Clavision Masters 2025 Power Rankings — The Best Teams

Clavision Masters 2025 is due to start tomorrow, the second major Chinese Dota 2 LAN of the current season.

The organizers have invited the three best Chinese Dota 2 squads and seven tier 1 teams from other territories to the city of Zhangjiakou in the province of Henbei, to do battle for a $700,000 prize pool.

The group stage, which will run from July 28th to the 30th, will take on the classic round-robin format with two groups of five teams each with all matches in this phase being Bo3s. All squads will automatically see the double elimination playoff bracket no matter how well they do in the preliminary rounds.

So with this being such a welcome sight given how barren the Chinese scene has been lately relative to its rich history over the last decade or so, it’s time to have a look at the 10 participating clubs, and how they stack up against each other.

#1 — PARIVISION

Yes, I am very well aware that PARIVISION kind of crashed out of the Esports World Cup in somewhat odd fashion, having lost to Team Spirit in just two games in their semifinal series. I say this even though they ended up getting third place anyway, because they were absolutely capable of winning the whole thing in Riyadh.

Except, of course, they didn’t. It happens, and that just furthers my point that I still think they’re the favorites at Clavision Masters 2025. The format of this event is also much more forgiving, which is good for PARIVISION in particular, seeing as how they like to experiment with their drafts every now and then. I’m looking at you, Ogre Magi offlane.

And since Spirit aren’t here, well, putting them at the top of this power ranking is an easy decision to make.

#2 — Tundra Esports

After going a disappointing 7th/8th at PGL Wallachia Season 5, Tundra Esports got themselves back into some pretty nice form at the Esports World Cup. They looked really good in the playoffs up until they encountered Team Falcons, who crushed them two games to none after an amazing comeback effort from Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak as Ember Spirit in the second map.

Despite the fact that they let that game slip, I think Falcons would still have ended up winning the series anyway because of how hot they were in the playoffs, so I’m not that worried about Tundra going to China. They’re still clearly one of the best teams in the world.

#3 — BetBoom Team

Here’s another team whose performance at EWC doesn’t really indicate what they’re capable of. BetBoom took Tundra to three games in their quarterfinal series in Riyadh, and it took some questionable itemization from Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko for them to throw away a net worth lead worth 10,000 gold in game 3.

If they have since had a discussion about that, I feel like they’ll be coming into Clavision Masters a bit sharper than they were at EWC. This team is too good to finish below the top 6 at most tier 1 LANs, so I’m expecting more from them this time around.

#4 — Gaimin Gladiators

Oh, Gaimin. You were gone too soon from EWC, being the victims of one of Team Spirit’s patented late game comebacks. The Gladiators had the first game of their quarterfinal series well in hand with a net worth lead of 30,000 gold — only to celebrate their huge advantage too early which led to some critical mistakes in the late game. Marcus “Ace” Christensen was having the time of his life as Axe, but allowed himself to get a little too cocky which Spirit were more than happy to capitalize on.

I still think they have the talent and now the chemistry to make a deep run wherever they go. They still have some issues to fix regarding their nerves, especially when they’re ahead, but they are very much capable of turning it on. They just have to not get in their heads.

#5 — Team Tidebound

Out of the three Chinese teams at this Chinese event, I’m confident only in Team Tidebound — but even then, I am a little hesitant to call them runaway contenders. They are marginally better talent-wise compared to both Xtreme Gaming and Yakult Brothers, but XG in particular have had more outings lately which probably means they’re more warmed up.

Nevertheless, I’m going to put them right here in the middle of the pack. I know for a fact that they’re capable of great things, but it will be a matter of whether or not they find a way to break past the usual suspects at the top. We’ve seen them do as much before, lie at PGL Wallachia Season 4 — but that was three whole months ago.

Their Season 5 outing wasn’t very inspiring, though, as they only placed 9th-11th there. Their form isn’t exactly great right now, but I will give them a chance because they’ve shown flashes of brilliance this season.

All the Others

Yeah, I’m not getting fooled by Nigma Galaxy anymore this year. I feel like they’re perennial pretenders instead of contenders, and failing to qualify for Esports World Cup just reinforced my belief. I’m putting XG above them in the power ranking as I usually do, because XG always seem to be a good dark horse pick at any major LAN this season. They are playing with some stand-ins at Clavision Masters though, so I’m not willing to put them any higher than this.

As for the rest, there’s really not much to say. Team Yandex did have me looking twice at them at EWC when they survived their first elimination phase match, but there wasn’t much left to get excited about from there.