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Invictus Gaming is an esports organization founded by one of the richest men in China back in 2011. From winning The International in 2012 to Worlds 2018, the team has had its ups and downs in its decade-long history. Get to know them and how to do Invictus Gaming betting on their esports teams in our comprehensive guide!
You might remember Invictus Gaming as the team that let their boss play on-stage in Week 9 of the 2019 LPL Summer Split. But to everyone else, Invictus Gaming is an esports organization that was founded in 2011 by Wang Sicong, the son of business tycoon Wang “WXZ” Jianlin. In 2011, SiCong’s entry into esports with iG couldn’t be any timelier as the scene was just growing. At the time, SiCong’s acquisition of the team Catastrophic Cruel Memory (CCM) for $6 million dollars set a precedent for the competition in the coming years. Their investment bore fruit and saw the recognition of Invictus Gaming in China and the rest of the world years onwards.
Invictus Gaming started out with teams in Defense of the Ancients (DotA), League of Legends, Crossfire, and StarCraft II in 2011. As the years have come and gone by, the organization has dabbled in a diverse genre of titles all the way from FIFA to Teamfight Tactics and found success from time to time. In the present day, here are Invictus esports’ most competitive teams across the world.
Team Roster
As one of the oldest existing esports, it’s only logical that Invictus Gaming had their own StarCraft team back when they founded the org in 2011. At the start, the team fared well in Season 3 of the PLU StarCraft II Team League taking down TyLoo and World Elite with historic players that remain in their roster to the present day (Hu “MacSed” Xiang and Xiang “XY” Yao).
With one of their star players Zhou “iAsonu” Hang (Zerg) joining the team in 2013, iG started to build ground winning the Esports Champion League 2014: Spring and were only second to X-Team in the Starcraft League 2015. They would then take their revenge against X-Team in the NEO Star League 2016 after a nail-biting 3-2 series. This was the beginning of their regional dominance which they followed up with another championship at the NEO Star League 2017 and individual wins by iAsonu in the GPL 2017 & 2018 Season.
However, iG has struggled to compete internationally in the past years unlike teams like Jin Air Green Wings, Team NV, and Dragon Phoenix Gaming. The team has yet to find success on the biggest of stages with their 11th place finish at the World Team League 2021 Summer being the latest achievement that comes to mind.
Despite being well-known for their dominating run in Worlds 2018, Invictus Gaming had a rough start in League of Legends back in Season 1. After taking down Team World Elite in the 2011 World Cyber Games China, iG went on to represent their region in the WCG Grand Finals. But, they would be knocked out by Counter Logic Gaming in the playoffs to end in 5th-8th place. The same pattern would continue in Worlds 2012 where they and Team WE would finish in 5th-8th once more, this time at the hands of the then-dominant Moscow Five even after significant roster changes in the past season.
It was only by early 2015 when their long-time mid laner Liu “Zzitai” Zhi-Hao role swapped to the top lane to make way for Korean prodigy Song “Rookie” Eui-jin. With Lee “KaKAO” Byung-kwon coming in as their jungler as well, they managed to qualify for Worlds 2015 once again alongside third place finishes in the regular season. But, this success would be short lived as they failed to qualify out of the Group Stage losing to Fnatic and ahq eSports Club along the way.
Following Zz1tai’s leave from Invictus Gaming in 2016, key figures in Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok, Gao “Ning” Zhen-Ningm and Lee “Duke” Ho-seong would be recruited to the team and help bolster their regional performance. Be that as it may, it wasn’t quite enough as they were one game away from qualifying for Worlds in the regional finals ironically going down 3-2 against WE. Then, enter Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo.
In their championship year, the gears finally clicked for Invictus Gaming and they finished the regular season for the Eastern Conference with an impressive 18-1 record. Despite finishing 4th in the playoffs, hopes continued to remain high for the team as they dominated the competition in Rift Rivals 2018 against the LCK. Come summer, they replicated the same level of dominance with the same 18-1 record in tow. Since their first-place record was already secured in the last week of the regular season, they even let their boss Wang SiCong play Jhin on-stage with JackeyLove playing support for him! Though they failed to secure the trophy against Royal Never Give Up in the playoffs, they absolutely ran it through in Worlds through the impeccable solo performances of TheShy and Rookie. After a clean 3-0 in the Finals, for the first time in the organization’s history, Invictus Gaming were the best League of Legends team in the world.
Moving forward, everyone expected the team to still be relatively competitive in the next few years. Which, they did to an extent. They finally won their first-ever regional trophy against JD Gaming in the LPL 2019 Spring Playoffs 3-0. They qualified for Worlds 2019 and reached the quarterfinals, only to lose to the eventual champions FunPlus Phoenix. But after JackeyLove left in 2020, it was never quite the same for the team and they returned to their form of old which was marked by high highs and low lows with a lot of inconsistency in between.
Now, they even failed to qualify for playoffs, let alone Worlds 2021, having finished 13th in the regular season. With remarkable talents such as TheShy, Rookie, and Wang “Baolan” Liu-Yi, the organization will be pressed with what they must do moving forward to return to their winning ways.
In 2014 shortly after the game’s release, Invictus Gaming formed its Hearthstone division with promising talents such as Xia “XiaoYao” Kunbin, Li “Sword” Heyang, and Zhang “Qiutu” Xiao. At first, the team struggled to find meaningful results with silver finishes in Tier 2 tourneys such as G-League 2014 and the Esports Champion League 2014. But in 2015, Sword finally paved the way for iG in i-league Season 4. After a grueling best-of-17 Grand Finals, he took home $39,000 for himself. His 9-4 victory in the 9 class conquest format was one of iG’s high points in their history of competition within the CCG.
Barring that, it would only be in 2020 where their Hearthstone division would come back to life with Zheng “Xc” Qianhao winning the Masters Tour 2020 Madrid. In that same year, iG secured second place in NetEase and Blizzard’s Gold Club World Cup series only falling to T1 in the Grand Finals. To end the year, iG’s Fan “Syf” Yilun finished 5th-6th place in the Hearthstone World Championship 2020 as well — which they only got to qualify for starting this year. Which is why in 2021, be on the lookout for Invictus Gaming betting as they keep up their form in the qualifiers for the Hearthstone World Championship 2021.
When Invictus Gaming was established in 2011, it poached the absolute best talent that China had to offer in Catastrophic Cruel Memory with Chen “Zhou” Yao and Luo “Ferrari_430” Feichi. But, they didn’t stop there taking in players from one of the strongest teams at the time in LGD Gaming such as Jiang “YYF” Cen and Wong “ChuaN” Hock Chuan. Lastly, with the acquisition of Zeng “Faith” Hongda from another prominent organization TyLoo, their infinity gauntlet was complete. With their roster, iG slaughtered the competition at The International 2012 taking home $1 million after defeating Danil “Dendi” Ishutin and Natus Vincere 3-1. After that, that roster went on to win World Cyber Games 2012 and the G-League Season 2.
Although they tried to run it back in 2013, they fell against TongFu 2-1 in the lower bracket to end up 5th-6th place. In 2014, the team continued to win Tier 1 tournaments here and there but couldn’t quite put it together for an Aegis run. The core of Ferrari_430, ChuaN, and Faith won them trophies at the ESL One Frankfurt 2014 , WPC 2014, and a 7th-8th finish at TI 2014. By 2015, they were starting to go on the decline, failing to win big throughout the year and landing a 9th-12th finish in The International 2015. After that, the team broke up only leaving Ferrari_430 in the organization to rebuild.
Moving past their trials and failures, the team started to pick up the pace in 2017 with the return of Xu “BurNIng” Zhilei. Hopes remained high for the Chinese organization as they started the year right with a championship win in the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2017 against OG 3-0. This was followed by a 3rd-4th place finish The Kiev Major 2017 which was welcome after their competitive absence in 2016. In the yearly International, they managed to take home $1,110,956 after securing 5th-6th place against LGD.
Then, came another lull in the organization’s track record as they struggled to make meaningful splashes after finishing 17-18th in The International 2018 and even failing to qualify for The International 2019. With the cancellation of The International 2020 as well, it just prolonged the time it took for Invictus Gaming to return to play. But in 2021, they finally found their first opportunity back with the ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021. In a moment written down in history, Zhou “Emo” Yi typed “?” in all chat while being down 2-0 to Evil Geniuses in the Grand Finals. After a long series and coordinated plays from the 11k MMR pro and his team, iG managed to make a massive comeback to win the series 3-2 against EG. Coming into The International 2021 this October, expectations will be high for this current iteration of Invictus Gaming betting as one of the strongest teams that China has to offer with consistent playmakers across the board.
Invictus Gaming started out in 2011 with teams in StarCraft II, Defense of the Ancients, and League of Legends with the acquisition of Catastrophic Cruel Memory (CCM). The organization is primarily known for their championships in the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre winning TI 2012 in Dota 2 and Worlds 2018 in League of Legends.
Throughout the past decade, the org has stepped into and out of esports titles such as Overwatch (disbanded in 2017), Street Fighter, and FIFA. Now, they continue to stay true to the direction of fun that their owner WXZ embodies by getting into up-and-coming games. Just in the past month, iG announced their Apex Legends roster for the Apex Legends Global Series Championship 2021. They continue to field players and teams in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Teamfight Tactics as well. Look out for Invictus Gaming betting to be a staple in the coming decade if they continue their rise to success in esports.
In the past decade, few players within the organization have reached this status aside from their League of Legends team’s own TheShy and Rookie. This unstoppable duo were key to their success in regionals and Worlds. No matter what slump came to the organization, you could never count them out because of how these two can simply carry games off their own mechanical talent. This is what defined iG and made them so well-known in the scene.
Meanwhile, for Dota it would have to be YYF who was pivotal to the team’s success in The International 2012. As a support, the space he created for his carries to scale was unparalleled. Truly a dependable player when it came down to it. Him alongside Faith were the pillars that held iG till their leave in 2015.
Invictus Gaming is an organization with a bevy of resources at their beck and call. With a storied history such as theirs winning international tournaments in established esports, it’s no question that Invictus Gaming will continue to be a respected organization that will keep growing within the space. Thus, Invictus Gaming betting is definitely a prospect worth glossing over when it comes to esports competition.
Given their infrastructure and competitive experience, expect them to adapt when the going gets rough across the years and finally achieve the success they have been striving for. As such, keep your eyes out on Invictus esports because as their name suggests, they are unconquerable.
You can follow Invictus Gaming and all their competitive teams on their official website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Invictus Gaming was founded by Wang “WXZ” Si-Cong, son of one of the richest men in China Wang Jianlin (net worth of 14.4 billion USD) who is the founder of the Dalian Wanda Group.
You can Invictus Gaming betting through bookmakers like bet365, Rivalry, and Vulkanbet who offer bets for their competing teams.
Invictus Gaming has successful League of Legends and Dota 2 teams with players in StarCraft II, Hearthstone, and Teamfight Tactics. They have upcoming teams in Rainbow Six Siege and Apex Legends as well.
According Esports Earnings, they have won $12,093,442.80 across 538 tournaments thus far.
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