Esports’ weirdest voting drive has already outdone itself

Dota 2‘s The Summit is a unique competition with a dual-personality. On the one hand, the contest is an end-to-end thriller, pitting the world’s best teams against one another in a fight for hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes. On the other hand, it’s blow-up dolls and anime hair.

The redemption vote, a poll of Summit Compendium owners to select the final qualifier, is underway once again, and the historically silly affair is already getting, well, very silly. 

With competitive chops no longer up for discussion, teams and players make memes, gifs, and videos in an effort to curry fan favor. Na’Vi fired the first salvo after qualifying for the redemption vote round two yesterday afternoon:

Of course, Ivan “Artstyle” Antonov isn’t the only player making big promises if his team is selected. Consummate manga lover Jacky “EternalEnvy” Mao is promising to live the anime dream if Swedish side Alliance is chosen.

As I said before I will bleach + dye my hair after Alliance gets voted into Summit 3. I’ll do it inbetween 1 week ~ 1.5 months

— EternaLEnVy (@EternaLEnVy1991) April 13, 2015

The Cloud9 carry even has a snappy slogan for rallying the Alliance faithful:

Ｖｏｔｅ　［Ａ］　ｆｏｒ　Ａｎｉｍｅ！

— EternaLEnVy (@EternaLEnVy1991) April 13, 2015

Ironically, neither of these efforts is nearly as outlandish as Saahil “Universe” Arora’s efforts to get Cloud9 into The Summit 2 last year. The product of his work was interesting, to say the least.

With voting round two under way, and a spot at a major tournament up for grabs, these campaigns are likely only beginning. If someone hasn’t cross-dressed by the end of the fan vote, then consider yourselves entitled to this writer’s next paycheck.