A team that flamed out of the MDL Disneyland Paris Major quickly just as it entered the spotlight. Losing a best-of-1 series in the first round of the lower bracket is a very hard hand for any team to possess; and for Bestcoast, it was no different. However, considering recent events around them, their elimination was every bit of expected.
Bestcoast started their existence in the Dota 2 professional scene on September 8, 2018 as “TEAM TEAM,” player-run organization. Its name was an homage to “Team_Team,” a team formed by The International winner Jonathan “Loda” Berg in the days of Dota 1. Unlike the original’s European roots, the newest iteration hailed from North America with four of the players hailing from that region, whereas the last one came from Brazil. Their names were Braxton “Brax” Paulson, Michael “ixmike88” Ghannam, Jason “Newsham” Newsham, Eric “Ryoya” Dong, and Guilherme Silva “Costabile” Costabile.
Team Team’s logo as provided by Liquipedia.netUpon forming, they registered for the 2018-19 Dota Pro Circuit season, a new point-system league devised by Valve in which teams acquire points through the corporation’s designated Major competitions in anticipation for the upcoming International tournament.
With their quick familiarity in culture, communication, and playstyle, TT flourished at the outset. In all of the qualifying competitions they entered in late 2018, they finished first in five of them. Additionally, they won $20,000 in prize money after finishing first in the 2018 World Electronic Games. Among the vast pool of amateur teams springing up en masse, TT was rapidly solidifying themselves as a legitimate squad.
The next year, in 2019, TT finally introduced themselves to the world in the Bucharest Minor where they finished 5-6th. It wasn’t a good performance per se since the tournament hosted only eight teams, but the invaluable experience attained served as a solid foundation for the future. Nonetheless, in a world as ferocious and unforgiving as competitive esports, having an average performance will simply not cut it for teams. In this environment, teams play to not only win, but to gather as much funds as they can to survive in the real world. When players discover that what they’re doing in-game is not working, they look for change, and fast. If nothing is done, their future winnings will suffer considerably. Fitting into that mold, this need for change would inevitably lead to roster changes.
In correspondence to that trend, TT had their own share of switches. Costabile and Ryoya left in February, which made way for the arrival of Samuel “Sammyboy” Anderson and Nico “Gunnar” Lopez. Rejuvenated with their new players, TT strove to qualify for more competitions.
Unfortunately, they failed to enter DreamLeague Season 11, the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor, and ESL One Mumbai in succession. After their third failure, TT made another player switch, this time bringing in Jacky “EternaLEnvy” Mao for Sammyboy on March 25.
EE, by the time he signed with TT, was already an established player in the DPC. He had played for prominent organizations such as Cloud9, Fnatic, compLexity Gaming, and Team Secret in his six years as a pro. He’s revered by his peers as a consummate captain who’s known to entertain at the Position 1. Couple that with his impressive track record in major competitions and availability after leaving Flying Penguins, TT found themselves a quintessential star.
However, securing a quality figure for a given team has its negative quirks too. Along with being a spectacular player, EE has been entangled in controversy with issues concerning his tendency to quit once he encounters a fragment of adversity, unceremoniously kicking players, and blaming the rest of his teams except for himself whenever they fail in tournaments surfacing in recent years. EE was believed to have played a part in kicking players immediately after tournaments in favor of appointing his friends, as what Kyle Freedman, a commentator, put it when he talked about him in Mumbai.
One of the victims from his antics could attest to those claims since he found himself alongside the Canadian: Gunnar.
Rewinding back to earlier this year, when both he and EE were a part of Flying Penguins, the American youngster was kicked on Feb. 9 by the latter member for Ryoya after just two weeks with the team. Gunnar could’ve been bitter about his dismissal, but he shrugged it off once he was in TT.
Once EE arrived in TT, it all looked like things headed back to the right direction. On top of winning NADCL Season 3, TT secured qualification to the MDL Disney Disneyland Paris Major, one of the four premier tournaments in the DPC. After finishing the open qualifiers, TT bested other touted organizations in J.Storm, an esports team founded by current NBA player Jeremy Lin, Vega Academy, an academy team from Vega Squadron, and Forward Gaming for the third and final spot for North America.
