DOTA 2

ohmgee_sl said:

Has anyone picked pa?

Click to expand...

datdota's international section gives an up to date picture of the tournament. 76 unique picks in the first 36 games. Certainly not all those panned out - but they have been attempted

datdota: The International 2014

At first glance C9 seems to have had a great first day, but if you look at the teams they've played they ideally wanted to go 5-0, the only top team they've beaten is EG. OTH Liquid had a spectacular first day defeating the what many thought were the top3 seeds. In short C9 did the minimum, but Liquid has set themselves up nicely.

Shame there are 4 simultaneous games going, quite often there are 2-3 games I would have liked to watch. Pretty happy with TI thus far!

Demon interview at the end of the day. Interesting stuff about how his Redbull sponsorship lead to a more - action sport athlete type bootcamp at Redbull's office - including sports psychologists.

.

Dandain_sl said:

Demon interview at the end of the day. Interesting stuff about how his Redbull sponsorship lead to a more - action sport athlete type bootcamp at Redbull's office - including sports psychologists.

Click to expand...

RedBull consistently have their sponsored players playing really well. They take pride in what they do and it shows.

My randomish thoughts on an amazing first day of TI4. Actually going back before Ti4, just in reflection this past year has been incredible for pro gaming in dota 2 as far as how seriously its been taken and the level of play all around. I mean look at Ti3 last year for instance. How many of those teams were considered pretty easy wins to good teams or for some teams just flat out free wins?

MuFC
Rattlesnake
VP
LGD.int
Dignitas could have been included there as well.

This year? Really only Arrow. Titan has some of the core players of Orange Esports team from last year and we all know how good those players are, they just haven't played in a lot of the bigger non asian tournaments. The parity this year is light years ahead of where it was last year and its pretty amazing as a fan of the pro scene to see the competition level not just rise, but skyrocket this past year.

As far as Liquid goes, qojqvya is just incredible. I think he's every bit as good as Bulldog on prophet and he wrecks in teamfights. The best I saw Na'vi play this past year was when Puppey was gone, Kuro was drafting for them, and Qojqvya was standing in for them in the offlane playing NP etc. He was stealing the show in that time, and showed just how fucking good/respected he is as a player. Demon seems to have grown as a player and doesn't do the stupid dives he is known for, and I wonder how much of that was on Fear. That video above was pretty revealing as his thoughts echoed mine that they were just fucking awful lately, so that bootcamp seems to have done great. His level of arrogance seems way toned down from the past too. Im also surprised more Tidehunters dont go midas like he wrecked DK with in long farm games given how easy it is for him to stack and farm ancients/camps now. I mean ffs, he had arcane boots, blink, a platemail and a fucking refresher at 28 minutes and was outfarming Burning for a long while. If you watch him on player perspective he is very good at the fundamentals of the game...he always has been but his retarded dives he was known for in EG took away from that.

As to other things. Can Puppey play any heroes well that arent junglers? There arent really any heroes you go oh shit its Puppey on ______. His play doesnt standout and his hero pool is insanely limited on top of his drafting being shit now imo. Xboct is doing retarded shit still (leaving his team to farm creeps at the tier 3 and getting raped for instance), and its amazing how good the core of Navi is with Dendi, Kuro, and funn1k that they continually make huge plays to bail him out. Alliance not being able to rat is hilarious, and every team is just saying fuck you and banning NP and Wisp and making them pick sub optimal heroes like Lone Druid. They seem completely lost and its hilarious, fuck you Loda you arrogant fuck.

I think EG in the Necrophos/Abaddon game really showed a great counter for beating both Void and Skywrath. That draft and gameplan was brilliantly executed. They built multiple force staffs to get out of their ultimates and used Aphotic Shield to fuck skywrath and remove the silence...at that point he was just food and a wasted pick. Bonus in that game was Aphotic shield also shits on 5 second Mirana arrows too.....Abaddon pretty much countered their whole team. EG is like super hot or cold, they either do that, or draft some retarded Riki mid and get shit on by sentries the whole game. I think the NA teams as a group though have some outside the box drafting and creativity which is fun to watch. Also, DK reminds me of EHome from TI1....they have so much pressure to do well and its surprising to see Mushi get absolutely shit on in mid or iceiceice to chrono and switch targets 3 times for no effect. They are definitely "off" though.

And finally......U-S-A, U-S-A!

So far I had a blast watching the games. It is really hard to predict who wins as it seems that there are no real favourites yet. I hope Titan gets far though. I like their picks and playstyle a lot. They even made QoP work ^^

If you feel brave, go read youtube comments.

I don't know, maybe it's Goblak talking some sense into them, but Navi seemed quite on point on day 1. Of course, they still have the hardest matches ahead, but Dendi instantly murdering Mouz was fun to watch

I agree with basically everything you said Genj. Too add to it I think I'm basically invested into competitive dota as much as I am for "real sports" -sheever (7/9/14). Of course, it doesn't provide that same feeling I get come Fall on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but it's really not that far off for me. I never really thought it'd be possible but here I am.

I haven't seen Sheever in forever and this is the girl people are fawning over? She looks like a 40 year old soccer mom who wears 5 pounds of makeup.

Some good games coming up today. The first few series should change the dynamic of the tournament going forward.

Some games to watch in them.

Series 10:
- Liquid v. Fnatic (is Liquid for real?)

Series 11:
- iG v. EG (how will maybe the top eastern team stand up against a western team outside of the Lost Alliance)
- C9 v. Na'Vi (both C9s 4-1 and Na'vi's 3-1 are discredited as being against weak competition, how will they fare against each other?)

Series 12:
- LGD v. Fnatic (if LGD loses here, they might be done for in the tournament)

Series 13:
- DK v. C9 (big test for C9, big game for DK if they want to have a shot at a good placement)
- EG v NewBee (another big test of East against West)

My memory may be hazy but didn't Liquid do something like this last year as well? They did pretty good in groups then shat the bed in bracket play?

Nah. The big Liquid story at TI3 was that they fought through the Loser's Bracket and ended up knocking LGD out of the money before falling to IG.

The thing I'm most interested about today is how the teams adjust. We will see Lich/Tidehunter/Razor/Void start to disappear based on the fact they're losing or will teams stick with it? Will people start using the Abaddon counter to Skywrath that EG came up with? Will Wraith King and Enigma get some bans?

Nebuchadnezzar_sl said:

Nah. The big Liquid story at TI3 was that they fought through the Loser's Bracket and ended up knocking LGD out of the money before falling to IG.

Click to expand...

Ah alright. I must be remembering wrong then.

Mid earthshaker coming from Liquid. Shit-ton of teamfight from Fnatic.