The top 10 strongest teams in Dota 2 history, in our view, are Natus Vincere, OG, Evil Geniuses, Team Secret, Team Liquid, Alliance, Wings Gaming, Vici Gaming, Virtus.pro and LGD. The criteria are straightforward: titles at The International and the Majors, total trophies and prize money, and the ability to stay at the top for several years. OG is still the only team to have won The International in back-to-back years (2018 and 2019).
The second part of the article keeps the ranking of active teams as it stood at the start of 2023. Treat it as an archived snapshot: rosters and form in Dota change every season, so check up-to-date tournament standings for the current balance of power. These are the criteria we used for the all-time list:
Total number of trophies won.
Most wins at The International and the Majors.
Highest prize money earned by the organization in tournaments.
A consistently high level of play over many years.
The 10 strongest teams in Dota 2 history (part 1)
Let's start with the most interesting part: the organizations that left a lasting mark on the game and on its fans. If you are more interested in individual stars than in teams, see our list of the 10 best players in Dota 2.
Dota 2 is a sport where wins come first, and by tournaments won in any category, Natus Vincere (Latin for "born to win") long stood above everyone else: at the start of 2023 the team had 38 first places, with EG and Team Secret the closest pursuers. Three dominant years for Navi (2011, 2012 and 2013) gave them an enormous head start and turned them into the defining team of that era, one that rolled over its rivals. Three straight finals at The International, with one title in 2011, speak for themselves. That is why Navi opens our all-time list.
Second place goes to OG. The argument is simple: OG was the first team to win The International twice, and did it in consecutive years (2018 and 2019), after already collecting four Valve-sanctioned Majors. Team Spirit (2021 and 2023) and Team Liquid (2017 and 2024) have since won two TI titles each, but OG remains the only team with back-to-back championships.
The 10 strongest teams in Dota 2 history (part 2)
Evil Geniuses, champions of The International 2015, rightfully claim third place. At the start of 2023 the organization had more prize-winning finishes than anyone else, 104 in total. That record shows EG could hold a top level for years, and real class in esports means exactly that: steady results without long slumps.
Fourth place, in our opinion, belongs to Team Secret. Puppey's intricate strategies, often compared with the "total football" of the Dutch national team in the 1970s, brought the organization a long list of titles. Only one is missing, and it is the most important one: Team Secret has never won The International, which is why it sits fourth here.
Team Liquid rounds out the top five, thanks to an outstanding 2017 and the equally outstanding Miracle-, whose Invoker play earned him comparisons with Lionel Messi. The team's ability to play attractive yet efficient Dota won them the Aegis at The International 2017, and in 2024 Team Liquid won the tournament for a second time.
The 10 strongest teams in Dota 2 history (part 3)
Sixth place goes to the 2013 Alliance roster. The team pulled off a famous win over Navi in the final of The International and beat other top teams largely thanks to meticulous game planning.
Seventh place goes to China, specifically Wings Gaming. In 2016 the team had a brilliant run of creative, high-quality play, winning several tournaments and The International. The roster then fell apart, and the organization never returned to that level.
Eighth place goes to another Chinese team, Vici Gaming. In the 2018/19 season they regularly reached the deciding stages of the biggest events and won titles. The organization remained a team of one great period, but it earned its spot on this list.
Ninth place goes to Virtus.pro. The team could always deliver drama, for example the tense final against OG at the 2017 Kyiv Major. But a lack of wins in the matches that mattered most, above all at The International, keeps it from ranking higher.
LGD closes out the top ten. The Chinese team played flashy, exciting Dota, yet twice lost a final of The International as one of the favorites: to OG in 2018 and to Team Spirit in 2021.
How the early-2023 ranking was calculated
Now for the archived ranking of active teams, which reflected the balance of power at the start of 2023. First, a word on how the rating points behind it were calculated.
To capture each team's form at the time, only results from the previous twelve months were counted, using two criteria: tournament achievements and recent match form.
For the first criterion, the ranking looked at how recently a tournament took place (the closer to the ranking date, the more points) and how prestigious it was. Naturally, playing at The International counted for far more than a routine tier-2 event.
For the second criterion, the ranking measured how well a team performed in individual matches over the previous three months. The older a match, the less it was worth.
The top ten at the start of 2023 (part 1)
At that point, the clear leader was the British team Tundra Esports, more than 200 points ahead of its nearest rival, Team Liquid.
The team rose to the top quickly, even though its roster had only been assembled in January 2021. Tundra's lead was mostly down to its win at The International 2022; by then the organization had not yet become a regular winner, with three victories from 24 tournaments since its founding.
Team Liquid sat in second place. The team finished 2022 strongly, taking bronze at The International and putting together a seven-match unbeaten streak that lifted it high in the standings.
Team Spirit completed the top three. Despite a disappointing International 2022, the team had a strong summer, winning the Arlington Major and finishing second at an event in Saudi Arabia. Six wins in its last seven matches suggested a return to form, and in 2023 Team Spirit went on to win its second International.
The top ten at the start of 2023 (part 2)
Team Secret held fourth place. By then Puppey had kept the team at a high level for nine years. In 2022 Secret won nothing major but almost always finished in the prize places, which earned plenty of rating points. At that time the team had also played at every International since 2014.
Fifth place went to Beastcoast, a Peruvian team whose strength was the cohesion of its players. In 2022 it consistently finished in the top eight, including The International and the Majors, and it closed the year without losing an individual match.
Team Aster was sixth, the first Chinese team in the ranking. The Chinese scene had cooled noticeably in 2022 after several years of strong pressure on European and North American teams.
Even so, Aster was the only Chinese team to perform well at both The International 2022 (4th place) and the Arlington Major (3rd place).
The top ten at the start of 2023 (part 3)
Seventh place went to Evil Geniuses. The "curse of third place" that began in 2016-2019 had only deepened: EG was reaching the top three at big events even less often, though it kept winning smaller competitions.
The Filipino team Execration was a surprise in eighth. It played well and won a lot in Southeast Asia, but in 2022 it qualified for neither The International nor the Majors.
OG came ninth. The team had a decent 2022, winning ESL events in Stockholm and Malaysia, but it faded badly at the end of the season and lost many matches.
Shopify Rebellion closed the top ten. The organization appeared at the end of 2022 and immediately earned a slot at the Lima Major.
The balance of power has shifted a lot since then, so read this list as a snapshot of its time. For more recent rosters and overviews, see our articles on the top Dota 2 teams and teams in Dota. If you want to support your favorite team, Dota has team stickers for that, and they are sold alongside other items on the LIS-SKINS Dota 2 market.
