Members Wings Gaming, the champion of the 2016 DOTA 2 The International tournament. (Photo : Twitter)
A Chinese team has bagged the biggest top prize to date for an electronic sports (e-sports) competition, winning close to $10 million at an international tilt.
Team Wings Gaming beat North American team Digital Chaos (DC) 3-1 in the finals of the 2016 International DOTA 2 Championships, or TI6, held in Seattle to get the top prize of $9.1 million, China Daily reported. The prize is part of the record-breaking $20.7 million awarded by the tournament to winners, which was gathered from in-game purchases made by players on the popular game.
DOTA 2, or "Defence of the Ancients 2", is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game in which two teams are pitted against each other to try and capture the opponent's base. The game is a stand-alone sequel made by gaming company Valve Corporation to the popular DOTA expansion for "Warcraft".
Wings Gaming was one of the five teams from China that qualified for the TI6 finals. While the team was not heavily favored to take home the trophy, the five-member team managed to get impressive wins in the tournament's upper bracket to set their finals match with DC.
On the other hand, DC had to struggle in the lower bracket after suffering a loss against Wings in the early stages. The team ended up playing the most games in the tournament but managed to streak past 2015 winners and heavy favorites Evil Geniuses in the lower bracket finals.
During the best-of-five grand finals, DC was able to take the first game but Wings rallied to take three straight wins, International Business Times reported.
Wings member Li Peng said that they still can't believe that they won the tournament. "This is the first time we participated," he revealed. He then added that they were able to make the most of their chosen characters' strengths to exploit the opposing team's weaknesses.
Perfect World Games president Zhang Yunfan said that the team's win will be a major boost for the growth of e-sports in China. Perfect World runs DOTA 2 in the country and is one of the team's major sponsors.
