With their amazing run at The International 5, CDEC Gaming burst onto the scene pretty much out of nowhere from a Western perspective. After catching the Dota 2 scene by surprise, players like Agressif and garder are now making a name for themselves among fans from all over the world. You can hardly call their performance at TI5 one-hit-wonder considering they played 45 games in Seattle against the world’s best teams, so just where did this breakout team come from?

About a year ago, CDEC was actually just a subdivision of LGD Gaming called LGD.CDEC, touted as their youth team. Do you remember all the players and casters at TI5 foaming over LGD’s midlaner Maybe? He was part of the original CDEC squad before moving on to the Chinese powerhouse. However, as we all know now, he wasn’t the only talented player on the team. Every single CDEC player earned US$570,000+ at TI5 and they now rank 28th to 32nd on the all-time esports earnings rankings - talk about making a splash!

Does this mean that we have a new Chinese giant in the making that could rival the likes of LGD, Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming? When it comes to domestic tournaments, CDEC were always lacking that very last step to win their first major trophy. With an array of second place finishes, the new team certainly made a name for themselves in the Chinese scene, but they could never fully reward themselves for their strong performances. Now with ESL One at New York Super Week on the horizon, they will only have one other Chinese team to compete against, which has yet to be determined in the Chinese qualifiers, and so we’ll have to wait and see whether the other six teams are prepared for the meteoric rise of CDEC Gaming.

Position	Player	Most played heroes (patch 6.84)
Carry	Agressif
Mid	ShiKi
Offlane	Kz
Support	Q
Support	garder

Matchups against other attendees

CDEC has not been present at many international tournaments due to being a fairly young squad, so non-Chinese teams have not had many chances to face these rising stars of Chinese Dota 2 aside from at The International 5. It remains to be seen whether this will work in CDEC’s favor, as they of course have not had many opportunities to face Western teams either.

Evil Geniuses

• 0-2 at The International 5 group stage
• 2-0 at The International 5 upper bracket finals
• 1-3 at The International 5 group grand finals

Team Secret

• 0-1 at MarsTV Dota 2 League

Virtus.Pro

• 0-2 at The International 5

Vega Squadron

• 2-1 at The International 5

Can CDEC Gaming build on their second place TI5 success? Grab your ticket for the event at the Madison Square Garden Theater and find out! You can also stay up to date with the latest news and information by following our dedicated Dota 2 Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Check out our other ESL One at New York Super Week team previews below:

• Can Evil Geniuses take over the Big Apple at ESL One at New York Super Week?
• New season, new roster: how will Team Secret fare during their first post-TI appearance?
• Tried and true: Virtus.pro eye success at ESL One at New York Super Week

Header image courtesy of dota2ti on Flickr.