The second edition of the Shanghai Dota 2 Open was a proving ground for the Chinese teams following the recent reshuffle and the winners were a familiar face. After tasting defeat in the final of the MarsTV Dota 2 Autumn event, Newbee claimed victory in Shanghai and are shaping up to be one of the strongest Dota teams in the Chinese region this season.
Getting to the final
Newbee were drawn in Group B alongside CDEC Gaming, Invictus Gaming, EHOME.X and TongFu. Newbee secured 2-0 wins in every match apart from the one with CDEC, which they lost 0-2. This put them in second spot in the group, one point behind CDEC, in the final standings, meaning they advanced to the quarterfinals of the winners’ bracket as the second best team.
Newbee achieved another clean 2-0 victory in the quarterfinals over Vici Gaming. In the following round, EHOME were a tougher challenge for Newbee than they had been in the group stage and managed to take a game from them. However, Newbee still secured a 2-1 win. The winners’ final saw them pitted against CDEC again, but this time it was Newbee who prevailed to secure participation in the Grand Finals with a 2-1 victory.
The Grand Finals
Newbee had to fight once more with CDEC for a decisive third match after CDEC won the lower bracket final against EHOME.
The first game was taken by storm by Newbee, who managed to crush their opponents inside 20 minutes with a score of 22-3. The key to their success was in the timely rotations that led to successful ganks.
Game Two took a different turn as CDEC bounced back from their defeat and improved their performance. A great deal of their improvement was down to June, who had a fantastic outing with Puck and finished the game with 19 kills and 0 deaths. Starting as an offlane Puck, he was underestimated by Newbee, who let him go uncontested in his lane. Building on his great farm in the early game, he secured a couple of kills and steamrolled over Newbee as the game progressed.
Both teams gave their best in the third game, which was arguably the turning point of the series. After a 70-minute test of spirit, Newbee came out victorious. They found themselves in a tough spot first though as they got team wiped in the 38th minute following a bad initiation and over-commitment to killing June’s Puck. They managed to get themselves back on their feet though and kept the game going until uuu9’s Morphling was farmed enough to make an impact. In one of the skirmishes, he managed to kill the enemy core heroes and score another game for Newbee.
Having broken their opponents’ spirit, Newbee did not have many problems in what would be the final and decisive game. Kpii played a major role here as Batrider and once he picked his Blink Dagger in the 11th minute, Newbee started gaining momentum with well-placed ganks. Uuu9 picked a Blink Dagger on his Sven five minutes later and Newbee kept snowballing with more kills without meeting any resistance from CDEC, allowing them to close out the series 3-1 by winning the game.
Newbee in numbers:
Top hero picks:
| Hero | Picks | Win % |
| Drow Ranger | 6 | 100.00% |
| Slardar | 5 | 100.00% |
| Faceless Void | 5 | 80.00% |
| Bounty Hunter | 5 | 60.00% |
Top hero bans:
| Hero | Bans | Win % |
| Riki | 12 | 66.67% |
| Drow Ranger | 7 | 71.43% |
| Outworld Destroyer | 7 | 85.71% |
| Elder Titan | 6 | 66.67% |
GPM – 2049 (5th best)
XPM – 1946 (6th best)
KDA ratio – 3.97 (2nd best)
Uuu9 – 2.52 deaths on average (2nd lowest)
Sccc – 607 GPM (2nd best)
Newbee’s performance was hardly surprising following the positive impressions they made at the MarsTV Dota 2 League a week earlier, where they finished second. Hao, ChuaN and Mu do not seem to be missed yet as the new talents of Sccc and uuu9 are proving that they are more than capable replacements. The verified formula of young blood and established names is therefore working out for Newbee and surely more success will follow.
