The much-anticipated annual climax to the Dota 2 season produced a thrilling conclusion as European team OG overcame PSG.LGD in a five-game classic final.

With a total prize fund of $25 million, a global audience of 15 million and 20,000 fans packed into the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada, this year’s International was the biggest ever and it provided a fitting conclusion as a makeshift OG team did what two previous iterations had failed to achieve.

Formed in 2015, OG had been highly rated going into both the 2016 and 2017 Internationals before disappointing their fans. In both years they won two Majors before the International, but then failed in the tournament itself. In 2016, they finished in a tie for 16th and in 2017, they were knocked out by LGD: the team they would ultimately face again in the final.

Ahead of the 2018 edition, however, no-one was tipping OG. In fact, they were rated as eighth favourites according to the implied probabilities on the bigbetbookmakers.com site. That lowly rating was due in part to the personnel changes on the team. Roman Fominok left the team in March, and they subsequently lost both Gustav Magnusson and Tal Aizik who defected to Evil Geniuses.

OG came into the tournament with a line-up that featured the returning Anathan Pham, along with the previously semi-retired Sebastien Debs, who had been OG’s coach, and Topias Taavitsainen, a largely unknown player from Finland. But the hastily assembled squad battled hard to finish fourth in Group A, putting them into the Upper Bracket, where they enjoyed the satisfaction of beating their two ex-members when they won 2-1 against Evil Geniuses in the Semi Finals.

The favourites for the tournament, Virtus Pro, made a solid start, finishing second in Group B. But defeats to LGD in the Upper Bracket and Evil Geniuses in the Lower Bracket ended their tournament, while LGD, who had finished above OG in Group A, in turn defeated Evil Geniuses to set up the Grand Final against OG: a best of five battle that turned into a classic.

The 2017 Final had been something of a non-event as Team Liquid easily beat Newbies 3-0, but for the eighth edition of the tournament, LGD and OG served up a contest to match the famous 2013 Grand Final. OG dominated the first game, but then the Chinese team hit back hard. They won games two and three comfortably and appeared to be on their way to victory in game four, inspired by captain Xu Linsen, dominating play for the first 45 minutes. But then a remarkable comeback from OG saw them turn the game around to level the Finals at 2-2.

LGD were again on top in the final game, and for 20 minutes, OG were struggling, but once more the Europeans found a way to turn things around and recorded one of the most epic comebacks in eSports history, winning the tournament for the first time.

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