DOTA 2

Whoever the NA team is will probably only get top 8 at best. NP looking like shit the last 2 days, and CoL will disappoint again if they win the invite. It's basically EG or nothing for NA at the moment.

What is it with fucking NaVi dude, I swear.

Lol NiP losing to Onyx postgame

"Lacoste what do you think of NiP losing to Onyx"

Lacoste: "Next level......you cant disappoint your fans at the Major if you disappoint them at the qualifier"

Jimmy & The Boys (NA Boogaloo) are looking really good.

Zaphid said:

Too early to tell, especially since China still has to get its shit together, as usual. Prime suspects in the west are Liquid, EG and OG. SEA, CIS and other NA teams don't really hold up in international competition. If it's anything as usual, the "favorite" will crash and burn, while a relative underdog will power through seemingly out of the blue, with everybody saying "I guess we should've seen that coming" afterwards. Wings last year mostly crashed at LANs, DC was a team of rejects with nothing to lose.

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Meh, I still think OG is overrated, barring Frankfurt they seem to only win (or even do well) when the other teams look like shit. EG is also interesting, they've played so little its hard to know if they fixed it but at Boston it felt like they are missing some crucial element.

I would like Liquid to win it, they've been impressive for the a lot of the last year but it hasn't aligned with the Valve events. Ditto for VP, the players on that team have been individually impressive but haven't managed to pull off a big event.

Heck, even Secret looked good in the Quals!

Looks like its building up to a fun qualifier to watch.

I wouldn't have predicted this earlier in the year but... I'd much rather watch the MoonDuck coverage than BTS but they seem to be getting boring regions like SA. SunsFan in particular is hilarious, though I wish they'd ditch this mrp guy.

Luthair said:

I wouldn't have predicted this earlier in the year but... I'd much rather watch the MoonDuck coverage than BTS but they seem to be getting boring regions like SA. SunsFan in particular is hilarious, though I wish they'd ditch this mrp guy.

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They are playing WWE with all custom characters right now that are dota personalities. Its a tag team match of Pimp and Twitchchat vs Slacks and r/dota2.

Shits hilarious

What do you guys think of the meta in tournies so far? Good hero selection? I'm having trouble finding a breakdown of highest picks bans, number of heroes selected etc...

At first I felt it was kind of stale, but now we're seeing interesting things pop up in these qualifiers. Or maybe I just don't watch enough games? I feel physical damage is kind of the biggest winner this patch, and thus -armor and big armor heroes are doing well (although I haven't seen DK much at all?). I feel the prevalence of HOTM and Midas has really fucked Enchantress and Chen. I'm surprised to not see more of Lycan/Furion rat games. I feel the disengage is so good this meta that those two would have a great time split pushing objectives. And I guess because of the disengage/engage meta that is why slardar is probably the highest pick/ban right now (remember I don't have the stats, just watched a few games so I'm probably wrong).

Dunno this coming from a complete dipshit so I'm probably talking out of my ass.

Seems like the same 15 heroes in every region getting picked. Centaur, Slardar, Earth/Ember Spirit, Warlock, Rubick, Jugg, Lone Druid, KOTL, Slark, Sven, Invoker.

Ogre Magi seems the highest pick rate though.

God Ogre magi is seriously the most boring hero to not only play, but also watch. But of course with physical the way it is now he is just too powerful.

I'm actually kind of surprised not to see Lich played more. Strong team fight early and mid game, and his 25 talent is amazing for this meta. I bet a lot of teams are holding pocket Lich/Viper team comps.

Kiev Major - Heroes

Didn't expect the Rubick to be first, but it makes sense. A good rubick player can cancel a lot of initiations if they precast, or are just godly reaction times and almost always makes it past ban phase. VS also not surprising, can play a lot of draft mind games with her. I like this though, because Rubick is easily one of the most dynamic heroes in the game and is probably the most fun hero to watch when played well. LD so low because my god is he banned like every game. I swear I've been here before, but with a radiance/armlet.

Anyway I think the meta still has a few more shakeups before we see major adjustments. LOL at Arc Warden having a higher pick rate than Jakiro/Zeus/Prophet

This Anniedroid ugly cow is annoying as fuck. Purge just told her basically shut up you're wrong.

Mineski with what I think is probably the biggest throw I've ever seen in a pro game against TNC.

Everyone but Alch is dead, and he tries to man up against the enemy team. What. The. Fuck? And then TNC has a bad high ground aegis push, but Dazzle graves an Alch illusion on their counter push.

Jesus, some of you guys doing p&b analysis...

I watched mostly just the EU quals, but the meta seems to differ a lot between regions with each team having some pocket picks.

Ogre is popular because you can't have a bad early game with him and if your cores autoattack and move, he scales them better than almost any other support. He's also a bitch to counterpick, but not strong enough to warrant a ban. Slardar enables even middling cores to be absolutely terrifying, not to mention he has mini ravage. Usually you see a draft slanted towards physical damage or magic, with maybe 1 core being the opposite if there is a suitable counterpick or you just need control and teamfight. Lich is not being played since he does fuckall until at least lvl 2 and weakens your push. Ice armor can be gained with an item every carry builds. Force staffs and Lotus Orbs make him fall off past 20 minutes.

Top of the line picks are heroes who don't need team synergy to do their job. So that's where Ember, Slardar, Invoker, Ogre, LD and so on sit. I'm somewhat surprised that centaur sits at the top of P&B, but I guess he is Slardar's cousin with more teamfight.

HotD continues to be really popular, which might be making Midas a bit better choice than it should be, but you gotta get those lvl 25 talents somehow.

I'm waiting for somebody to bust out Lycan/Kotl push strat, I know Liquid played like one game with that, but I haven't seen it since. Ursa is imo trash tier hero, but he continues to be picked, even though he peaks at 25 minutes without having a whole team built around him.