By now, anyone who has tuned in to The International 2016 is aware of EHOME. But if history is any lesson, we all should have been paying attention to them much sooner.

EHOME were out of place in the Wild Card Tournament, like a golden statue amid dusty ruins. With eleven International appearances between them — ten of which ended in a Top 6 placement — and two players whose careers span all the way back to the first TI, EHOME are by far the most experienced team to ever enter through the Wild Card.

Had it not been for the post-Shanghai Major instability that swept the legs out from under China’s top powerhouses, a roster this packed with talent would certainly have been expected to earn a direct seat at TI. And in any other year, EHOME's dominant run through the first four days of the event would probably have been seen as a foregone conclusion.

EHOME paid little heed to their Wild Card competitors, taking out Execration and Escape Gaming to qualify out of the Winner’s Bracket. They then waltzed through Group B nearly undefeated, the only team to lock in their Upper Bracket spot on Day 2 of the Group Stage. Two teams were able to take games off them: Liquid, who managed to sneak a FATA- Death Prophet through the draft, and Digital Chaos, who edged out a 1-1 in the final match of the group, thanks to a Resolut1on Nature’s Prophet that they pulled out just for the occasion.

Again, if this was any other year, no one would be surprised to see EHOME as a Top 4 team, much less the winners of their group. But this International is arguably the most densely-packed competition in Dota history. Of the 16 teams competing, no fewer than half would be completely unsurprising in the Grand Final, or even winning it. Even among the Lower Bracket teams, only Escape Gaming has unilaterally struggled to make an argument for themselves.

Zhang "LaNm" Zhicheng

EHOME's return to form has been predicated on some abnormal priorities from captain Zhang "LaNm" Zhicheng: in a patch with a hefty Radiant win advantage, EHOME prioritizes Dire to the point of accepting second pick in nearly two-thirds of their games. Without EHOME's wins included, Dire only has a 46% win rate in the group stage games. Yet EHOME took their Dire games 8-2 over opponents including Newbee, Secret and Digital Chaos. They've also yet to lose one of their five Radiant games, a potential threat for the main event if opponents begin to feel too comfortable against the style EHOME have been playing.

EHOME’s drafts have been utterly fearless: in the most diverse International to date, they had the lowest hero diversity in their group, with only thirty heroes drafted. Their compositions are very top-heavy, relying on Wang "old chicken" Zhiyong's mid Mirana and Lanm's Ogre Magi. The combo provides immense smothering potential in the laning phase, where a Sacred Arrow can break a lane down, and the sheer armor and regen potential of the Oge Magi provides plenty of zoning strength. As the game rolls forward, Bloodlust feeds Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang's pushing potential on heroes like Juggernaut, Luna or Naga Siren.

This focus on Mirana, Ogre Magi, Juggernaut and Naga Siren (as well as support Kunkka and a handful of other tricks) dates back over the last month of their play, but in Seattle they’ve kicked things up to a frightening new gear. EHOME has been one of the most powerful drivers of Ogre Magi's ascent to the third-most popular hero at TI6 so far, as they constantly indulge in the two-headed caster and are certainly imitated by competitors.

Opponents haven’t been able to tackle old chicken’s or LaNm’s preferences in the draft, as their focus has been drawn to preventing iceiceice's Naga Siren, a late-game monstrosity that no team has yet been able to beat. EHOME’s competition still have a few options available to to them, but the question isn’t whether other teams will wise up, it’s whether they can adapt to whatever they must inevitably choose to let through the draft.

Wang "old chicken" Zhiyong

The process of losing to EHOME typically begins with a rotation from their opponents, leading to a jungle fight in the mid game. The pace is set at the draft: they take 10-15 minutes to find an opportunity and punish their opponents’ position, roll that aggression onto said opponents, and compound their advantage with a major teamfight within a minute of securing major items on cores.

Aside from the one game where EHOME used a Luna/Razor blitz strategy to take a blistering victory from Newbee, they seem far more interested in stripping control away from opponents than actually securing tower gold. They do this with heavy group rotations, fast global reactions and a high priority on the opponents’ safe lane and mid lane towers. In fact, in about half of their wins, EHOME left the opponent's offlane more or less untouched, considering it useless in their quest for jungle control.

Their focus on combat-oriented control gives them a very close spread of KDAs. Cores do not have kill-participation priority, unlike in core-centric strategies such as those employed by Newbee. As a result, EHOME’s gold is also distributed more evenly (although this stat is significantly influenced by how often they win).

EHOME know their niche. They've yet to play Drow Ranger, Io, Lycan, Morphling, Tinker or Alchemist, but have banned all these heroes with moderate-to-high priority. But the question remains: with such an overt and consistent recipe for victory — with EHOME’s severe Dire-side preference and with so few heroes in their active pool — will these would-be champions be able to stand up to the increased scrutiny, research and preparation of the main bracket? Will they crumble once other International-caliber teams find the solution to their rigid gameplan? Or was the Group Stage the tip of EHOME’s strategic iceberg, their matches there too straightforward to draw out whatever tools and tricks they’ve stockpiled over months of practice?

Ryan "Gorgon the Wonder Cow" Jurado writes about Dota 2 and freelances for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.