Today marks the beginning of the last major Dota 2 tournament before invitations for the Kiev Major are sent out. Dota 2's i-League Season 3 is a $300,000 opportunity for teams to make an impression and gain momentum before going into a $3,000,000 event. My only real question going into it? Where's Ad Finem, and where have they been?
For those of you who don't remember (although, I'm not sure how you could forget), Ad Finem, a ragtag team from Greece, won what is assuredly one of the best, if not the best, Dota 2 games ever played at the Boston Major. It was a nail-biting 80-minute slugfest that ended in a climactic caper, capping what I consider the best eSports moment of 2016. While Ad Finem would go on to lose that series, they still took home second place (a $500,000 prize) and showed the Dota 2 community that they are for real.
Or so I thought.
You see, since then, Ad Finem hasn't really done anything. Their lack of wins at major tournaments is even more disappointing when you realize that they haven't even qualified for major tournaments since then. They didn't qualify for today's tournament, placing fourth in their region's qualifiers, and they didn't qualify for last month's Pit League Season 5, also placing fourth in their region's qualifiers.
At best, this is a bit of a slide for a team that showed an insane amount of promise. At worst, the Lion's performance since the Boston Major signifies a false promise of greatness, or a complete failure to live up to their potential.
I have to be cautious, though. This is a team that came out of nowhere and beat some real contenders on their way to that second-place finish at the Boston Major, so it's far too early to count them out. That being said, where have you been?
Their next opportunity, putting them in the same boat as Na'Vi, is at the Kiev Major. Let's call it a long-shot that they get a direct invite, so Ad Finem's only hope is through the qualifiers. Crossing my fingers.
