Newbee vs Invictus Gaming – JJB Spring Cup

JJB Spring Cup season one is about to take place in a couple of days. The purpose of this competition is not only to promote Dota 2 but also to encourage new roster formed in the region. A handsome prize pool of RMB 200,000 will be on the line where 12 emerging teams of the region will compete for supremacy.  The first stage of the competition is about to be held in a couple of days.

Let’s have a look at the format. There were no qualifiers for the event. All of the teams were invited. The competition only includes teams from Asia, more specifically from Southeast Asian and the Chinese region. The first stage of the competition will be the group stage where 12 teams have been split into two groups. The top two teams of each group will progress to the Upper Bracket of the next stage. While the 3rd and 4th place teams will have to fierce the wrath of the lower bracket. Lastly, the last two teams of each group will face early elimination. All matches of the group stage will be played in the best-of-one format while the playoffs will follow best-of-three format. The grand finals will be played in the best-of-five format.

After knowing the rules and regulations of the competition, you should know why we have picked this match for you. It is between two teams, Newbee and Invictus Gaming, who were once amongst the greats but over the past couple of years have extremely declined and are far from the powerhouses they used to be. If this match had taken place a couple of years ago, it would have been the spotlight on major eSports platforms, but today we will talk about a couple of tier two teams that are struggling.

Newbee vs Invictus Gaming (JJB Spring Cup,27th February 2019, Best of One)

In 2017, Newbee was the finalist of the 2017 TI. Unfortunately, the team lost to Team Liquid. Liquid since then has lived up to the expectation every now and then. However, Newbee has just fallen. The roster of the team has had its fair share of troubles. They have seen so many changes and have failed to adapt to the game. In the 2018 International, The team was amongst one of the earliest teams to face elimination. They got a 13th-16th place finish which doesn’t even comes in the shadow of the 2nd place in 2017.

Never ending struggles

For the 2018-2019 DPC, the team made tons of changes but failed miserably. At the beginning of the season, Newbee failed to secure qualification for a single tournament in the Dota Pro Circuit series. The team participated in closed qualifications at The Kuala Lumpur Major, DreamLeague Season 10, The Chongqing Major, and The Bucharest Minor. They simply could not pass the open qualifiers. After these series of poor results, the side even dropped Xu “Moogy” Han and He “Inflame” Yongzheng from the first team of Newbee and were moved into the inactive roster. Their positions were taken over by the coaches of the team. Moogy joined Newbee in September 2016. Together with the team, he finished second at The International 2017 and also ranked among the top three at ESL One Hamburg 2017 and The Bucharest Major.

Inflame moving in

Inflame moved to Newbee from LGD.Forever Young before the start of the DPC 2018/2019 season. He replaced Damien “kpii” Choka, who went to Mineski. Even with all these changes, the side failed to win ESL One Katowice 2019 China Open Qualifiers. After that, the team competed in the local competitions, where they managed to obtain satisfactory results. However, lack of international success still haunted the side so they announced another change to their roster.

Back to the roster

Moogy was against called for the first time while, Tia Zhong “JT-” Wen has been loaned from Mineski. The side competed in competed in the MDL Macau. Despite the criticism and the lack of competitive level experience form the past months, Newbee secured a 4th place finish. Newbee lost in the qualifier of the MDL but they still managed to receive a direct invite. In the group stage, they beat EHOME and RNG, the two teams that secured qualification ahead of Newbee. Virtus.Pro team also fell to Newbee in the group stage. However, in the playoffs, the VP team eliminated Newbee. The side even finished first in the DreamLeague Season 11 China Open Qualifier #2. However, they were the first team to be eliminated in the next stage. So, we could say that slowly but surely the progress is evident for the Newbee team.

Royalty of Sccc

We give the spotlight to the mid laner of the team Sun “Sccc” Chun for continuing to offering his services to the team even in the hard times. He began performing in the spring of 2015, joining the youth team of Newbee Young. The team even managed to go to The Frankfurt Major 2015 but failed to take its rightful place. In September 2016, Sccc was transferred to the first team. Almost immediately, he stood out as a bright and strong performer. For a long time, the team showed an unstable game. The International 2017 was a triumph, in which Newbee almost became Champions, but only stopped at the second place.

Sccc is considered as one of the strongest Chinese mid-laners. He was the second player in China to reach 9000 mmr. Russian speaking commentators usually call it “Estriplsi”, meaning the one who can organize anything. Even though Newbee had a terrible campaign at TI8, Sccc achieved the highest KDA without deaths in the history of The International tournaments after getting 41 kills without deaths on his invoker over the course of the competition.

Therefore, we believe in Newbee and Sccc to get the victory against Invictus Gaming.

Final Verdict

Newbee Victory

Odds to be updated soon.