The Star Ladder champions vs the renewed swedish powerhouse: Team Empire vs Alliance promises to be a great final of the joinDOTA Masters XV tonight.

[team empire] vs [alliance]

[team empire] has reached its peak. The russian team won the Star Ladder Star Series Season 11 lately, their greatest success ever – though it’s the 18th tournament that they won. It’s the win that proves that they deserve their place among the ten best teams in the Dota 2 Team World Ranking. But does it make them superior to their tonights counterpart [alliance] too?

[alliance] has won an impressive 12 out of 15 finals they’ve played. But most of them were a long time ago when the swedish team used to dominate the scene alongside [natus vincere]. Last summer [alliance] fell apart and so did their performance. But now [egm] is back and he brought his fellow countrymen [pajkatt] (former [team tinker] and [mousesports]) with him. Also, the rather unknown [mynuts] joined the team. Is that enough power to claim back the throne of a major tournament – for the first time since August?

Looking at the earlier round of the joinDOTA Masters XV there is little evidence to favour one of the teams: [team empire] beat [meepwn`d] and [moscow five – international] while [alliance] knocked out [4 anchors + sea captain] and [album sheets].

On a side note: Do you know a player that played for both [team empire] and [alliance] in the past? Hint: He is very secret now.