After switching regions, almost completely reworking its roster, and nearly being eliminated early on in the European qualifiers, Chaos Esports Club has secured one of the last tickets to The International 2019.
On the same day that team captain Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen was celebrating his 27th birthday, his team managed to make an insane comeback and rip the EU qualifiers away from The Final Tribe.
Chaos had a rough time in the group stage, going 4-3 and needing to win a tiebreaker between two other teams just to make it into the playoffs. Once they made it in, TFT quickly dealt with them in a 2-1 series that put Chaos on the verge of elimination.
That’s when the veteran players on the team that have experience on some of the biggest stages in Dota history truly stepped up. MISERY and Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen helped their team go on an absolute rampage through the lower bracket.
They swept Aachen City Esports 2-0 to stay alive and then matched up with Hippomaniacs, the surprising top seed that made it into this event through the open qualifiers. Chaos struggled massively against Hippomaniacs in the group stage, but they took care of business in the rematch.
Game one was close, but Chaos came out with the win behind an insane duo performance by Matu on Broodmother and Milan “MiLAN” Kozomara on Phoenix. Matu put on another great show in game two. Chaos pulled away around the 20-minute mark and never looked back.
As most people expected, the grand finals had Chaos and TFT clashing once more. But this time, Chaos flipped their previous matchup on its head.
Chaos looked much more comfortable against TFT for the start, keeping pace with the team that knocked them down earlier. That was punctuated when Chaos took control at about the 15-minute mark. Matu led the team with a deathless performance on Dragon Knight.
With a 1-0 lead, Chaos proceeded to shutdown TFT to dominate game two and put themselves one game away from a perfect 7-0 run through the lower bracket.
TFT didn’t go away quietly, but Chaos eventually overwhelmed them with Matu back on Dragon Knight and Cheng “vtFαded” Jia Hao playing Weaver. Rasmus “Chessie” Blomdin and Pontus Frost put up a good fight in lane, but it wasn’t enough to stop the 3-0 sweep.
With their victory, Chaos completed their goal of making TI9 despite using an almost entirely new roster and moving from South America to EU.
This is a great accomplishment for Chaos, but it’s an even better moment for Matu, who was benched by Team Liquid despite helping the team get to their third straight International. Now he’ll get to play on the biggest stage in Dota with a new squad and a chance of taking the trophy away from his former team.
The International 2019 begins on Aug. 15 in Shanghai, China. At the time of Chaos earning their ticket, North America is the only region that hasn’t named a qualifier winner yet.
