that won the International only a few months ago. The resulting contest was thrilling: a confident start for EG giving way to two amazing games by OG. In the first, they snowballed off the back of a Tiny-Alchemist combo that they ve run before. In the second, they struggled a little against a North American squad that was intent to dodge fights and farm. In the end, however, OG managed to clinch victory through a succession of amazing plays by relative newcomers Miracle- and Cr1t- as well as Heroes of Newerth veteran MoonMeander.

That s how they got to the final: but they final was something else. After the EG match, MoonMeander described Secret s legendary captain, Puppey, as the end boss of the Dota scene. OG s raid was approaching its final phase. Defeat here would still be an incredible achievement for a qualifier team. Secret's fans gathered on one side of the arena floor, OG s on the other. I don t think anybody expected a showing quite as convincing as the one OG delivered next.

Game one, embedded above, was a stomp. A virtuoso turn by Miracle- on Invoker (a fan-favourite hero who has only made a few appearances at this event) completely shut down Secret. Dota has been through phases in its life where clutch skill was ultimately not enough to trump macro-scale strategy. This match bucked that trend, as did many of OG s other performances: they pressed on through nerve and bravado, a little like the scene s original darlings, Na Vi.

Game two was a sixty minute-plus epic, but similarly impressive. Secret put up a fierce resistance, but they couldn t overcome one of the best support pairs in the world in OG s Fly and Cr1t-. All that crazy aggression from N0tail, MoonMeander and Miracle- was translated into victories by phenomenal defensive play. Watch through to the end to see Secret s plans fall apart as first Cr1t- and then MoonMeander deliver perfect performances on Tusk and Earthshaker.

In game three, Puppey s reputation as a drafter asserted itself. He locked out the defensive supports that had formed the basis of OG s victories and pulled out an unorthodox draft including Wraith King that seemed to take OG off guard. This was one-sided the other way. Puppey has a reputation for ultimately winning series when he draws a bead on his opponent s weakness: despite their two game advantage, a 3-2 result in Secret s favour didn t look impossible at this point.

In game four, OG once again found their preferred defensive options banned or picked. This gave them access to often-banned hero Doom, however, as well as Miracle- s signature Shadow Fiend. Their solution to the absence of Tusk, Winter Wyvern and Dazzle was ingenious: they used Doom s Devour to pick up Frost Armour from a jungle creep and stacked this with Lich s own Frost Armour to create absolutely absurd damage mitigation for their core heroes. They surrounded this with Cr1t- s brilliant Rubick and N0tail s Brewmaster. Together, they were able to use Shadow Fiend as a battering ram: threatening barracks early and maintaining the pressure through setbacks.

Having seized map control early, they outmaneuvered Secret and forced errors that lead them to the Ancient and, ultimately, the championship. As the pyrotechnics settled down and they began their post-match on-stage interview, something happened that I ve never seen in years of covering Dota LANs: the OG side of the audience surged forwards, invading the stage and mobbing their heroes. Forgive the dodgy camera phone photo: this is one of the best endings I ve seen to one of the best tournament runs in the history of the game.

In a press conference afterwards, N0tail emphasised the role of trust in OG s victory.

What is most important in Dota is the things that are outside of the game he said. You are five individuals that have to try to act as a single unit. For you to achieve something close to a single unit, you have to be able to trust each other. To trust each other, you have to like each other. There are a million factors outside of the game. To be good at the game is not enough to win a tournament, or even get top three. That s what I really like about the game.

Somebody like Miracle-, he s so talented. But without his niceness, his genuineness, the reasons we like him, his talent wouldn t be used and we wouldn t be able to achieve what we achieved today. I value it more than anything.

Imagine if every Dota player felt that way.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Right as the grand finals of the Frankfurt Major are about to start, Valve have announced the details for the next premier Dota 2 tournament. The Shanghai Major will take place from March 2-6 in the Mercedes Benz Arena in, you guessed it, Shanghai, China.

No details on the prize pool yet, but it d be sensible to assume $3m: exactly like the Frankfurt tournament. Teams will have a while to change their rosters in the interim between the two Majors.

It s likely that this will replace the Dota Asia Championship. DAC was one of the original inspirations for the Major programme, and it d make sense for Valve to treat this as the defacto championship for the region. Given that Chinese Dota has suffered in Frankfurt, we ll have to wait and see whether the scene can bounce back on home territory.

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On the penultimate day of the Frankfurt Major I sat down with caster Austin Capitalist Walsh to talk about the state of Dota 2 casting and analysis, his own perspective on his work, and the stage of the game in general. This has felt like a really strong tournament and a healthy period in general for the game—but there s always more that can be done.

PCG: How have you found this event, compared to TI?

Capitalist: Compared to TI there s a bit less hype, because there s not as many people coming to the event. Obviously Saturday will be packed, or that s what I anticipate anyway. Because it s a very long, drawn-out event and it s not the biggest event of the year it s hard for people to come in on weekdays and stuff like that. It hasn t been as hype, but I think it s still been really enjoyable. I m looking forward to having three of these Majors a year because I think it gives me a lot more experience—it gives everyone a lot more experience. Just from a casting perspective it s always good to do LAN events, but being able to work on the panel has been a lot of growth for me, and for everyone.

I think panel is the Dota scene s most lacking point right now. We re not very good at panel compared to other e-sports or other sports in general, and I think that s something that the Majors will definitely help out on. It s a very small number of events that get this many panels with this many people. MLG, right, we did a panel with three people—there s not much to go on, I d say it s not that good of an experience compared to a premier tournament like ESL One New York or the Majors.

PCG: Specifically then, what does that experience translate to in terms of your casting?

Capitalist: I think I ve done a lot more research because I was out of my element when it came to the analyst desk. I did a lot more research going into it. I usually do a lot of research, but this time I was looking for different things. I was looking for anecdotes about the players. I was talking to the players more about how they felt they were going to do, etc. More of the time when I talked to them before it d be about strategy, how they felt the patch was, stuff like that. General game knowledge that I thought was more applicable. But panel work is like who works in this matchup against this matchup , where in casting you don t care so much necessarily.

PCG: It s already happening.

Capitalist: Yeah. The game has started, you don t have to talk about it during the draft, you cover the action as-is.

PCG: The Dota scene feels pretty analytical, even in e-sports where most people are pretty analytical. Do you think that s changing? Is it becoming more about stories and anecdotes, as you say?

Capitalist: I think that s where we should be going. I think that we are too analytical. Obviously, the hardcore nerds that are going to show up on Reddit—they re always going to be like, we want more analytics, we want our analysts to be able to predict every single draft pick that comes up but honestly it doesn t make for a very entertaining stream. It s not very good entertainment value. I think that the TI panel was a bit lacklustre in that regard: they put four intensive analysts on a panel and there wasn t that much to go on.

I mean, Redeye… do you remember 7ckngmad waving the white flag to Pyrion? That was the only schtick that came from it. Redeye was leaning into them and the analysts didn t know how to react.

PCG: Well, Paul can be brutal.

Capitalist: Paul can be brutal, right, but the banter is supposed to be what creates entertainment value. That s an easy and cheap way to do so and the analysts weren t prepared for it. I think that the people like me and say, Purge, we re decently good at analytics and we need to get better in that regard and still provide energy and banter and that stuff. I need to get better at that. While people like Winter who are incredibly good at analytics need to get better at bringing more energy and more banter to a desk. I think both sides need to come together and be better.

We re not really good enough to do better, yet, so let s find another way.

PCG: Both Valve and a whole bunch of other organisations have tried different things to make Dota accessible. This is the least accessible game on the planet. It doesn t get any less accessible than Dota. I think it was 2GD that said that humour was ultimately the way to achieve that. Would you agree with that?

Capitalist: I would agree with that. The Smash community is amazing, right? A lot of it is because they have these huge personalities and they bring a lot of personality to those casts. Even in an intense match they have these moments… WOMBO COMBO, HAPPY FEET —that shows up everywhere, right? Those kinds of moments that the fighting game community creates, they re what bring in the average viewer. The game is somewhat easier to follow—certainly easier than Dota—but I also think that they do that much better than the Dota community does.

I d phrase it differently: humour is the easiest, cheapest way to get somebody interested in Dota.

PCG: But cheap s not necessarily bad, right?

Capitalist: Not at all, not at all. I was talking about this earlier. There was a Mineski vs. OG game, right? Everybody on the panel had OG, including myself, but I changed my prediction to Mineski because I felt it was an easy and cheap way to create a different dynamic on the desk. One person opposing three other people s thoughts. It s not that you can t create interesting dialogue with everybody choosing the same thing, but that s why I mean easy and cheap . We re not really good enough to do better, yet, so let s find another way.

PCG: Maybe efficient is another way of saying cheap .

Capitalist: Yeah, true.

PCG: But one of the things that s really positive about the Dota scene at the moment is how international it is. Mineski is a good example, a story that writes itself because nobody expected them to do quite so well. Do you think it ll stay that way? Is Dota trending towards one-region dominance, more of a mono-narrative like League? I like this plurality at the moment—it feels really strong.

Capitalist: I like it too. The one thing that s concerning right now is that the Chinese scene has been falling off so much and I don t know if any of the weaker regions are going to rise up. I m not sure if North America tier two and three is going to get good enough, I m not sure if South America and Southeast Asia are going to be good enough to stay in the international scene. That s concerning for me, because it started with The International —it s supposed to be every country, that s the original idea. I do think that creates the most interesting dialogues and it gives us the widest viewerbase. It s fun that way. It s a concern to me that China has been suffering. But I think it ll keep a pretty strong variance.

I think that China is going to realise that getting new players is going to be important. They can t just have the old dogs constantly. I think that shows in teams like CDEC, very clearly. EHOME is a great example of relatively newer players, and the strength of them over the more established players.

PCG: Do you think there s anything structural that needs to change about the scene more broadly? The Majors are one step towards offering bigger payouts more regularly to the top teams, but Dota s not… Valve are the opposite of Riot in a whole bunch of ways and offering salaries to players seems totally off the table. Would the scene benefit from that kind of stability?

The mid matchup is supposed to be the most mechanically skilled players facing off one-on-one against each other.

Capitalist: No… I ve had some minor complaints about the way that Valve run things in the Dota scene, but I think they recognise that TI was essentially too big of a tournament, in a way, that it was taking up too much. They also saw the success of the CS:GO Majors. Implementing the Majors into the Dota scene was the best thing they could have done. It s the best way to feel Valve s impact. I don t think we should have a Riot system where Riot is controlling everything, and every broadcast is Riot-sponsored… I don t think we should go that route. I just want to let this year play out, and see how the Majors go, before I d suggest anything else.

PCG: From my perspective, this feels like a really good patch for spectators. Do you agree, and which way would you like to see the meta shift?

Capitalist: Okay, one really good thing about this patch is the variety in heroes. We have a pretty good variety in the pool, there s not too many examples of really overpowered heroes. Doom is the best example of an OP hero right now, and teams will leave him out of the pool entirely sometimes. In that case, balance wise, the game is in a really great place. I do think that there are certain things that 6.86 might be able to bring in, that would make the game a bit more interesting—for example, the mid matchup. The mid matchup is supposed to be the most mechanically skilled players facing off one-on-one against each other. That s no longer the case. It s about stacking, dual-laning, rotations etc.

For example, the Puck-Queen of Pain matchups that we used to see in older patches, they were amazingly fun to watch. We don t see that anymore, because the mid matchup is no longer one on one. It s no longer as gank-heavy. Your midlaner is often times your carry, so you can t afford to have someone like Puck who doesn t scale well. If they do try to make the midlane experience a bit more about that kind of matchup, that d be more interesting—but that s a very finicky system to go to, it s hard to say how implementing stronger midlane play would affect other parts of the game. Are supports going to be garbage-tier again, would they only buy wards—that kind of thing. You never know what s going to happen.

PCG: Thanks for your time!

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Everybody expected a lot from EG vs. Team Secret. A faceoff between them was one of several hotly-anticipated conclusions to the International 2015. The rise of Chinese underdogs CDEC put paid to that notion at the time. Today, however, the latest iterations of these two western powerhouses duked it out with a slot in the Frankfurt Major grand final on the line. These are players who have history with one another, and these two teams are considered to be evenly matched.

Even so, I m not sure that anybody expected a series quite as good as this. The best-of-three was incredibly intense, and game one was easily one of the best games this year (if not one of the best ever.) We re talking kill-counts that even out every time one team pulls ahead and gold/experience graphs that look like a sine waves. Even matchups can end up passive, or they can turn out to be one-sided after all. This was neither. This was two of the best teams in the world matching each other, then matching each other, then again, and again, until something finally gave. Completely extraordinary Dota.

I d be really surprised if this match doesn t go down in history. For that reason, I m not going to spoil it here. Put aside an hour and watch game one, embedded above. Then, watch games two and three: you can find the links here, just scroll down to the upper bracket final (it s all spoiler-free). If you ve got any interest in competitive Dota, you need to catch this one.

There s a decent chance that EG and Secret will clash once again in the grand final tomorrow. That ll be a best-of-five. If it s as good as this, I don t think the crowd in Frankfurt will be able to cope. Don t miss it: tune in at 14:30 CET/13:30 GMT/05:30 PST and prepare to watch history happen. Again. The official stream is available here.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

It s another stacked weekend in the world of being incredibly good at computer games for money. Coming up tomorrow we ve got high-level Dota 2, Smite, CS:GO, and League of Legends. With the majority of the year s World Championships now done, this is the beginning of the next year of regular season play. If you needed proof that competitive gaming is only getting bigger and bigger, consider that the amount of money on the line this weekend would have set a world record just two years ago.

Dota 2: The Frankfurt Major

Saturday will see the final stages of this official $3m Dota tournament play out in Germany. The lower bracket final will begin at 10:30 local time (09:30 GMT/01:30 PST) to be followed by the grand final at 14:30 CET (13:30 GMT/05:30 PST). At the time of writing, either Team Secret or Evil Geniuses will snag the upper bracket grand final slot. The loser of their match will face either EHOME or OG for the final place. This has been an amazing tournament so far, with lots of different regions and playstyles represented at the very top. You can watch the games on Twitch or on the official Dota 2 streaming site. Don t miss it.

Smite Super Regional

This weekend, the world s best Smite teams will battle for a chance to compete in January s World Championship. The North American and European Championships are running alongside one another, with the third place and wildcard matches taking place on Saturday and the two grand finals on Sunday. This is a young and dynamic competitive scene and a really exciting game to watch: thoroughly recommend checking it out, even if you only tune in for the finals. The show begins at 10.30 EST (15.30 GMT/07:30 PST) on both days, and you ll find the Twitch stream right here.

Counter-Strike: GO at Intel Extreme Masters San Jose

Seven international invited teams plus one qualifier (from last week s iBUYPOWER Cup) take part in a brutal two-day single-elimination bracket. This promises to be top-flight CS:GO with a healthy prize pool, and a good opportunity for US fans to watch games on their own time for the first time since, er, last week. But it s normally less common, honest. Play begins at 19.40 PST on both days, which is 22.40 EST. This creates a bit of an issue for European viewers: Saturday s games will begin at 03.40 GMT/04.40 CET on Sunday and Sunday s at the same time on Monday. That s only fair, mind. Watch the action here.

League of Legends at Intel Extreme Masters San Jose.

As Worlds 2015 fades into memory, rekindle your enthusiasm for competitive League this weekend. As with CS:GO, this is a single-elimination bracket: but unlike CS:GO, the teams ere assembled through a vote in China, Europe and North America plus a single invited KeSPA team, Jin Air Green Wings. The tournament runs concurrently with the CS:GO, so see above for times. Click here for the Twitch stream.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Mineski were one of the standout underdog success stories of the Frankfurt Major group stage. Having won the Southeast Asian qualifier, the Filipino team arrived in Germany as the top seed for their region and the only country representing the Philippines. In the group stages, they then managed to clinch 2-0 victories over both Alliance and EHOME that surprised everybody—even, apparently, them. This earned them a space in the upper bracket, and when their SEA counterparts Fnatic were eliminated by OG in the first round of lower bracket games they became the sole representatives of their scene at the Major.

Their fortunes at the main event haven't been as good, however. They faced a tough matchup against tournament favourite Team Secret in the first round of the upper bracket, which they lost 2-0. They then lost 2-0 against OG, as the latter continued their dream-ending streak through the lower bracket. Nonetheless, this was an impressive run. Like the Peruvian team Unknown.xiu, Mineski's success testifies to the fact that Dota is a truly international esport, with talent able to break through even in regions that lack the resources and training infrastructure of North America, Europe, and China.

A day after their elimination, I sat down for a chat with Mineski support player JessieVash.

PCG: What's the feeling like in the team at the moment, and for you personally?

JessieVash: It's good. We're still lacking in our practice schedule—we can't practice in the times we want. In the Philippines the teams are... in some practice games, they're not taking it seriously. That's the only problem for my team. We can't practice at the next level.

PCG: You had a really good group stage. How did you feel through those games?

JessieVash: I don't know, that day... we won straight 2-0 Alliance and 2-0 EHOME. We didn't expect to win against even Alliance, it was a surprise. But really we just played our game the way we want, the heroes where we are comfortable.

PCG: What happened coming into the main event? Did you feel more pressure?

JessieVash: Yeah! [Laughs] So much pressure. You can see in the game, the draft, in how we played—it gave pressure to every player on my team.

PCG: Did you feel intimidated by Secret at all?

JessieVash: In the Secret game, we had a chance to beat them. Really, the experience gap—how to end the game when we're the one who has the advantage—we still can't end the game to win.

PCG: That comes back to practice, right?

JessieVash: Yeah.

PCG: Many people, myself included were happy to see an SEA team and a Filipino team in the upper bracket at the main event. Did you feel any additional pressure because of that? Representing your country and your scene?

JessieVash: For me, I always like to represent the Philippines at the biggest events. For Kuku, this is only his second time getting to represent the Philippines.

PCG: This feels like a good patch from a spectator's perspective. How does it feel as a player? Are you happy with the metagame, with the heroes you're playing?

JessieVash: Yeah, but maybe that's why Europe is the one who has the meta now. They always draft some YOLO heroes—strength heroes. In Southeast Asia they play basic—two long-ranged supports. Here, we can see Secret picking four offlane heroes.

PCG: Support Tiny, yesterday.

JessieVash: Yeah, that's why they could pick Huskar—their opponent didn't expect them to pick the Huskar in the last draft. That's the experience gap again I think, for Puppey.

PCG: You did very well against a European team, however—Alliance. Was that different?

JessieVash: I'm not sure if Alliance are still in the top. I see them losing every game... before they played the Majors, they were winning. I think "Alliance is back!" already. I don't know what happened in the Majors games. Even in our game, it wasn't so hard to play against them. I see their skills and I felt that the team could match up against them.

PCG: What about OG? They were much more of an unknown.

JessieVash: In the OG games, we were really pressured by how they draft, how they play. They always pick Miracle- heroes that can carry them if anything happens. Even when they're losing early, we can't win the game.

PCG: We just saw exactly that, right? [This interview took place right after OG vs. Virtus Pro.]

JessieVash: Yeah.

PCG: Personally, then, which game did you most enjoy?

JessieVash: EHOME, I think. EHOME could be the number one team in China, I think. We played against them, I didn't expect to win even one game. We won 2-0!

PCG: Thanks for your time.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!