[DotA2] [DOTA 2] The International

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It's highly likely that no one but me actually cares about this, but the action from The International kicked off last night with the playoff for the final spotbetween Rattlesnake (China) and Quantic (mixed Europeans).

Best of 5, and it went to 4 games. I only caught the 4th match live, but saw Quantic get knocked out on their asses. They're a team with a reputation for great, innovative drafting, but exactly how innovative was the 'no carries, no stuns' strategy when having to deal with a Weaver and a Storm Spirit?

The lineups for this deciding game were:

Quantic:

ChenQueen of Pain
Tinker
Nature's Prophet
Visage

Rattlesnake

Chaos Knight
Weaver
Storm spirit
Keeper of the Light
Ancient Apparition

Quantic needed to win this match or be knocked out, and quite frankly, I didn't really understand their lineup choices at all. They have a slow in Visage (and a couple of difficult to land stuns with his familiars) and sprout from Nature's prophet. None of which was going to be able to really deal with Weaver's Time Lapse or Ball Lightning on SS. There wasn't even much disparity in pushing power, since IMO KotL and Tinker are pretty much a wash

Both the teams are pretty aggressive, and it lead to some pretty loose, sloppy wide open play, but Rattlesnake clearly looked like the class in the final game, they're a solid team built around LaNm (best known for the outrageous tiny-wisp game between eHome and Orange at last year's international). They destroyed Quantic in fine style, and seemed to outdraft them too. They'll go as far as LaNm's experience and play takes them, but I'm not convinced they'll hold up against the better sides like Alliance, Navi, LGD.cn, iG, TongFu etc. They're probably stronger than Dignitas and Liquid, and maybe Fnatic as well.

In other news there was a gimmicky single player pro tourney, which doesn't really mean anything in a team game.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Bearing in mind that I haven't watched that series as yet, from the drafting alone I'd say that Quantic were going for a gank-kills and high mobility approach.

Chen can be in multiple places at once with the neutrals he's got control of. QoP has blink and nuke. Tinker's most common build gets Boots of Travel, giving him near-global presence and massive nuke damage. Nature has his global TP and a team nuke in Nature's Wrath, plus pushing power from treants. Visage's slow is more than that -- it also steals attack speed -- and he can pack together some pretty great nuking from Soul Assumption.

I'd say they were looking for a quick and early teamfight or gank dominance and then to use Chen and NP to split push.

That said, on first glance, I'd still assume that Rattlesnake's line up was a safer bet; three heroes with some form of evasion (CK's phantoms, SS's ball lightning, Weaver's invis and time lapse), plus good counter push from KotL and AA. With Quantic's reliance on single target killing, I can see they'd lose that if they didn't quickly get the upper hand.

 

[Panda with issues...]

Yeah, unfortunately LaNm had a strong laning phase with Storm Spirit, and by the time the game entered what should have been the stronger part of Quantic's match (10-25 mins or so, looking at their lineup), LaNm already had a couple of levels on them, and was ganking them repeatedly. The Storm Spirit - KotL combo was quite inspired, as it allowed LaNm to make much longer moves with ball lightning earlier in the game than you would normally be able to get away with, since when he arrived at a gank/teamfight etc, KotL could use Chakra to replenish his mana instantly. Allowed for good fight-to-farm transitioning, and just generally allowed him to come online much earlier than he usually would.

 

[Panda with issues...]

The thing I think about the lineups was that the Weaver and SS picks came out early. Quantic had plenty of opportunities to adjust to them but chose not to. Whilst I'm not necessarily going to knock making a strategy and sticking to it and your convictions, rather than reacting to what your opponents want to do, this game was for all the marbles, and Quantic looked incredibly toothless. I guess they gambled on an early win, and it just didn't fly.

 

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For people wanting to watch, joindota has schedules up down the side of the page:

http://www.joindota.com/en/news/11259-ti3-groupstage-day-1-schedule

I'm torn between Navi vs Fnatic and Mouse vs Zenith out of the first bracket, I'll probably tune in to the Mouse-Zenith game though.

Pick of the games in my opinion today look to be:

iG vs Rattlesnake

TongFu vs Orange

Navi vs Mouse

DK vs LGD.cn

 

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http://www.joindota.com/en/news/11263-ti3-groupstage-day-1-recap

A recap of some of the first day's games, and the current standings.

Shocks of the tournament so far were Fnatic taking both games over Na'Vi and Dignitas taking both over LGD.cn, along with Liquid 2-0 over TongFu.

Although I didn't catch the Na'Vi Fnatic games, I did see the first Fnatic vs Zenith game, and Fnatic look like they could cause anyone trouble. LGD.cn have always been a very rigid team, and although I didn't see their games vs Dignitas, it'd be interesting to catch up on. Was very surprised by TongFu losing to Liquid, as TongFu looked very strong in the games I saw where they wiped the floor with Orange, who generally look very disappointing.

I caught part of one of the DK vs LGD.cn games and DK look like they mean business.

I saw iG totally destroy Rattlesnake, despite solid play from RS. I then proceeded to watch what were some of the best games last night, where iG played very well against Alliance, but still lost 2-0. Alliance look incredibly strong, and it will be interesting to see if anyone can take any games off them in the group stage, with TongFu looking (IMO) the only other bet to do so in that group after iG fell a little short.

I saw a fun game between mouz and Zenith, which was very back and forth, and then saw (a little disappointingly) Na'Vi handle mouz with ease.

I struggled with the games Sheever was announcing, as the audio quality was far below what the others were offering, with mic feedback and cat meowing generally proving too much to deal with and switched to a different game (despite liking cats).

Good match ups today look like:

TongFu vs Alliance

Dignitas vs Mouz

LGD.cn vs Fnatic

Na'Vi vs DK

So far the games have been a lot of fun whilst I'm unpacking and sorting, and there is a noticeably larger hero pool than the International last year, which is a good thing for variety and interesting strategies.

In games, so far I've seen played:

Earthshaker
Beastmaster
Dragon Knight
Clockwork
Alchemist
Treeant
Wisp
Timbersaw
Lifestealer
Doom
Chaos Knight
Magnus
Morphling
Vengeful Spirit
Templar Assassin
Bounty Hunter
Gyrocopter
Lone Druid
Naga Siren
Bloodseeker (!)
Shadow fiend
Razor
Viper
Clinkz
Broodmother
Weaver
Spectre
Nyx Assassin
Crystal Maiden
Puck
Storm spirit
Windrunner
Enchantress
Nature's Prophet
Tinker
Jakiro
Chen
Rubick
KOTL
Skywrath Mage
Bane
Enigma
Warlock
Queen of Pain
Dazzle
Leshrac
Dark Seer
Batrider
Ancient Apparition
Outworld Devourer
Shadow Demon
Visage

Almost every game has featured some sort of trilane, and the only game I saw that didn't was an unusual dual mid arrangement for Fnatic which had a mid morphling with wisp support, and an offlane Timbersaw - Worked very well for them, and they dominated the game.

Popular hard carries at the moment are Alchemist, Lifestealer and Gyrocopter.

DK , Weaver and Lone Druid are also generally ending up as carries, but DK is typically being farmed up mid, and Weaver and Lone Druid are frequently being used as offlaners that pack a significant punch in late game and turn into carries.

Mids are Batrider and Puck, as well as OD heading towards a carry goal. A smattering of mid TA, Magnus and Timbersaw is also spotted, though timbersaw has also been played as a solo offlaner.

Offlaners have had a lot of variety, with the classics like dark seer and Natures prophet still popular choices. Batrider has been run in the offlane when people have another mid choice available. Tinker and clockwork are popular offlaners. Windrunner, weaver and LD are also common sights in the offlane. Offlane Lifestealer has had a bit of play too.

Support picks are also very variable, though it's rare to see a game without Chen or Enchantress in the jungle of a trilane for one team or another. Bane has proven to be a pupular support pick for his disables, and particularly for enfeeble to shut down the hard carries. Shadow Demon's popularity is very high for the disrupt initiation into stun stacking in trilanes. Rubick's utility is still seeing plenty of play, though always as a support, rather than the Mid Rubick used as a core that we saw a lot last year at the International. Naga Siren has transitioned well from being one of the top hard carry picks of the previous International to a support for her net disable, armour down and ultimate for initiation or fleeing. I've not seen a tidehunter anywhere in the games I've seen so far. Visage has been everywhere as a support.

From last year's International, there have been some significant changes:

Far less focus on the 4-protect-1 as a viable strategy. Teams are frequently running 3 core heroes (safelane-trilane, mid and a resilient offlaner who can impact the game) or more. We're seeing much more early aggressive play and pushing similar to that popularised by Na'Vi last year and commonly fine tuned across tournaments since then, particularly with teams with multiple core heroes.

This is probably due in part to the much larger viable hero pool

As such, teams' laning strategies are seldom as set in stone and obvious when they are drafting as last year, and it's making for much more exciting games as a whole, fewer farmfests and generally shorter games. For this reason, laning is becoming more crucial than previously, as games are rarely going over 30-40 minutes due to highly aggressive play, and less focus on getting the sole carry fed.

 

[SgtFury]

No Antimage in that list? Last lot of games I watched month so ago, he was really popular carry, especially for Mous(?) Black. He can absolutely wreck a team in the late game. Or is it because ges aren't reaching that long now he's not chosen?

 

[Panda with issues...]

Anti-mage has cropped up more in the knockout stages. He, Naga and Morphling were the go to carries in the last International. Morphling has dropped off significantly, and Naga has transitioned nicely into a 4 role support in the hands of a few teams.

I think that Anti Mage is a true hard carry, and that your point about game lengths is a reasonable one. He basically requires a 4 protect 1 strategy to function, and particularly in the group stage games, there was less of that being played. A lot of teams have moved towards 2 or 3 core heroes all wanting farm, and the games have generally been more dynamic. As such Alchemist seems to have replaced him in a lot of games, as he offers a good damage AOE stun for teamfights in the early and midgame, and comparable farming with Greevil's Greed and Chemical Rage. Similarly, Gyrocopter offers much more than Anti Mage in early ganks (rocket barrage) and early and mid teamfights with flak cannon, rocket barrage and call down.

In the playoffs, where the games have been more cagey, and as a whole a little slower paced, he's seen more use. LodA and BurNing have been using him a reasonable amount, whilst other common users such as XBOCT have moved towards Alchemist and Weaver. Weaver saw a lot of play in the early stages due to flexibility, and also the Treeant Protector/Weaver tower diving combo. Mouz have been eliminated early, so Black hasn't been around.

Basically, it's not that he's unpopular, I think that there are just more options now and correspondingly, his appearances have dropped. He's not Faceless Void or Phantom Assassin or something who are really situational. If you want a true hard carry for the late game that can also split push, he's still one of the best choices.