Newbee became in 2014 the second Chinese team to win The International, but despite the immense hype TI was always able to bring to the community, this edition remained in the history books as the most underwhelming.
In 2014, The International moved for the first time to Key Arena, a venue that will become the home of Dota 2 for many fans and professional players. This was also the first time when the prize pool would go above 10 million dollars courtesy of the Compendium sales. The total prize pool for TI4 was 10,923,977 and Newbee walked home with $5,025,029 after defeating Vici Gaming 3-1 in the grand finals.
TI4 had three Chinese teams finishing in the top 4, Evil Geniuses with a young Artour "Arteezy" Babaev making his TI debut in the mid lane, being the only Western competitor able to reach the finals days.
However, TI4 remains one of the least exciting editions mainly because of its meta. It was an edition where China switched gears and from being known for spending a huge amount of time farming on their cores, carries especially, and they took TI by storm with a fast paced games revolved around push power. VG’s Liu "Sylar" Jiajun has played Nature’s Prophet in the carry position at TI4 more than any pro got to play it in officials until the present days. The answer came with Death Prophet, Razor, Shadow Shaman and even Naga Siren, as everyone was trying to match the fast pushing strategy.
The International 2014 grand finals lasted a little over one hour, despite having 4 four games played. Game 3 was a 17-minute affair, while game 4 concluded in just 15 minutes. Only based on that, TI4 failed for many to live up to the hype.
But, despite dominating the scene so hard, almost the entire TI4 Newbee roster retired soon after while the organization faced one of the ugliest exits from the Dota 2 field.
So what happened with the TI4 champions?
Newbee’s TI4 roster was put together at the beginning of 2014 with TI in mind. It was regarded as China’s dream team, and indeed the five players lived up to the expectations.
Newbee TI4 roster
Zhi Hao “LMF” chen
Pan “Mu.” Zhang
Ning “xiao8” Zhang
Jiao “banana.hy” Wang
Zhao Hui “Sansheng” wang
Hao and Mu were among the very first cores to display a strong chemistry, which allowed them to form an extremely powerful duo core. While Hao’s farming patterns were studied in detail by all carries in the pro scene, Mu mastered a high risk, high reward play style and together with Hao, they found a perfect balance between farm and push timings that made Newbee look unstoppable through the playoffs at TI4.
But despite their friendship that transcended the game, the Hao-Mu duo didn’t last long. Hao left Newbee for ViCi Gaming and placed with them top 4 at TI5, while Mu would finish in the bottom 4 with Newbee in the same year. They reunited for TI6 under the Neewbee banner but would place just 9th-12th.
Soon after TI6, Mu retired and stepped away from competitive Dota for good. He made an appearance on the Chinese broadcast for Dota 2 Asia Championships 2017 and more recently he joined the crew at TI2022 as an analyst, but apart from these two instances, he stayed away from the spotlight.
Hao kept playing until 2017, when after failing to qualify for TI7 with VG, he publically announced his retirement and never attempted a comeback.
Zhang "xiao8" Ning
xiao8 is the most storied player from the TI4 Newbee roster and by far the most accomplished one, with a career that goes on to the present day. TI5 found xio8 at LGD Gaming, an organization that would become his second home for the rest of his career. He actively played and led PSG.LGD and LGD Forever Young through 2015 and 2016. For the next two years, he tried to play under the Big God banner, alongside some of the biggest names from the Chinese scene but with no success.
In 2018 he left the competitive play behind and embraced a coaching career, joining EHOME at first. At the end of 2019, he returned to LGD and reached the grand finals at TI10 from the coaching seat and placed top 6 at TI11.
This year, xiao8 is once again set to participate at The International with LGD, guiding a new generation of players.
Wang "Banana" Jiao
Banana was part of the first generation of players, starting his career a few years before TI1, in DotA 1. When he transitioned to Dota 2, he was already regarded as one of the best support players in the scene and he was a huge factor in Newbee’s TI4 victory.
However, having already dedicated several years to DotA and Dota 2 by the time TI4 was over, Banana made an early retirement. He stayed with Newbee for two more years before having his last dance at TI6, alongside xiao8 at LGD Gaming. He switched to a coaching position afterwards and helped mainly LGD’s secondary team, LFY (LGD Forever Young). His last stint as a coach was in 2020 with Royal Never Give Up, but that lasted only for a couple of months before Banana would make a quiet exit from the Dota 2 world.
Wang "SanSheng" Zhaohui
SanSheng moved to an inactive status with Newbee just a year after winning TI4. For the next four years, he switched between coaching duties and commentary for Chinese broadcasts before making a surprising comeback to competitive play towards the end of 2018. He was back then coaching Serenity, a young Chinese team that claimed a spot at TI8 via regional qualifiers.
In October 2018 he had to stand in for Zhao "XinQ" Zixing who couldn’t make it to Las Vegas for World Showdown of Esports (WSOE) and ended up winning the tournament. A couple of months later, SanSheng made full comeback returning to Newbee as an active player. However, he spent only two months with them before retiring for good. For the past few years, he returned to the analyst desk with every TI, being a part of the Chinese broadcast.
As for Newbee, there will be no more TI on the horizon or any Dota 2 tournaments at all.
In May 2020, Newbee and its roster at that time, which included TI2 champion Zeng "Faith" Hongda, were found guilty of match fixing during China Dota2 Pro League Season 2 and DPL-CDA Season 1, and received a lifetime ban from ImbaTV, Mars Media, CDA, Perfect World and Valve events.
