NAR receive sponsorship ahead of TI for the second year in a row

Exactly 100 days passed between the initial tweet announcing that North American Rejects would be returning, and the announcement that the TI5 potentials will be playing under a new alias; Team Archon. The change comes in light of NAR v2 being the only unsponsored team in the running for TI5. Last year's NAR managed to get picked up by Na'Vi, making this the second year in a row Korok and Fogged found sponsorship ahead of a TI. 

NAR v2 will now be playing under the name Team Archon

The gaming organisation, which is already well-established in the Hearthstone competitive scene, released an annoucement yesterday stating they would be expanding into Dota 2, by picking up the roster of NAR v2. The roster consists of the following players:

• Scott 'bLeek / chad' Jensen
• Chris 'ush' Usher
• Arif 'MojoStormStout' Anwar
• Steven 'Korok' Ashworth
• Ioannis 'Fogged' Loucas

Community favourite SirActionSlacks produced a video giving a 6 minute run-down of the history of the players, and their experience with The International.  

In 2014, the roster constructed by Fogged and Korok won the 4th Gigabyte Challenge, promptly followed by the International American Qualifiers. They were soon picked up by Na'Vi as the American branch of the organisation, but disbanded after a couple of poor performances. NAR v2 returned this year, contending the International Qualifiers once again, this time placing second - securing a place at the Wildcard playoffs.

Archon's team founder Jason "Amaz" Chan released the following statement:

"I'm very excited to see NARv2 become a part of Team Archon. I've always been careful on selecting new teams for Archon: they have to be highly skilled and I believe these guys have the potential for success. They will be playing in the TI5 Wildcard Qualifier for a spot in the playoffs, and I will be cheering them on to advance and make magic happen. You, the viewers, should cheer for your new Dota 2 Archon team as well!"

Archon is one of a growing list of organisations to have picked up a Dota team pre-TI, following on from Fnatic and Mouz, who picked up Team Malaysia and Team Tinker respectively. The TI5 wildcard qualifiers will be taking place in 21 days, with Archon, CDEC, MVP Phoenix and Vega Squadron competing.

Image courtesy of teamarchon.com

Original Post : http://www.joindota.com/en/news/29635-nar-receive-sponsorship-ahead-of-ti-for-the-second-year-in-a-row

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US embassy rejects SoNNeikO's visa application twice

According to a tweet by Ukrainian caster Vitali 'v1lat' Volochai, Natus Vincere latest addition Akbar 'SoNNeikO' Butaev has been refused two B1/B2 visa applications with approximately 20 days to go until their flight to Seattle.

The Dota 2 scene is no stranger to visa issues and complications have arised multiple times causing teams to miss out on tournaments. Infamous for its difficult visa application, players from the CIS countries and China usually have a tough time obtaining the visa the first time round.
Individuals intending to apply for a B1/B2 visa will have to fill in the DS-160 form on the US immigration website. Among the long list of questions asked on the form is if the applicant has been denied a US visa twice in the past two years. Assuming the answer is yes, the immigration officer would take a closer look at your application before making the decision to approve it. At times, luck may also play some role in visa application, like if the officer is an avid follower of the eSports scene.
Butaev can continue applying for the US visa for as many times as he want and try to make it a convincing case to the officer. In most cases, Valve would help these players out by issuing them an invitation letter but at times, the immigration officers do not even bother looking at the letter. However, considering his age (18) and coming fresh off high school, it is not surprising if the immigration officers will give him a tougher time when he tells them that he will be playing in a 15 million Dollar Dota 2 tournament.

The rest of Na`Vi members on the other hand, will most probably have no visa issues since they have entered and exit the United States multiple times over the years. It is unknown what would happen to Na`Vi's The International 5 slot assuming Butaev does not end up attaining his visa in time. Perhaps Valve will allow a stand-in considering this is such a unique case.

Source: Gosugamers.com
Image from MarsTV

The International 5 surpasses 15 million dollars, all stretch goals attained

After 2 months since it was announced, TI5 has reached it's final stretch goal: the Axe Immortal with the accompanying comic. It's by far the biggest prize pool for any eSports event, and even eclipses prizes for sporting events. With the constant growth of Dota 2 every year, it's fascinating to see how it compares to major sports tournament, and how much farther it can go.

When the stretch goals were first announced for TI5, many people were speculating whether or not it would achieve all of its goals. After just 60 days, this question has been answered. The eagerly anticipated Axe Immortal will be made with an accompanying comic. It would be surprising to see the Axe stretch goal getting released before the Immortal III chest.

A preview of the comic that will accompany the release of Axe's Immortal set

The prize pool still has a month left to get even bigger, further cementing the record it has broken. The International has grown at an incredble rate, to the point where the prize pool eclipses prize pools of top tier sport tournaments.

TI5 beats out both the 2015 Masters Cup and the 2015 Cricket World Cup in terms of prizepool, with both competitions hosting a 10 million dollar prizepool for both tournaments. It's also almost on par with the FIFA Club World Cup, which has a prize pool of 16.5 million dollars. Despite this, DOTA 2, and eSports as a whole, still have a long way to go before we reach popularity levels on par with the NFL and FIFA. The winning team of the UEFA Champions League gets a whopping 15 million euros.

 Dota 2 as an eSport still has tons of room to expand and evolve into something even bigger than it already is. With each TI growing bigger and bigger in both prize pool and viewership, we can only hope that one day we'll see Dota 2 be on par with the top sports tournaments.

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