Alliance (eSports)

The Alliance
Divisions Dota 2
Hearthstone
Super Smash Bros.
Founded 2013
Location Gothenburg, Västergötland, Sweden
Colors Jet, Platinum, Spanish green
              
Manager Jonathan "Loda" Berg[1]
Henrik "AdmiralBulldog" Ahnberg[1]
Joakim "Akke" Akterhall[1]
Jerry "EGM" Lundkvist[1]
Adam "Armada" Lindgren[1]
Partners Monster Energy
Twitch.tv
GG.BET
Website http://thealliance.gg

Alliance is a professional gaming and esports organization based in Sweden that was formed in April 2013. They have teams in Dota 2 and the Super Smash Bros. series,[2] and formerly had teams in League of Legends and StarCraft II.

The organization is a subsidiary of GoodGame Agency along with Evil Geniuses, which is in turn owned by video game streaming site Twitch.tv.

The Alliance Dota 2 team won The International 2013, then the largest single prize money payout in esports history.

History

The organization was founded in April 2013, picking up the Dota 2 team No Tidehunter as well as StarCraft II player Naniwa.[3]

The organization expanded into League of Legends in December 2013, which competed in European League of Legends Championship Series.[4] They entered Super Smash Bros. in November 2014 with the signing of Armada, a Fox and Peach player.[5]

Alliance left StarCraft II in July 2014 with the release of their last player, SortOf.[6] The League of Legends team was rebranded as Elements in January 2015[7] due to the team ownership rules in the League of Legends Championship Series preventing GoodGame Agency from owning multiple teams.

On December 12th, 2016, Twitch spun Evil Geniuses and Alliance into player-owned organizations.[8] According to Alliance member Jonathan Berg, all original members in addition to Armada got a percentage of the company.[1]

Dota 2

A few months after being picked up by Alliance, the Dota 2 team won The International 2013, defeating former TI champions Natus Vincere in the grand finals 3-2. The team finished the group stages with a perfect 14-0 record, and only lost 3 games throughout the whole tournament (losing 1 game to Team DK, and the aforementioned 2 games to Na'Vi).

At The International 2014, the defending champs failed to make it out of the group stages, finishing tied for 11th place with a 6-9 record. After the tournament, their long stable roster fell apart, with the departure of Gustav "s4" Magnusson, Henrik "AdmiralBulldog" Ahnberg, and Jerry "EGM" Lundkvist.

While Starladder i-League is ongoing, Alliance announce the departure of MyNuts and use Kebap as a Standin for their series against Virtus.Pro[9]

The team welcomes their previous teammate EGM back to Alliance[10]

They would go on to win both WCA,[11] the biggest prize pool event that was not directed by Valve,[12] beating LGD in a best of 5; with a score of 3-2.[13] Following this they went to Starladder almost missing the tournament due to weather complications.[14] Despite a rocky start the team beat out TI reigning champions Evil Geniuses 2-0 in a best of three in the final.[15] After their back to back victories at lans[16] the team decided to drop out of the upcoming tournaments and focus on the Shanghai Major.[17]

The team split up after the sixth rendition of the International, which resulted in AdmiralBulldog retiring to pursue streaming full time, and Akke retiring to pursue a career in programing and S4 joining OG. S4 went on to win both the Boston Major[18] and the Kiev major after leaving Alliance for a second time.

The post TI6-shuffle squad featured former Ninjas in Pajamas players Limmp, Handsken and Jonassomfan as well as Loda and EGM. This squad had mediocre success failing to qualify for any major events during the TI6-TI7 season; utlimately leading to EGM being kicked on the last day of the "Drop period" before TI7 rosters had to be locked. They picked up Pablo as his replacement. [19]

League of Legends

The team formed in December 2013, and were granted the spot vacated by Evil Geniuses in the European League of Legends Championship Series due to Evil Geniuses moving to the North American LCS.

2014

In the Spring Split, Alliance finished 3rd in the regular season with a 16-12 record, behind SK Gaming and Fnatic. Alliance mid-laner Froggen was voted as the MVP of the Spring Split with 28% of the vote.[20] In the playoffs, they finished 4th, losing to Fnatic in the semifinals 2-1, then lost to ROCCAT 2-0 in the 3rd place game.[21]

In the Summer Split, Alliance topped the regular season standings with a 21-7 record.[22] They then won the playoffs with a 3-1 over Fnatic in the finals, giving the team a spot in the 2014 League of Legends World Championship. At the World Championship, Alliance finished 3rd in their group, failing to advance to the knockout stage. The team was upset by Brazilian team KaBuM! e-Sports, which denied them a chance to play in a tiebreaker for a chance to progress to the knockout stage.

Alliance at DreamHack Summer 2015

The team picked up Martin "Rekkles" Larsson on November 24, 2014.[23] After a Riot Games rules change concerning sponsorship, Alliance LoL left the organization and rebranded itself as Elements.[24]

2015

Elements went 11–7 in the EU Spring LCS regular season to finish 7th, failing to make the playoffs.[25]

They later changed four of the players on the roster revealed on their Facebook and Twitter.[26]

Former players

Player roster

Dota 2

ID Name Role Join date
Era Adrian Kryeziu 1 June 9, 2017
Limmp Linus Blomdin 2 September 16, 2016
jonassomfan Jonas Lindholm 3 September 16, 2016
Pablo Axel Källman 4 May 23, 2017
Handsken Simon Haag 5 September 16, 2016[27]

Former

ID Name Role Leave date
EGM Jerry Lundkvist 4 May 21, 2017
MyNuts Johan Andersson 4 December 3, 2015
S4 Gustav Magnusson 2 August 27, 2015
AdmiralBulldog Henrik Ahnberg 3 March 12, 2013
Akke Joakim Akterhall 5 March 12, 2013
Loda Jonathan Berg 1 June 9, 2017

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Alias Full Name Character(s) Joined
Armada Adam Lindgren Peach, Fox 2014-11-06
Android Andreas Lindgren Sheik 2016-10-05[28]

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Alias Full Name Joined
Orange Jon Westberg 2016-09-28
Ostkaka Sebastian Engwall 2016-11-23 [29]
Powder Harald Gimre 2017-01-09 [30]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Garcia, Aedan. "Alliance Now an Independent Esports Organization". 12up. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
  2. ↑ "Divisions & Players". thealliance.gg. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
  3. ↑ "Alliance picks up NTH and Naniwa". Retrieved 2015-04-25.
  4. ↑ "Alliance unveils League of Legends team". Retrieved 2015-04-25.
  5. ↑ Barker, Ian J. "Alliance signs Smash powerhouse Armada". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2015-04-25.
  6. ↑ Tweet confirming SortOf's release
  7. ↑ Facebook post announcing the rebrand
  8. ↑ Wolf, Jacob. "Evil Geniuses and Alliance become player-owned organizations". ESPN. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
  9. ↑ "Nuts Departs from Alliance". thealliance.gg. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  10. ↑ "EGM joins Alliance". thealliance.gg. Retrieved 2015-12-13.
  11. ↑ http://dotanews.net/news/tournaments/305-alliance-become-wca-2015-champions.html
  12. ↑ http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/events/382-wca-2015
  13. ↑ http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/...wca.../95458-alliance-vs-lgd
  14. ↑ http://www.thescoreesports.com/dota2/news/5625
  15. ↑ http://www.thescoreesports.com/dota2/news/5730
  16. ↑ http://dotanews.net/news/tournaments/307-alliance-take-a-starladder-13-title.html
  17. ↑ http://www.thescoreesports.com/dota2/news/5810
  18. ↑ http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/18251669/2016-dota-2-boston-major-og-defeats-ad-finem-third-major-title
  19. ↑ http://thealliance.gg/news/233
  20. ↑ Fields, Frank 'Riot Mirhi' (April 16, 2014). "LCS MVP AND ALL LEAGUE TEAM". Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  21. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (April 16, 2014). "Fnatic top Alliance, seal third consecutive finals appearance". The Daily Dot. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  22. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (August 15, 2014). "Alliance are going to Worlds". The Daily Dot. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  23. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (November 24, 2014). "It's official: Rekkles joins Alliance". The Daily Dot. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  24. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (January 8, 2015). "By their powers combined, Alliance is now Elements". The Daily Dot. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  25. ↑ Arran (March 28, 2015). "EU LCS Spring W9: Elements Fail to Qualify for Playoffs". News of Legends. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  26. ↑ Elements (May 13, 2015). "Element's Facebook post". Facebook.
  27. ↑ http://thealliance.gg/news/241
  28. ↑ Chen, James. "Alliance Now Sponsors the Literal Smash Brothers". PVP Live. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  29. ↑ https://esports.yahoo.com/alliance-acquires-hearthstone-player-ostkaka-233709886.html
  30. ↑ http://www.gosugamers.net/hearthstone/news/42846-powder-joins-orange-ostkaka-in-alliance
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Invictus Gaming		 The International winner
2013 		Succeeded by
Newbee
Preceded by
Fnatic		 European League of Legends Championship Series winner
Summer 2015 		Succeeded by
Fnatic
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