Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Quick hit: Drafting again tonight!
I should be drafting AVR again tonight. I'll try to take better notes and write up a report when I get home.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Thoughts: Drafting Black in Avacyn Restored
The general perception seems to be that black is the weakest color in Avacyn Restored limited. While black has the least (obvious) synergy with the other colors, it is important to remember that just because a color is (believed to be) 'weaker' than other colors doesn't mean you should never draft it! There is a lot going for black in this format that I think sets it apart from the "good guy" colors:
1. Black has the best removal spells at common. Black has the only spell in the set that says "destroy target creature" on it.
2. Black has the biggest, nastiest creatures (after green). Yes, white has its share of angels, but the biggest, scariest angel (at common), Seraph of Dawn, is a measly 2/4. Black gets a 5/3 at common. While "Mass of Ghouls" isn't a particularly exciting card in most limited environments, a 5/3 in AVR will at least trade with every common and uncommon except Vorstclaw. That 5 power lets it break through Angelic Walls, Galvanic Alchemists, etc. And black's creatures, while lacking synergy with the other colors' creatures (for the most part), have monster synergy with each other (pun intended).
3. Blood Artist and the "Blood Artist combo." Blood Artist is a Falkenrath Noble without the flying body. In a limited format where the board can very easily become clogged and stalemate-ish, Blood Artist represents a kind of reach that the other colors generally can't boast. Then there's the combo. Blood Artist + Bloodflow Connoisseur + Driver of the Dead + Butcher Ghoul represents a Drain Life for five that leaves you with a 6/6 and Blood Artist (or a Drain Life for six that leaves you with a 7/7). The more Drivers and Butcher Ghouls, the more absurd this "combo" becomes. No, you probably won't win a lot of games if you look to force it in every draft, but if black is open you will usually wind up with the pieces you need.
The best black/x archetype is almost certainly black/red, using red's burn spells to complement black removal and red's vampires and devils to complement black's other creatures. Thatcher Rebellion is also a useful card in most black/red decks, particularly ones with Havengul Vampire. Uncanny Speed is also a powerful card coupled with black's fliers (and red's Heirs of Stromkirk).
The jury is still out on whether drafting black in AVR is as bad as the general public seems to think right now. Don't let another guy's hunch discourage you from taking black cards when the signals push you into it! I'm confident that while black may not be the deepest or most obvious color in AVR, it definitely has potential.
1. Black has the best removal spells at common. Black has the only spell in the set that says "destroy target creature" on it.
2. Black has the biggest, nastiest creatures (after green). Yes, white has its share of angels, but the biggest, scariest angel (at common), Seraph of Dawn, is a measly 2/4. Black gets a 5/3 at common. While "Mass of Ghouls" isn't a particularly exciting card in most limited environments, a 5/3 in AVR will at least trade with every common and uncommon except Vorstclaw. That 5 power lets it break through Angelic Walls, Galvanic Alchemists, etc. And black's creatures, while lacking synergy with the other colors' creatures (for the most part), have monster synergy with each other (pun intended).
3. Blood Artist and the "Blood Artist combo." Blood Artist is a Falkenrath Noble without the flying body. In a limited format where the board can very easily become clogged and stalemate-ish, Blood Artist represents a kind of reach that the other colors generally can't boast. Then there's the combo. Blood Artist + Bloodflow Connoisseur + Driver of the Dead + Butcher Ghoul represents a Drain Life for five that leaves you with a 6/6 and Blood Artist (or a Drain Life for six that leaves you with a 7/7). The more Drivers and Butcher Ghouls, the more absurd this "combo" becomes. No, you probably won't win a lot of games if you look to force it in every draft, but if black is open you will usually wind up with the pieces you need.
The best black/x archetype is almost certainly black/red, using red's burn spells to complement black removal and red's vampires and devils to complement black's other creatures. Thatcher Rebellion is also a useful card in most black/red decks, particularly ones with Havengul Vampire. Uncanny Speed is also a powerful card coupled with black's fliers (and red's Heirs of Stromkirk).
The jury is still out on whether drafting black in AVR is as bad as the general public seems to think right now. Don't let another guy's hunch discourage you from taking black cards when the signals push you into it! I'm confident that while black may not be the deepest or most obvious color in AVR, it definitely has potential.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
AVR: First Draft
Well, I didn't get to spend the past week examining draft archetypes (exams, etc.), but hopefully I will have some time to comment on it this week.
I made it to the local AVR pre-release on Saturday. This feels like an awful Sealed Deck format. There are so many cards that are very restricted to one or two deck archetypes in order to be even playable. I opened about fifteen playable cards for red/black aggro, but I had no black removal spells. I ended up playing blue/green control, splashing black for the reanimator enchantment (protip: you can cast this on your opponent's guys if you want to steal them). Every game I resolved Ulvenwald Tracker was a blowout win in my favor, and every game that I didn't draw him I ended up losing by a pretty small margin. Considering I had no ways to filter my draws and a pretty jank deck, I was more or less okay with how things turned out. Sometimes you play tight and your deck just doesn't give you the answers you need.
That being said, I fully expected drafting the set to be awesome. We won/traded for enough prize packs to run a six man team draft. For those of you who have never team drafted before, the way it works is you sit in alternating seats. Drafting is exactly the same as normal, with the caveat that you aren't allowed to talk openly about picks during the draft.
Many predicted that this draft format would be "slow," especially compared to DKA-INN-INN and triple Innistrad, much in the same way that Rise of the Eldrazi was a much, much slower format than Zendikar/Worldwake. When I first perused the visual spoiler, I didn't see it. Yes, you can draft much slower decks in this format, but if your deck isn't prepared for fast decks (and, yes, there are some very fast decks that you can draft in this format) you will drop a lot of matches. There is some insane linear synergy in the aggressive decks that lets them curve out into some really fast starts (more on that later).
Anyway, back to the draft report. I'm fairly confident that the "best possible" deck archetype is some kind of green/red aggro deck, but the green combos so well with other colors (especially white) that trying to draft red/green is pretty difficult. I wanted to play a faster deck in order to punish the other players at the table, all of whom had decided that Avacyn Restored would be much slower than Innistrad/Dark Ascension. I didn't keep track of all my picks, but the gist of it was this:
Pack one: I first picked Riot Ringleader over Gang of Devils, Bloodflow Connoisseur, and three good green cards. I second picked Lightning Mauler over another Gang of Devils and some non-red, non-white stuff. There was a Thatcher Revolt in the pack, which meant that wheeling Connoisseur into the Revolt would put me firmly in red/black. My next few picks were both vampires, Heirs of Stromkirk and Havengul Vampire. I stayed in red until the Bloodflow Connoisseur pack came back. No Bloodflow Connoisseur (meaning that I would not be drafting black today, as someone else was obviously drafting it), but all the green cards wheeled (interesting, but mostly a sign that my read on the format was just different than the other drafters') and I was able to pick up the red team pump spell (Banners Raised). The next pack had the Thatcher Rebellion, though, so that was an easy pick. I finished the pack out with mostly red cards, Moorland Inquisitor, and the red/white spell land (Slayers' Stronghold), meaning red/white aggro was wide open.
Pack two: First pick Thunderous Wrath (yes!), unfortunately passing Thunderbolt to my friend Al. I found out after the draft that he took that as a signal to move into red; he ended up taking two or three more Thunderbolts (!). Luckily, Thunderbolt isn't a main deck card in red/white aggro, though it is a very important sideboard card against slower white decks packing Seraph of Dawn. The rest of this pack had some more Riot Ringleaders, Thatcher Revolt, Lightning Mauler, some of the white one-drops, the "white Shock," and Falkenrath Exterminator.
Pack three was relatively uninteresting. I fleshed out my curve with Heirs of Stromkirk, Kruin Strikers, and some more red and white aggro cards.
In future write-ups I'll try to take better notes on picks to better communicate my draft strategy. Now, onto the games:
The way playing a team draft works is each player on a team plays each player on the other team in a best-of-three match, and the first team to win five or more matches wins the draft.
Match 1: vs Al (seat 6, to my right).
Going into this match I knew Al wasn't on an aggro plan. I expected some black cards. He wound up playing black/green. His deck was very slow. In our first game, I won the die roll and went:
- Turn one Stonewright. He played Swamp and passed.
- Turn two Kruin Striker, soulbond with Stonewright. Attack for one with Stonewright. He played Forest and passed.
- Turn three Riot Ringleaders, swing with Kruin Striker and Stonewright for four. He played Swamp, Demonic Taskmaster, and passed.
- Turn four Thatcher Rebellion, swing with everything. He blocked Riot Ringleaders with his Demon. I cast Banners Raised and killed him.
Now, even if I hadn't attacked on turns one, two, and three, my turn four swing would have been lethal on an empty board (it's twenty points of damage, exactly). As I was saying before, this draft format supports some highly consistent fast decks.
Game two was a little bit closer. After my first couple of plays he bought some time with Barter in Blood, clearing my board. I reloaded with Heirs of Stromkirk into Riot Ringleaders and Kruin Striker into Havengul Vampire and Thatcher Revolt, killing him. Heirs of Stromkirk is a superstar against non-red decks, allowing you to break through the last bits of damage if they are able to stabilize and gum up the board. Anyway, that's 1-0 (2-0) me.
Match 2: vs Jon (seat 2, to my left).
Jon won the die roll. He opened on Island, go. I opened on Mountain, go, which prompted him to ask when I moved into red. I laughed, saying "Pack one, pick one." He was surprised, since I passed him two Gang of Devils. Jon asserted that the format is "slow enough" that Gang of Devils is a good card. While Gang of Devils seems like a fine card in a more controlling deck, it costs six mana. I was running a deck with sixteen lands and a curve that topped out at four mana (but Jon had no way of knowing this). The fact of the matter is, Gang of Devils is a sort-of-okay card in most strategies. Its best in the slower red/black deck that tries to grind out wins with Blood Artists and demons. With a sacrifice outlet (e.g. Bloodflow Connoisseur), Gang of Devils becomes a decent removal spell, but, again, it costs six. Anyway, back to the game. I was able to get him really low, basically by playing and attacking with guys every turn. He got a turn four Seraph of Dawn, which slowed my clock slightly, but on its own a Seraph of Dawn isn't stopping the red tide. Next turn he enchants it with Infinite Reflections. Now every creature he plays is a 2/4 lifelinking angel. Big problem. I still managed to get him (and keep him) low enough that Thunderous Wrath is live for five straight draw steps, but it doesn't get there. We go to game two. I board in my enchantment removal, since I'm fairly certain Infinite Reflections on Seraph of Dawn is literally the only way his deck can beat mine.
Game two I curve out and kill him in five turns. Game three was more interesting. He had Goldknight Commander and some more dudes gumming up the board and occasionally swinging back. I was able to really mess him up, though, when I cast Thatcher Rebellion (with Kruin Striker and Riot Ringleaders on board), swinging with my team and leaving mana up. In this situation, he has to block something or he dies (I don't remember the life totals exactly). "As is," he can block my human tokens without losing anything (he had a bunch of 3 toughness guys), and if he has two cheap creatures in hand he can swing back for lethal on his turn. He blocks two of my tokens; I cast Banners Raised and blow him out. At this point in the draft, I'm now 2-0 (4-1).
Match 3: vs Marc (seat 4, directly across)
When Marc and I sat down to play, the score was 4-3 (on matches) in favor of my team, meaning that if I or my other teammate (playing against Jon) won the match, we would win the draft, but if we both lost our team would lose. Because Marc sat across from me, I wasn't sure what was in his deck. I had seen parts of his games against my teammates, so I knew he was green/white. I just didn't realize going into it how ridiculous his deck was.
Game one I punted a winnable game. Winning the die roll, I kept a hand that would let me curve out and start swinging for stupid amounts of damage on my fourth turn. I opened on Mountain, pass, holding both of my one drops so that I could go turn two Kruin Striker and swing for four on turn three (in case he played a blocker on turn two). He plays Forest and passes back. I go Plains, Kruin Striker, pass. He goes Wandering Wolf and passes back. Turn there I play both my one drops (Stonewright, soulbonded to the Striker, and Midnight Duelist) and swing with Kruin Striker for four, leaving mana up for Righteous Blow. He declines to block and takes the full brunt of the swing. On his turn he plays Trusted Forcemage (soulbond with the wolf) and swings with his wolf. Now, this is where I punt the match. I was more than happy to trade swings with his wolf, knowing that he would "have to" block my Kruin Striker (at some point) with his Forcemage and lose Soulbond. I was going to be casting Riot Ringleaders into Thatcher Revolt over the next two turns. This game felt in the bag for me. I severely misplayed by not killing his wolf with Righteous Blow when it attacked this turn, which would have made his Forcemage unable to block any of my attacks the next turn. Anyway, it ends up being close, but Timberland Guide buffs his Wolf up to 4/3 (and out of Righteous Blow range). Suddenly, I can't attack with everything because he'll be swinging back for seven, so I have to leave back a chump blocker for the Forcemage. In other words, "Very awkward." I definitely should have killed his Wolf when I had the chance, a mistake that ultimately ended up costing me the match.
Game two I curved out and killed him. It wasn't particularly interesting; I played tight and was swinging for lethal on turn four (again).
Game three was much closer. I had some early pressure and he had early defense. Unfortunately I wasn't able to force through a hit with Falkenrath Exterminator, which would have let me start clearing his board of guys. He wound up casting Riders of Gavony, naming Humans, which pretty much locked me out of the game unless I topdecked Thunderous Wrath. Long story short, I didn't get there.
So I ended up 2-1 (5-3), but would have been 3-0 (6-1) if I hadn't misplayed game one. Red/white aggro is a very strong deck in this format, especially if nobody is cutting you on the aggressive red guys. I had Riot Ringleaders, Kruin Strikers, and Thatcher Revolts in multiples. My curve topped out at four. As an added bonus, I had the spell land in my colors, and though I think I would have been "fine" without it having it on board really messes with your opponent's ability to do combat math. My team did end up winning the draft overall, so that was a plus. Marc's deck was amazing, and I'm going to attribute this to three things: 1. Green/white aggro is very strong (like red/white, only a little bit slower with a little bit bigger guys), 2. Riders of Gavony is a huge bomb in green/white aggro (i.e. humans), and 3. my teammate sitting to Marc's right isn't a very good drafter (he ended up drafting a pretty lackluster red/green splash blue deck after passing Marc a bunch of good green guys in pack one).
Anyway, these were my big takeaways from an initial draft of the set:
- Red and green are the two strongest main deck colors for aggressive decks. White is a good support color for either; black is a good support color for red.
- Slower decks have to have some kind of early plays or removal if they want to even stand a chance against aggressive decks. In Rise draft, you could make your first play on turn four and be fine even if you were against an "aggressive" deck (certainly a relative term in this case). In Avacyn Restored, by turn four on the draw you could just be dead.
- While Jon drafted a deck with blue cards and white cards, nobody at the table successfully drafted what I think of as "the blue/white deck" in triple AVR. Jon's deck had some angels, some guys, and some random spells. It was somewhat bomby (with Infinite Reflections being insane on either Seraph of Dawn or Goldnight Commander), but it didn't have the kind of tricks that I think a blue/white deck needs to rely on in this format. The flicker effects, soulbond, combat tricks, and deck filtering in blue/white are all very strong, and Jon's deck didn't really seem to have any of those elements.
Now that I have some experience to support my assertions, this is what I feel is the breakdown of deck types (in order of strongest to weakest):
1. Red/green aggro/soulbond (humans)
2. Green/white and red/white aggro/soulbond (humans)
3. Red/black
4. Black/blue Demons and white/blue Angels/soulbond
5. Black/x control
6. Blue/x control
By no means is this a comprehensive list of draft archetypes in Avacyn Restored. Off the top of my head, here are a few more that I just don't feel comfortable ranking right now:
- Black/x Demons, White/x Angels (where x is a non-blue support color)
- Red/blue spells
- Blue/white fliers, flicker
- Green/black Triumph
One last thing: the only color fixing in this set is green. The only ramp in this set is green, and it's rare (well, there is a red "fast mana" spell, but it's very borderline playable). Basically, there are two big traps in this draft format. The first trap is relying on being able to cast expensive spells (e.g. Gang of Devils, Archangel). Unless you can really stall the game out and dig, you aren't going to get there. The second trap is trying to play more than two colors. In a green deck with multiple Borderland Rangers/Abundant Growth I could see splashing a third color for some amazing color or bomb, but that's really the only circumstance where it's even remotely viable.
I made it to the local AVR pre-release on Saturday. This feels like an awful Sealed Deck format. There are so many cards that are very restricted to one or two deck archetypes in order to be even playable. I opened about fifteen playable cards for red/black aggro, but I had no black removal spells. I ended up playing blue/green control, splashing black for the reanimator enchantment (protip: you can cast this on your opponent's guys if you want to steal them). Every game I resolved Ulvenwald Tracker was a blowout win in my favor, and every game that I didn't draw him I ended up losing by a pretty small margin. Considering I had no ways to filter my draws and a pretty jank deck, I was more or less okay with how things turned out. Sometimes you play tight and your deck just doesn't give you the answers you need.
That being said, I fully expected drafting the set to be awesome. We won/traded for enough prize packs to run a six man team draft. For those of you who have never team drafted before, the way it works is you sit in alternating seats. Drafting is exactly the same as normal, with the caveat that you aren't allowed to talk openly about picks during the draft.
Many predicted that this draft format would be "slow," especially compared to DKA-INN-INN and triple Innistrad, much in the same way that Rise of the Eldrazi was a much, much slower format than Zendikar/Worldwake. When I first perused the visual spoiler, I didn't see it. Yes, you can draft much slower decks in this format, but if your deck isn't prepared for fast decks (and, yes, there are some very fast decks that you can draft in this format) you will drop a lot of matches. There is some insane linear synergy in the aggressive decks that lets them curve out into some really fast starts (more on that later).
Anyway, back to the draft report. I'm fairly confident that the "best possible" deck archetype is some kind of green/red aggro deck, but the green combos so well with other colors (especially white) that trying to draft red/green is pretty difficult. I wanted to play a faster deck in order to punish the other players at the table, all of whom had decided that Avacyn Restored would be much slower than Innistrad/Dark Ascension. I didn't keep track of all my picks, but the gist of it was this:
Pack one: I first picked Riot Ringleader over Gang of Devils, Bloodflow Connoisseur, and three good green cards. I second picked Lightning Mauler over another Gang of Devils and some non-red, non-white stuff. There was a Thatcher Revolt in the pack, which meant that wheeling Connoisseur into the Revolt would put me firmly in red/black. My next few picks were both vampires, Heirs of Stromkirk and Havengul Vampire. I stayed in red until the Bloodflow Connoisseur pack came back. No Bloodflow Connoisseur (meaning that I would not be drafting black today, as someone else was obviously drafting it), but all the green cards wheeled (interesting, but mostly a sign that my read on the format was just different than the other drafters') and I was able to pick up the red team pump spell (Banners Raised). The next pack had the Thatcher Rebellion, though, so that was an easy pick. I finished the pack out with mostly red cards, Moorland Inquisitor, and the red/white spell land (Slayers' Stronghold), meaning red/white aggro was wide open.
Pack two: First pick Thunderous Wrath (yes!), unfortunately passing Thunderbolt to my friend Al. I found out after the draft that he took that as a signal to move into red; he ended up taking two or three more Thunderbolts (!). Luckily, Thunderbolt isn't a main deck card in red/white aggro, though it is a very important sideboard card against slower white decks packing Seraph of Dawn. The rest of this pack had some more Riot Ringleaders, Thatcher Revolt, Lightning Mauler, some of the white one-drops, the "white Shock," and Falkenrath Exterminator.
Pack three was relatively uninteresting. I fleshed out my curve with Heirs of Stromkirk, Kruin Strikers, and some more red and white aggro cards.
In future write-ups I'll try to take better notes on picks to better communicate my draft strategy. Now, onto the games:
The way playing a team draft works is each player on a team plays each player on the other team in a best-of-three match, and the first team to win five or more matches wins the draft.
Match 1: vs Al (seat 6, to my right).
Going into this match I knew Al wasn't on an aggro plan. I expected some black cards. He wound up playing black/green. His deck was very slow. In our first game, I won the die roll and went:
- Turn one Stonewright. He played Swamp and passed.
- Turn two Kruin Striker, soulbond with Stonewright. Attack for one with Stonewright. He played Forest and passed.
- Turn three Riot Ringleaders, swing with Kruin Striker and Stonewright for four. He played Swamp, Demonic Taskmaster, and passed.
- Turn four Thatcher Rebellion, swing with everything. He blocked Riot Ringleaders with his Demon. I cast Banners Raised and killed him.
Now, even if I hadn't attacked on turns one, two, and three, my turn four swing would have been lethal on an empty board (it's twenty points of damage, exactly). As I was saying before, this draft format supports some highly consistent fast decks.
Game two was a little bit closer. After my first couple of plays he bought some time with Barter in Blood, clearing my board. I reloaded with Heirs of Stromkirk into Riot Ringleaders and Kruin Striker into Havengul Vampire and Thatcher Revolt, killing him. Heirs of Stromkirk is a superstar against non-red decks, allowing you to break through the last bits of damage if they are able to stabilize and gum up the board. Anyway, that's 1-0 (2-0) me.
Match 2: vs Jon (seat 2, to my left).
Jon won the die roll. He opened on Island, go. I opened on Mountain, go, which prompted him to ask when I moved into red. I laughed, saying "Pack one, pick one." He was surprised, since I passed him two Gang of Devils. Jon asserted that the format is "slow enough" that Gang of Devils is a good card. While Gang of Devils seems like a fine card in a more controlling deck, it costs six mana. I was running a deck with sixteen lands and a curve that topped out at four mana (but Jon had no way of knowing this). The fact of the matter is, Gang of Devils is a sort-of-okay card in most strategies. Its best in the slower red/black deck that tries to grind out wins with Blood Artists and demons. With a sacrifice outlet (e.g. Bloodflow Connoisseur), Gang of Devils becomes a decent removal spell, but, again, it costs six. Anyway, back to the game. I was able to get him really low, basically by playing and attacking with guys every turn. He got a turn four Seraph of Dawn, which slowed my clock slightly, but on its own a Seraph of Dawn isn't stopping the red tide. Next turn he enchants it with Infinite Reflections. Now every creature he plays is a 2/4 lifelinking angel. Big problem. I still managed to get him (and keep him) low enough that Thunderous Wrath is live for five straight draw steps, but it doesn't get there. We go to game two. I board in my enchantment removal, since I'm fairly certain Infinite Reflections on Seraph of Dawn is literally the only way his deck can beat mine.
Game two I curve out and kill him in five turns. Game three was more interesting. He had Goldknight Commander and some more dudes gumming up the board and occasionally swinging back. I was able to really mess him up, though, when I cast Thatcher Rebellion (with Kruin Striker and Riot Ringleaders on board), swinging with my team and leaving mana up. In this situation, he has to block something or he dies (I don't remember the life totals exactly). "As is," he can block my human tokens without losing anything (he had a bunch of 3 toughness guys), and if he has two cheap creatures in hand he can swing back for lethal on his turn. He blocks two of my tokens; I cast Banners Raised and blow him out. At this point in the draft, I'm now 2-0 (4-1).
Match 3: vs Marc (seat 4, directly across)
When Marc and I sat down to play, the score was 4-3 (on matches) in favor of my team, meaning that if I or my other teammate (playing against Jon) won the match, we would win the draft, but if we both lost our team would lose. Because Marc sat across from me, I wasn't sure what was in his deck. I had seen parts of his games against my teammates, so I knew he was green/white. I just didn't realize going into it how ridiculous his deck was.
Game one I punted a winnable game. Winning the die roll, I kept a hand that would let me curve out and start swinging for stupid amounts of damage on my fourth turn. I opened on Mountain, pass, holding both of my one drops so that I could go turn two Kruin Striker and swing for four on turn three (in case he played a blocker on turn two). He plays Forest and passes back. I go Plains, Kruin Striker, pass. He goes Wandering Wolf and passes back. Turn there I play both my one drops (Stonewright, soulbonded to the Striker, and Midnight Duelist) and swing with Kruin Striker for four, leaving mana up for Righteous Blow. He declines to block and takes the full brunt of the swing. On his turn he plays Trusted Forcemage (soulbond with the wolf) and swings with his wolf. Now, this is where I punt the match. I was more than happy to trade swings with his wolf, knowing that he would "have to" block my Kruin Striker (at some point) with his Forcemage and lose Soulbond. I was going to be casting Riot Ringleaders into Thatcher Revolt over the next two turns. This game felt in the bag for me. I severely misplayed by not killing his wolf with Righteous Blow when it attacked this turn, which would have made his Forcemage unable to block any of my attacks the next turn. Anyway, it ends up being close, but Timberland Guide buffs his Wolf up to 4/3 (and out of Righteous Blow range). Suddenly, I can't attack with everything because he'll be swinging back for seven, so I have to leave back a chump blocker for the Forcemage. In other words, "Very awkward." I definitely should have killed his Wolf when I had the chance, a mistake that ultimately ended up costing me the match.
Game two I curved out and killed him. It wasn't particularly interesting; I played tight and was swinging for lethal on turn four (again).
Game three was much closer. I had some early pressure and he had early defense. Unfortunately I wasn't able to force through a hit with Falkenrath Exterminator, which would have let me start clearing his board of guys. He wound up casting Riders of Gavony, naming Humans, which pretty much locked me out of the game unless I topdecked Thunderous Wrath. Long story short, I didn't get there.
So I ended up 2-1 (5-3), but would have been 3-0 (6-1) if I hadn't misplayed game one. Red/white aggro is a very strong deck in this format, especially if nobody is cutting you on the aggressive red guys. I had Riot Ringleaders, Kruin Strikers, and Thatcher Revolts in multiples. My curve topped out at four. As an added bonus, I had the spell land in my colors, and though I think I would have been "fine" without it having it on board really messes with your opponent's ability to do combat math. My team did end up winning the draft overall, so that was a plus. Marc's deck was amazing, and I'm going to attribute this to three things: 1. Green/white aggro is very strong (like red/white, only a little bit slower with a little bit bigger guys), 2. Riders of Gavony is a huge bomb in green/white aggro (i.e. humans), and 3. my teammate sitting to Marc's right isn't a very good drafter (he ended up drafting a pretty lackluster red/green splash blue deck after passing Marc a bunch of good green guys in pack one).
Anyway, these were my big takeaways from an initial draft of the set:
- Red and green are the two strongest main deck colors for aggressive decks. White is a good support color for either; black is a good support color for red.
- Slower decks have to have some kind of early plays or removal if they want to even stand a chance against aggressive decks. In Rise draft, you could make your first play on turn four and be fine even if you were against an "aggressive" deck (certainly a relative term in this case). In Avacyn Restored, by turn four on the draw you could just be dead.
- While Jon drafted a deck with blue cards and white cards, nobody at the table successfully drafted what I think of as "the blue/white deck" in triple AVR. Jon's deck had some angels, some guys, and some random spells. It was somewhat bomby (with Infinite Reflections being insane on either Seraph of Dawn or Goldnight Commander), but it didn't have the kind of tricks that I think a blue/white deck needs to rely on in this format. The flicker effects, soulbond, combat tricks, and deck filtering in blue/white are all very strong, and Jon's deck didn't really seem to have any of those elements.
Now that I have some experience to support my assertions, this is what I feel is the breakdown of deck types (in order of strongest to weakest):
1. Red/green aggro/soulbond (humans)
2. Green/white and red/white aggro/soulbond (humans)
3. Red/black
4. Black/blue Demons and white/blue Angels/soulbond
5. Black/x control
6. Blue/x control
By no means is this a comprehensive list of draft archetypes in Avacyn Restored. Off the top of my head, here are a few more that I just don't feel comfortable ranking right now:
- Black/x Demons, White/x Angels (where x is a non-blue support color)
- Red/blue spells
- Blue/white fliers, flicker
- Green/black Triumph
One last thing: the only color fixing in this set is green. The only ramp in this set is green, and it's rare (well, there is a red "fast mana" spell, but it's very borderline playable). Basically, there are two big traps in this draft format. The first trap is relying on being able to cast expensive spells (e.g. Gang of Devils, Archangel). Unless you can really stall the game out and dig, you aren't going to get there. The second trap is trying to play more than two colors. In a green deck with multiple Borderland Rangers/Abundant Growth I could see splashing a third color for some amazing color or bomb, but that's really the only circumstance where it's even remotely viable.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Let's talk about drafting AVR
Wizards posted the full set earlier today, so I (naturally) had to take a look and see what could be gleaned about it for limited. Since I plan on crushing at least one prerelease and drafting the packs afterward, I figure I may as well get a leg up.
When evaluating a set for limited I tend to ignore the rares and focus only on the commons and uncommons. "Bombs" is always a more-or-less viable draft archetype, and in this format the noticeable lack of spot removal suggests that it could be even better than usual. That being said, what the bombs are exactly usually isn't that important. It's better to be able to go into a draft with an actual plan about what draft archetypes are good. This helps you signal better and evaluate picks more accurately.
A cursory perusal suggests that RW and GW are two of the stronger aggro archetypes. RB also looks to be strong, although drafting it seems like it could be tricky. There are a number of sacrifice creature costs in black that make Thatcher's Rebellion that much better. There's obviously a mill archetype in there somewhere, with some obvious "build around me" cards (Stern Mentor) that can set you up to draft it successfully if you get passed one early. UW fliers is a definite deck archetype though there is a prevalence of flier hate in green.
The uncommon miracles are pretty much all good in draft. This format looks like it's going to be slow so having one in your opening hand (which isn't all that likely anyway) isn't an "automatic mulligan" like it would be in standard.
Because there are going to be three packs of AVR, you can count on seeing just about every common in the set (and most of them in multiples). This allows drafters with a game plan to draft even more consistent decks than they did in triple Innistrad or DKA-INN-INN, despite the fact that half the creatures in each color aren't two power two drops.
For now, I'll just let you know my picks for best common and uncommon in each color (and why). Note that there are many commons and uncommons that are better than these in specific deck archetypes, and that these are only the best commons and uncommons in general.
White: Cloudshift (Common), Banishing Stroke (Uncommon)
Cloudshift is a versatile card that pairs well with all the soulbond creatures and the plethora of 187's in the set. I expect that Cloudshift, while a pure utility card, is going to be a high draft pick in white decks, particularly white soulbond (aggro) decks. Banishing Stroke is a premium removal spell in a set without many premium removal spells, which makes it an obvious pick here.
Blue: Ghostly Flicker (Common), Vanishment (Uncommon)
Basically the same reasons as the white cards, though these cards play slightly differently they have similar effects.
Black: Bone Splinters (Common), Barter in Blood (Uncommon)
Both are removal spells. Bone Splinters gives you something to do with your early drops when the board stalls out and they're not getting through anyway. Yes, you are "2-for-1ing yourself" when you cast it, but you are usually killing an enemy creature that is "worth more" than two cards in the first place. Barter in Blood is just awesome in slow decks, buying you significant time to get to your endgame plan (and basically double time walking your opponent in many cases).
Red: Mad Prophet (Common), Thunderous Wrath (Uncommon)
Mad Prophet is the only looter in the set, and while his ability is "reverse looting" he's also a hasty 2-power creature that can get in for some damage if you need him to. Thunderous Wrath speaks for itself. There are no 6 toughness creatures at common and only one (Vorstclaw, 7/7) at uncommon, so it is a removal spell that can also take a huge chunk out of an opponent's life total if it needs to.
Green: Natural End (Common), Blessings of Nature (Uncommon)
Evaluating the green commons is tricky because so many of them have such varying levels of power depending on what deck they are in. Natural End is a versatile card that can answer a few of the "must-answer" cards in a set with a lot of auras and equipment and not much removal. Blessings of Nature is mono-green Travel Preparations, only possibly better (since you can put all four counters on one evasive creature, essentially Fireblasting your opponent the turn you play it and every turn after).
That's it for now. I'll be spending the week examining the potential draft archetypes and their various merits. Until then, may your Delvers always flip on turn two.
When evaluating a set for limited I tend to ignore the rares and focus only on the commons and uncommons. "Bombs" is always a more-or-less viable draft archetype, and in this format the noticeable lack of spot removal suggests that it could be even better than usual. That being said, what the bombs are exactly usually isn't that important. It's better to be able to go into a draft with an actual plan about what draft archetypes are good. This helps you signal better and evaluate picks more accurately.
A cursory perusal suggests that RW and GW are two of the stronger aggro archetypes. RB also looks to be strong, although drafting it seems like it could be tricky. There are a number of sacrifice creature costs in black that make Thatcher's Rebellion that much better. There's obviously a mill archetype in there somewhere, with some obvious "build around me" cards (Stern Mentor) that can set you up to draft it successfully if you get passed one early. UW fliers is a definite deck archetype though there is a prevalence of flier hate in green.
The uncommon miracles are pretty much all good in draft. This format looks like it's going to be slow so having one in your opening hand (which isn't all that likely anyway) isn't an "automatic mulligan" like it would be in standard.
Because there are going to be three packs of AVR, you can count on seeing just about every common in the set (and most of them in multiples). This allows drafters with a game plan to draft even more consistent decks than they did in triple Innistrad or DKA-INN-INN, despite the fact that half the creatures in each color aren't two power two drops.
For now, I'll just let you know my picks for best common and uncommon in each color (and why). Note that there are many commons and uncommons that are better than these in specific deck archetypes, and that these are only the best commons and uncommons in general.
White: Cloudshift (Common), Banishing Stroke (Uncommon)
Cloudshift is a versatile card that pairs well with all the soulbond creatures and the plethora of 187's in the set. I expect that Cloudshift, while a pure utility card, is going to be a high draft pick in white decks, particularly white soulbond (aggro) decks. Banishing Stroke is a premium removal spell in a set without many premium removal spells, which makes it an obvious pick here.
Blue: Ghostly Flicker (Common), Vanishment (Uncommon)
Basically the same reasons as the white cards, though these cards play slightly differently they have similar effects.
Black: Bone Splinters (Common), Barter in Blood (Uncommon)
Both are removal spells. Bone Splinters gives you something to do with your early drops when the board stalls out and they're not getting through anyway. Yes, you are "2-for-1ing yourself" when you cast it, but you are usually killing an enemy creature that is "worth more" than two cards in the first place. Barter in Blood is just awesome in slow decks, buying you significant time to get to your endgame plan (and basically double time walking your opponent in many cases).
Red: Mad Prophet (Common), Thunderous Wrath (Uncommon)
Mad Prophet is the only looter in the set, and while his ability is "reverse looting" he's also a hasty 2-power creature that can get in for some damage if you need him to. Thunderous Wrath speaks for itself. There are no 6 toughness creatures at common and only one (Vorstclaw, 7/7) at uncommon, so it is a removal spell that can also take a huge chunk out of an opponent's life total if it needs to.
Green: Natural End (Common), Blessings of Nature (Uncommon)
Evaluating the green commons is tricky because so many of them have such varying levels of power depending on what deck they are in. Natural End is a versatile card that can answer a few of the "must-answer" cards in a set with a lot of auras and equipment and not much removal. Blessings of Nature is mono-green Travel Preparations, only possibly better (since you can put all four counters on one evasive creature, essentially Fireblasting your opponent the turn you play it and every turn after).
That's it for now. I'll be spending the week examining the potential draft archetypes and their various merits. Until then, may your Delvers always flip on turn two.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Shadow Demon in DotA 2
Tomorrow, Shadow Demon gets his grubby little paws into the hero pool for DotA 2. This hero has a special place in my heart because the first time I played against one I had no idea what any of his spells did, so I let him stack poison on my like six times at level 1.
For the uninitiated, here's the rundown of his abilities:
Disruption banishes a target hero (a la Astral Imprisonment) for 2.5 seconds, and when that hero comes back he appears with two Illusions of himself (under the Shadow Demon player's control) that deal up to 60% damage and take 150% damage. The big mechanical interaction to note, however, is that all of Shadow Demon's abilities will affect the banished target. (This can be important for landing Soul Catchers and Shadow Poisons.)
Soul Catcher is easily his most important/broken ability. It amplifies all damage to a single unit by 50%. Now, it's not as straightforward as "Click Soul Catcher, click on a hero." The ability affects a "random" enemy unit in a 450 area of effect. However, it is not hard, with a little bit of practice, to be able to place the area so that only one or two enemy heroes are underneath it.
Shadow Poison is an interesting spell. It does damage, and the damage it deals is based on the number of times you've stacked it on a unit. The damage grows geometrically through the first four stacks and linearly afterward.
Demonic Purge is exactly what it sounds like. He purges the target (a la Diffusal Blade) of any positive buffs, slowing the target (which regains its movement speed over the next 5 seconds). Demonic Purge also deals damage at the end of the duration.
Basically Shadow Demon is the kind of support that just kills heroes (or facilitates the killing of heroes or whatever). Worth noting is that he has no "real" disables (e.g. stuns, hexes), but Disruption and Demonic Purge are effective at setting up kills or catching fleeing enemies. The mana costs of all of his spells are the same at all levels, and only Disruption has a scaling cooldown.
Shadow Demon is my second favorite hero to play in DotA (first favorite: Ancient Apparition). He can be a monstrous solo mid, getting level and gold advantage by killing the enemy solo. This level advantage also helps him gank side lanes and get kills that way. Usually, when I solo him mid, I max Shadow Poison with one level in Disruption and the rest into Soul Catcher/Purge (so by level 11 I have 4 Poison, 4 Catcher, 1 Disruption, 2 Purge). This is a very damage heavy build that also lets you clear creep waves effectively.
Shadow Demon is probably most effective as a tri-lane hero, however. In tri-lanes, Shadow Poison is not nearly as important as Disruption and Soul Catcher. Maxing Soul Catcher is a must, and Disruption will help catch out enemy heroes for killing purposes.
In terms of the current DotA2 metagame, I'm not sure I see Shadow Demon making a huge splash. It seems that there is an ongoing focus on early pushing and tower trading, and Shadow Demon has traditionally been most effective in longer, "grindier" games. None of his abilities helps kill towers particularly quickly, and unless he solos mid he won't have the ability to wipe creep waves until the mid game. This doesn't mean that there isn't a place for him in DotA2, just that his inclusion in the beta does not open up the possibility of just swapping him into existing lineups for an improvement.
For the uninitiated, here's the rundown of his abilities:
Disruption banishes a target hero (a la Astral Imprisonment) for 2.5 seconds, and when that hero comes back he appears with two Illusions of himself (under the Shadow Demon player's control) that deal up to 60% damage and take 150% damage. The big mechanical interaction to note, however, is that all of Shadow Demon's abilities will affect the banished target. (This can be important for landing Soul Catchers and Shadow Poisons.)
Soul Catcher is easily his most important/broken ability. It amplifies all damage to a single unit by 50%. Now, it's not as straightforward as "Click Soul Catcher, click on a hero." The ability affects a "random" enemy unit in a 450 area of effect. However, it is not hard, with a little bit of practice, to be able to place the area so that only one or two enemy heroes are underneath it.
Shadow Poison is an interesting spell. It does damage, and the damage it deals is based on the number of times you've stacked it on a unit. The damage grows geometrically through the first four stacks and linearly afterward.
Demonic Purge is exactly what it sounds like. He purges the target (a la Diffusal Blade) of any positive buffs, slowing the target (which regains its movement speed over the next 5 seconds). Demonic Purge also deals damage at the end of the duration.
Basically Shadow Demon is the kind of support that just kills heroes (or facilitates the killing of heroes or whatever). Worth noting is that he has no "real" disables (e.g. stuns, hexes), but Disruption and Demonic Purge are effective at setting up kills or catching fleeing enemies. The mana costs of all of his spells are the same at all levels, and only Disruption has a scaling cooldown.
Shadow Demon is my second favorite hero to play in DotA (first favorite: Ancient Apparition). He can be a monstrous solo mid, getting level and gold advantage by killing the enemy solo. This level advantage also helps him gank side lanes and get kills that way. Usually, when I solo him mid, I max Shadow Poison with one level in Disruption and the rest into Soul Catcher/Purge (so by level 11 I have 4 Poison, 4 Catcher, 1 Disruption, 2 Purge). This is a very damage heavy build that also lets you clear creep waves effectively.
Shadow Demon is probably most effective as a tri-lane hero, however. In tri-lanes, Shadow Poison is not nearly as important as Disruption and Soul Catcher. Maxing Soul Catcher is a must, and Disruption will help catch out enemy heroes for killing purposes.
In terms of the current DotA2 metagame, I'm not sure I see Shadow Demon making a huge splash. It seems that there is an ongoing focus on early pushing and tower trading, and Shadow Demon has traditionally been most effective in longer, "grindier" games. None of his abilities helps kill towers particularly quickly, and unless he solos mid he won't have the ability to wipe creep waves until the mid game. This doesn't mean that there isn't a place for him in DotA2, just that his inclusion in the beta does not open up the possibility of just swapping him into existing lineups for an improvement.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
TC is the best solo mid player in DotA2...
...at least until we see him matched up with Dendi and the question of the 1-2 order can be settled temporarily.
Since Fire/coL haven't matched up with Na'Vi, it's not possible to point the actual game results between these two players. However, during Fire's run (as of today, they're 22-1 in official matches, by far the best winning percentage in DotA2) TC has consistently won the mid lane and played a huge part in Fire's subsequent dominance of the game. As GrandGrant pointed out, his awareness in team fights is almost supernatural--he always seems to be hexing and shackling the right heroes at the right time.
I was already on the TC bandwagon a little bit but now I'm totally sold. A history of team sports/competition suggests that the successful teams consist of 1-2 phenomenal talents surrounded with the perfect suite of complementary role players. Fire seems to have put this formula to great success in DotA2. Let's see if it continues to hold up.
Fire fighting!
Since Fire/coL haven't matched up with Na'Vi, it's not possible to point the actual game results between these two players. However, during Fire's run (as of today, they're 22-1 in official matches, by far the best winning percentage in DotA2) TC has consistently won the mid lane and played a huge part in Fire's subsequent dominance of the game. As GrandGrant pointed out, his awareness in team fights is almost supernatural--he always seems to be hexing and shackling the right heroes at the right time.
I was already on the TC bandwagon a little bit but now I'm totally sold. A history of team sports/competition suggests that the successful teams consist of 1-2 phenomenal talents surrounded with the perfect suite of complementary role players. Fire seems to have put this formula to great success in DotA2. Let's see if it continues to hold up.
Fire fighting!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
LEGT Round 3 pairings and results
Water (2-0) vs Bathroom Buddies (2-0)
HiiB (1-1) vs Dusa is a retard (1-1)
WWCD (1-1) vs Skill Difference (1-1)
Stratyk (1-1) vs Naya Taya (1-1)
Razzle Dazzle (0-2) vs BYE*
And the results:
Congratulations to Water for going 3-0 and winning the first ever tournament organized by yours truly. Thanks to everyone who participated and who helped organize this tournament. Special thank you's to asrmatt, Live, Draskyl, and Markdrav for streaming and casting. It was good to experiment with the Swiss pairings format for a DotA tournament. If/when I do this again, things will run a lot more smoothly.
1. Water (3-0)
2. Dusa is a retard (2-1)
3. Bathroom Buddies (2-1)
4. Naya Taya (2-1)
5. Skill Difference (2-1)
6. WWCD (1-2)
7. HiiB (1-2)
8. Stratyk (1-2)
9. Singularity (0-2 drop)
10. Razzle Dazzle (0-2 drop)
HiiB (1-1) vs Dusa is a retard (1-1)
WWCD (1-1) vs Skill Difference (1-1)
Stratyk (1-1) vs Naya Taya (1-1)
Razzle Dazzle (0-2) vs BYE*
And the results:
Congratulations to Water for going 3-0 and winning the first ever tournament organized by yours truly. Thanks to everyone who participated and who helped organize this tournament. Special thank you's to asrmatt, Live, Draskyl, and Markdrav for streaming and casting. It was good to experiment with the Swiss pairings format for a DotA tournament. If/when I do this again, things will run a lot more smoothly.
1. Water (3-0)
2. Dusa is a retard (2-1)
3. Bathroom Buddies (2-1)
4. Naya Taya (2-1)
5. Skill Difference (2-1)
6. WWCD (1-2)
7. HiiB (1-2)
8. Stratyk (1-2)
9. Singularity (0-2 drop)
10. Razzle Dazzle (0-2 drop)
SECS/LEGT Round 2 pairings and stream links
The number in front of a team's name is its standing in the tournament as of the end of round 1. The cross pairing (the 1-0 vs 0-1 match) was determined using a random number generator.
1. Bathroom Buddies (1-0) vs 3. HiiB (1-0) -- Cast by asrmatt twitch.tv/asrmatt
2. Water (1-0) vs 4. Dusa is a retard (1-0) -- Cast by Draskyll twitch.tv/draskyll
5. Stratyk (1-0) vs 7. WWCD (0-1)
6. Razzle Dazzle (0-1) vs 9. Naya taya (0-1)
8. Skill Difference (0-1) vs. 10. Singularity (0-1)
(the rest of the pairings are pending the results of Stratyk vs Razzle Dazzle)
1. Bathroom Buddies (1-0) vs 3. HiiB (1-0) -- Cast by asrmatt twitch.tv/asrmatt
2. Water (1-0) vs 4. Dusa is a retard (1-0) -- Cast by Draskyll twitch.tv/draskyll
5. Stratyk (1-0) vs 7. WWCD (0-1)
6. Razzle Dazzle (0-1) vs 9. Naya taya (0-1)
8. Skill Difference (0-1) vs. 10. Singularity (0-1)
(the rest of the pairings are pending the results of Stratyk vs Razzle Dazzle)
Legato's Epically Ghetto Tournament
Hey everyone! SECS was canceled for this week so I'm running a Dota2 tournament for the would-be SECS participants. I'm going to keep everything updated in this thread with new posts after every round, so feel free to follow the action here and on the TWO casts we'll have (links in the pairings).
ROUND 1 STARTS IN 10 MINUTES AND RUNS UNTIL 6:20 EST. ROUNDS ARE BO1.
This tournament is not single elimination. Every team will play every round until the end or they choose to drop from the tournament. If you choose to drop, PLEASE let me know here or on IRC (LegatoForReal in both #SECS and #nadota) after you finish your game for the round.
The format of the tournament is Swiss pairings. This takes the same amount of time as a normal single elimination tournament but gives every team a chance to play in every round.
IF YOUR GAME IS BEING STREAMED (it will say so in the pairings) PLEASE GIVE THE CASTERS TIME TO GET INTO THE GAME BEFORE YOU START. If for whatever reason you can't get in touch with your caster, PM me on IRC and I'll coordinate for you.
ROUND ONE PAIRINGS
HiiB vs Skill Difference
Singularity vs Bathroom Buddies
WWCD vs Dusa is a retard -- CAST BY ASRMATT@ www.twitch.tv/asrmatt
Naya taya vs Water -- CAST BY DRASKYL@ www.twitch.tv/Draskyll
Stratyk vs Razzle Dazzle
ROUND 1 STARTS IN 10 MINUTES AND RUNS UNTIL 6:20 EST. ROUNDS ARE BO1.
This tournament is not single elimination. Every team will play every round until the end or they choose to drop from the tournament. If you choose to drop, PLEASE let me know here or on IRC (LegatoForReal in both #SECS and #nadota) after you finish your game for the round.
The format of the tournament is Swiss pairings. This takes the same amount of time as a normal single elimination tournament but gives every team a chance to play in every round.
IF YOUR GAME IS BEING STREAMED (it will say so in the pairings) PLEASE GIVE THE CASTERS TIME TO GET INTO THE GAME BEFORE YOU START. If for whatever reason you can't get in touch with your caster, PM me on IRC and I'll coordinate for you.
ROUND ONE PAIRINGS
HiiB vs Skill Difference
Singularity vs Bathroom Buddies
WWCD vs Dusa is a retard -- CAST BY ASRMATT@ www.twitch.tv/asrmatt
Naya taya vs Water -- CAST BY DRASKYL@ www.twitch.tv/Draskyll
Stratyk vs Razzle Dazzle
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
How broken is Track? and Fun Facts from 2 years ago
The changes to Bounty Hunter's track in 6.73/"the parity version" make that spell ridiculous on paper (and others have said as much). I thought it might be fun to see just how broken this is.
I set a personal record for kills in a game a few years ago by getting into the mid-sixties with Bounty Hunter, back when towers had regeneration and it was not unheard of for games to stretch past the two hour mark. While it would be nearly impossible to break this mark now (games just end too quickly and DotaCash players give up too easily), Bounty Hunter does hold a special place in my heart. So I joined a DotaCash and set to work.
Just to be clear, I did not know or even bother to coordinate with any of my teammates. I was simply tracking and killing heroes all over the map and hoping they followed up. Even with absolutely no team coordination, Track generated over 13000 gold in just over 30 minutes (thanks, -stats command!). That's, essentially, 13000 gold of free money on top of whatever my team was able to farm. A "natural" 13000 gold difference in 30 minutes usually means the game is going to be over soon. So, yeah, Track is that broken.
That being said, it is hard to work Bounty Hunter into a lineup, especially in the current DotA2 meta. We've seen him used in the .7x cycle by Chinese teams as a side lane/"throwaway" solo, but this tactic has fallen out of favor with the Western teams. Hopefully some enterprising youngsters break Bounty Hunter, if for no other reason than it would freshen up the current competitive environment.
From time to time when there's no streams up I like to go back to either my personal replay archives or the GosuGamers search tab to review some old games and see if I can't port old strategies into the current meta. Today I decided to sample a DTS vs Nirvana.int game from two years ago, somewhat spurred by comments that DTS/Na'Vi didn't have the same players for very long despite people giving them credit for being a longstanding team. Well, first off, DTS ran out Dendi, Artstyle, LightofHeaven, NS, and Dread in this game. So there's 3/5 of the Na'Vi roster that won the International. So much for not staying together very long. The most interesting thing about this game was that it lasted over an hour and the two teams combined for almost 90 kills. Nirvana.int ran a cute team fight strategy with Necrolyte, Enigma, Pit Lord (old version), Earthshaker, and Dirge (cut to Maelk sobbing uncontrollably). Could something like this work in the current environment? I think so. In fact, I've said as much in the past---that the way to beat Dark Seer is to play such a strategy. I haven't given much thought to how to port it exactly into the current DotA2 hero pool; that's a post for another time.
I set a personal record for kills in a game a few years ago by getting into the mid-sixties with Bounty Hunter, back when towers had regeneration and it was not unheard of for games to stretch past the two hour mark. While it would be nearly impossible to break this mark now (games just end too quickly and DotaCash players give up too easily), Bounty Hunter does hold a special place in my heart. So I joined a DotaCash and set to work.
Just to be clear, I did not know or even bother to coordinate with any of my teammates. I was simply tracking and killing heroes all over the map and hoping they followed up. Even with absolutely no team coordination, Track generated over 13000 gold in just over 30 minutes (thanks, -stats command!). That's, essentially, 13000 gold of free money on top of whatever my team was able to farm. A "natural" 13000 gold difference in 30 minutes usually means the game is going to be over soon. So, yeah, Track is that broken.
That being said, it is hard to work Bounty Hunter into a lineup, especially in the current DotA2 meta. We've seen him used in the .7x cycle by Chinese teams as a side lane/"throwaway" solo, but this tactic has fallen out of favor with the Western teams. Hopefully some enterprising youngsters break Bounty Hunter, if for no other reason than it would freshen up the current competitive environment.
From time to time when there's no streams up I like to go back to either my personal replay archives or the GosuGamers search tab to review some old games and see if I can't port old strategies into the current meta. Today I decided to sample a DTS vs Nirvana.int game from two years ago, somewhat spurred by comments that DTS/Na'Vi didn't have the same players for very long despite people giving them credit for being a longstanding team. Well, first off, DTS ran out Dendi, Artstyle, LightofHeaven, NS, and Dread in this game. So there's 3/5 of the Na'Vi roster that won the International. So much for not staying together very long. The most interesting thing about this game was that it lasted over an hour and the two teams combined for almost 90 kills. Nirvana.int ran a cute team fight strategy with Necrolyte, Enigma, Pit Lord (old version), Earthshaker, and Dirge (cut to Maelk sobbing uncontrollably). Could something like this work in the current environment? I think so. In fact, I've said as much in the past---that the way to beat Dark Seer is to play such a strategy. I haven't given much thought to how to port it exactly into the current DotA2 hero pool; that's a post for another time.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Dear NADotA, you are not a carry player...
I made this post over at NADotA and figured I should re-post it here:
Dear NADotA,
You are not a "carry player." You are not a "support player." Nor are you a "ganker," "utility player," "initiator," or any of the myriad other labels that the DotA community has come up with to classify its members over the years. This is because none of these things is real. There is no such thing as a "carry player," a "support player," or a "ganker." All of these words are synonyms for the same thing: an incomplete, unskilled player.
The skills that go into playing DotA at a high level are the same no matter what role you take on in games. When you're playing at a lower level, a lack of certain skills is easier to mask by only playing certain kinds of heroes and roles. This is the genesis of the carry/support/ganker/initiator/etc. polychotomy: bad players realizing that their lack of map awareness/inability to last hit creeps would cripple them immeasurably when playing a support/carry hero (respectively) but could be hidden by the fact that their opponents were just as incompetent.
So, NADotA, please, for the love of all things that are good in the world, stop using this awful fucking terminology to make excuses for your shortcomings as players. Accept the fact that you are flawed. OWN IT. Dedicate yourself to shoring up your weaknesses and lack of skills in areas of the game that you are not comfortable in.
Then, and only then, will you be able to play this game at a high level.
Thank you.
<3
Dear NADotA,
You are not a "carry player." You are not a "support player." Nor are you a "ganker," "utility player," "initiator," or any of the myriad other labels that the DotA community has come up with to classify its members over the years. This is because none of these things is real. There is no such thing as a "carry player," a "support player," or a "ganker." All of these words are synonyms for the same thing: an incomplete, unskilled player.
The skills that go into playing DotA at a high level are the same no matter what role you take on in games. When you're playing at a lower level, a lack of certain skills is easier to mask by only playing certain kinds of heroes and roles. This is the genesis of the carry/support/ganker/initiator/etc. polychotomy: bad players realizing that their lack of map awareness/inability to last hit creeps would cripple them immeasurably when playing a support/carry hero (respectively) but could be hidden by the fact that their opponents were just as incompetent.
So, NADotA, please, for the love of all things that are good in the world, stop using this awful fucking terminology to make excuses for your shortcomings as players. Accept the fact that you are flawed. OWN IT. Dedicate yourself to shoring up your weaknesses and lack of skills in areas of the game that you are not comfortable in.
Then, and only then, will you be able to play this game at a high level.
Thank you.
<3
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Dark Seer Revisited
A few weeks ago I posted about the Germans' upset win over Na'Vi using a Dark Seer/Enigma/Death Prophet combo. While I stand by what I said with regards to Dark Seer in the context of that game, I definitely did not fully understand the scope of that hero (and how he would break out into first pick/first ban status).
The big deal with Dark Seer is that his ultimate, Wall of Replica, scales in power with the enemy team. Then, when you get Scepter, it scales in power with both teams. Especially when you consider the fact that auras on illusions seem to work differently than in original DotA (in the Warcraft III engine, illusions' "auras" don't actually have an effect. In DotA2, apparently they do), Dark Seer's Wall is probably the "best" ultimate in the current meta-game.
As Bulba tried to point out, the 90% illusion damage means any fights around the Wall are 'basically' 9v5 (or 11.5v5 with Scepter; allied hero images deal only 50% damage). It lasts 15/30/45 (what) seconds, with 100 second cool-down at all levels. 45 against 100 is ridiculous for an ultimate that is effectively an ongoing effect (consider: if an image dies, walking through the wall will re-create it; with Scepter, a team gets 45 seconds of 50% damage suicide-pushing at literally no risk). Because the Wall is so position-dependent, the obvious way to counter it is to bait out the Wall and wait for it to go down, but with only a 55 second window to exploit between Walls this isn't a very strong proposition.
This doesn't even take into consideration the sheer utility of his other spells. Dark Seer, especially in the 'parity' version with improved Ion Shell, completely shuts down a Broodmother lane. He is a strong jungle hero, giving his team an 'extra lane' of gold and experience advantage.
I wrote in the thread Bulba posted:
The big deal with Dark Seer is that his ultimate, Wall of Replica, scales in power with the enemy team. Then, when you get Scepter, it scales in power with both teams. Especially when you consider the fact that auras on illusions seem to work differently than in original DotA (in the Warcraft III engine, illusions' "auras" don't actually have an effect. In DotA2, apparently they do), Dark Seer's Wall is probably the "best" ultimate in the current meta-game.
As Bulba tried to point out, the 90% illusion damage means any fights around the Wall are 'basically' 9v5 (or 11.5v5 with Scepter; allied hero images deal only 50% damage). It lasts 15/30/45 (what) seconds, with 100 second cool-down at all levels. 45 against 100 is ridiculous for an ultimate that is effectively an ongoing effect (consider: if an image dies, walking through the wall will re-create it; with Scepter, a team gets 45 seconds of 50% damage suicide-pushing at literally no risk). Because the Wall is so position-dependent, the obvious way to counter it is to bait out the Wall and wait for it to go down, but with only a 55 second window to exploit between Walls this isn't a very strong proposition.
This doesn't even take into consideration the sheer utility of his other spells. Dark Seer, especially in the 'parity' version with improved Ion Shell, completely shuts down a Broodmother lane. He is a strong jungle hero, giving his team an 'extra lane' of gold and experience advantage.
I wrote in the thread Bulba posted:
"I think it's effective because it's new/innovative. The meta-game wasn't/isn't prepared to handle DS and DS was able to take advantage of this. As you pointed out though, you can exploit DS early because of his weak laning. There are (probably) other strategies that can be used to beat DS; we just have to figure out what they are.
Right now DS is the next level of the meta-game so to beat a DS you just have to find the next level beyond that."
Without getting into a "Chapinic" discussion of what 'next level' really means, anyone can see that my assertion is a purely theoretical one. However, I do believe that there is a next level.
Dark Seer scales with the enemy team's levels, +stats, and (apparently) aura items. His illusions don't benefit, however, from improved spells, "usable" items (e.g. Scythe of Vyse, Necronomicon), or +damage. Dark Seer's Wall punishes a team for having a farmed carry hero. What if you simply don't get a carry hero? "5-int push" has been a viable strategy in the past. Mek + Pipe + multiple Necronomicons might be the key to beating Dark Seer. This kind of all-in early game strategy is pretty much anathema to the modern styles of play in DotA, but if you're looking to beat a Dark Seer that's probably the way to do it. The easiest way to deal with Dark Seer, though, is probably to ban him. At least, as Maelk put it, "until IceFrog nerfs him into oblivion."
Monday, January 30, 2012
Rapid Reaction: DC.DT finals, game 2
The VOD is up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k4pQ2HRW9Vo. Special thanks to Luminous for casting and uploading the VODs.
I just watched the VOD to get the caster/commentary perspective on the game. I know I made some minor mistakes this game. I definitely should have been more active in using the hawk and pig, especially during team fights. When I made the decision to go BKB, I should have skipped Arcane Boots and gone straight BKB---that 1k gold delay made it a more-or-less useless item. Toxin suggested after the game that it would have been better to go Force Staff, and, having seen the VOD, I agree.
This game is a good example of a team executing well early and then throwing away the win by executing poorly down the stretch. Our early game was pretty strong. I definitely didn't like having to play the Beastmaster "throwaway" lane at bottom, and giving Pugna a free Arcane/Mek definitely hurt us, but since it took Pudge ganking/a silly mistake by me (if I had been more active with the pig I would have seen Pudge much earlier and nullified the gank) to get the kill. This gave our Invoker some extra farm mid which was integral to our strong early team fights and his 9-0 spree. When we took a good advantage in fights early we were all pretty confident that, if we executed well for the rest of the game, we would take the win. The hardest carry for Scourge side was a Panda, and he would have to go up against Chaos Knight, Invoker, and Dark Seer('s wall) late.
Unfortunately we executed really poorly down the stretch. There were three team fights that should never have happened: the one at bottom river where we engaged, threw some stuns, and I ran through the enemy team to escape through the other side only to turn around and come back because my team was still fighting them; the one at mid where Pudge was able to walk around behind us and we scattered and got picked off; and the one at top where we ran out of our base to chase a hero and ES/Pudge were able to use fissure to split the team and hook the Invoker out and focus us down one at a time. Every one of those engagements was a silly one by our team. When the bottom engagement happened, we had taken a good lead on kills early already and were poised to transition into the late game on even ground in terms of levels and gold. Instead of engaging we should have just backed off. Ditto for the other two fights. In particular, the third fight was silly. We could have simply defended base. With Invoker and Darkseer, it's possible to rebuff almost any push. Every one of those fights was a loss and gave team Mist the one thing that would let them beat us: level advantage. The gold they got from those fights didn't translate into much that could beat us, but the huge level advantage that they got over our team meant that they could simply outlast our damage and grind us down with Thunder Clap/Rot/Blast spam.
Overall I think it was a really fun tournament, and, for a team that was basically a pick-up group (the first time I played with our five was our round one match), we played really well. I'm considering uploading the replays from all our games, but the VODs are online, and, frankly, rounds 1-3 were one-sided stomps that probably aren't worth watching (unless you have a huge desire to see a 5 minute midas/9 minute Dagon into Heaven's Halberd on Ancient Apparation...).
I just watched the VOD to get the caster/commentary perspective on the game. I know I made some minor mistakes this game. I definitely should have been more active in using the hawk and pig, especially during team fights. When I made the decision to go BKB, I should have skipped Arcane Boots and gone straight BKB---that 1k gold delay made it a more-or-less useless item. Toxin suggested after the game that it would have been better to go Force Staff, and, having seen the VOD, I agree.
This game is a good example of a team executing well early and then throwing away the win by executing poorly down the stretch. Our early game was pretty strong. I definitely didn't like having to play the Beastmaster "throwaway" lane at bottom, and giving Pugna a free Arcane/Mek definitely hurt us, but since it took Pudge ganking/a silly mistake by me (if I had been more active with the pig I would have seen Pudge much earlier and nullified the gank) to get the kill. This gave our Invoker some extra farm mid which was integral to our strong early team fights and his 9-0 spree. When we took a good advantage in fights early we were all pretty confident that, if we executed well for the rest of the game, we would take the win. The hardest carry for Scourge side was a Panda, and he would have to go up against Chaos Knight, Invoker, and Dark Seer('s wall) late.
Unfortunately we executed really poorly down the stretch. There were three team fights that should never have happened: the one at bottom river where we engaged, threw some stuns, and I ran through the enemy team to escape through the other side only to turn around and come back because my team was still fighting them; the one at mid where Pudge was able to walk around behind us and we scattered and got picked off; and the one at top where we ran out of our base to chase a hero and ES/Pudge were able to use fissure to split the team and hook the Invoker out and focus us down one at a time. Every one of those engagements was a silly one by our team. When the bottom engagement happened, we had taken a good lead on kills early already and were poised to transition into the late game on even ground in terms of levels and gold. Instead of engaging we should have just backed off. Ditto for the other two fights. In particular, the third fight was silly. We could have simply defended base. With Invoker and Darkseer, it's possible to rebuff almost any push. Every one of those fights was a loss and gave team Mist the one thing that would let them beat us: level advantage. The gold they got from those fights didn't translate into much that could beat us, but the huge level advantage that they got over our team meant that they could simply outlast our damage and grind us down with Thunder Clap/Rot/Blast spam.
Overall I think it was a really fun tournament, and, for a team that was basically a pick-up group (the first time I played with our five was our round one match), we played really well. I'm considering uploading the replays from all our games, but the VODs are online, and, frankly, rounds 1-3 were one-sided stomps that probably aren't worth watching (unless you have a huge desire to see a 5 minute midas/9 minute Dagon into Heaven's Halberd on Ancient Apparation...).
Sunday, January 29, 2012
DC.DT Finals
Well, we lost to Febby's team in the finals. Congrats to Febby and company. I think we played really well throughout the tournament and had a lot of fun playing together. We just weren't able to execute down the stretch.
Semifinals (Update)
Wish us luck!
Also good luck to team Fire vs AL in the finals of Infused Cup! Tune into the stream here http://www.joindota.com/en/matches/17200-absolute-legends-vs-fire and when Fire is done crushing on AL you can come check out our semifinal/final games over at Dotacommentaries.
UPDATE: We won our semifinal game so now we're watching the other semifinal game while we wait for our finals match-up. As Toxin put it, "Febby, I'm coming for you!"
Also good luck to team Fire vs AL in the finals of Infused Cup! Tune into the stream here http://www.joindota.com/en/matches/17200-absolute-legends-vs-fire and when Fire is done crushing on AL you can come check out our semifinal/final games over at Dotacommentaries.
UPDATE: We won our semifinal game so now we're watching the other semifinal game while we wait for our finals match-up. As Toxin put it, "Febby, I'm coming for you!"
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Round 2
We won the remake in resounding fashion. I got to solo mid AA (probably one of my top three favorite things in DotA) and had a fast Midas into Dagon. It was a lot of fun!
Shout out to our round 2 opponents for being good-natured and mannered about the whole situation.
Tune in tomorrow for the semi-final and final games!
Shout out to our round 2 opponents for being good-natured and mannered about the whole situation.
Tune in tomorrow for the semi-final and final games!
Round 2 issues
And we have a remake!
15 minutes into our round 2 game the DotaCash bots freaked out and dropped our whole team. Despite Purge saying it wasn't "completely one-sided" yet, we had a huge xp and gold advantage (10,000 gold, 12/10/10/9/8 against 9/9/8/6/6 in levels).
It's okay though we have a remake with new picks so we'll just have to play well again and ride our talent and friendship to victory!
15 minutes into our round 2 game the DotaCash bots freaked out and dropped our whole team. Despite Purge saying it wasn't "completely one-sided" yet, we had a huge xp and gold advantage (10,000 gold, 12/10/10/9/8 against 9/9/8/6/6 in levels).
It's okay though we have a remake with new picks so we'll just have to play well again and ride our talent and friendship to victory!
Time for Round 2...
In a game that lasted way longer than it should have, zzzz were able to beat OD, so we're finally going to be playing round 2. Stay tuned!
Blogging the Dotacommentaries Diamond Tournament (DC.DT)
I'm playing in a pick-up group for the DC.DT tournament today. Gotta win those beta keys! We finished our round 1 game before the teams opposite us in the bracket finished picks, so we've got some time to kill. Luckily, their game is being streamed so we'll get some sick intel---so far looks like neither team knows how to pick.
First game was over after our first set of picks when we grabbed AA+CK. Ended up almost shutting them out---I fucked up and died once because I didn't pop stick. Presumably the competition will ratchet up as the tournament goes on, but then again with RsF matched up against Mist in round 1 there goes one of our two main competitors for the top spot.
First game was over after our first set of picks when we grabbed AA+CK. Ended up almost shutting them out---I fucked up and died once because I didn't pop stick. Presumably the competition will ratchet up as the tournament goes on, but then again with RsF matched up against Mist in round 1 there goes one of our two main competitors for the top spot.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
More Midas on Naix
Just thought I'd point out that Universe had an early Midas on Naix in one of GoSu's games today and ended up having Midas, Treads, Armlet, Heart in 25 minutes. GoSu hadn't even taken all the tier 1 towers yet. Midas is a really strong item in the right scenario.
Making Ogre Mage relevant
My roommate and a confusing number of public-level players really like Ogre Mage as a hero. I personally dislike the fact that Multicast ruins Fireblast. Reducing the time between casts and giving it a chance to do bonus damage and stun for a longer time? Sounds great! For more than double the mana? That's less exciting.
Fireblast without multicast is pretty amazing, actually. It compares favorably with Magic Missile (at level 4: 50 less damage, .25 second less stun time, and +2 seconds of cooldown for 35 less mana and +100 range) on a hero with a better mana pool. Ogre Mage lacks the same all-around punch of Vengeful Spirit (since Command Aura, Howl, and Swap all scale favorably to the late game), but that doesn't mean we can't find him a place.
My first thought is to skip levels on Fireblast and favor Ignite through level 7. My second thought is to skip Multicast and max both damage spells by 8. Multicast isn't worth the +30 mana on Fireblast when you only have the Mana to cast 1 or 2 Fireblasts anyway. Depending on how items pan out for Ogre it could also be beneficial to sandbag Multicast until after getting a few levels of Bloodlust or even stats.
As far as items go, Ogre Mage doesn't need a whole lot for himself. I dislike Soul Ring even though it seems like the item was made for him. Before Multicast you "waste" 45 mana, and after Multicast your Soul Ring won't even cover the cost of Fireblast. Soul Ring is better the more efficient it is on the hero, and it's frankly not very efficient on Ogre Mage.
Arcane Boots seem necessary. It's good to be able to replenish your allies' mana, and having the expanded mana pool gives Ogre a lot more capacity to utilize the reduced Fireblast cooldown after getting Multicast.
Beyond that there are some options. Naturally, he wants some mana regeneration, especially since time spent going to base is lost experience. There are a number of mana regeneration options. On the cheap end, you have Urn (combos nicely with Ignite) and Medallion (which is just a good support item in general). On the more expensive end, there's Eul's Scepter (which helps with his below-par move speed), Orchid Malevolence, and even Guinsoo's if the game goes long enough.
Veil of Discord could be good on him. Soul Ring into Veil is one build where Soul Ring actually seems like a pretty good choice.
Rod of Atos is too expensive and inefficient. Ogre Mage has plenty of health built in--it's cheap mana and regeneration that he lacks.
I'm going to be playing around these builds in public DotA1 games. I will try to update as I flesh it out.
Fireblast without multicast is pretty amazing, actually. It compares favorably with Magic Missile (at level 4: 50 less damage, .25 second less stun time, and +2 seconds of cooldown for 35 less mana and +100 range) on a hero with a better mana pool. Ogre Mage lacks the same all-around punch of Vengeful Spirit (since Command Aura, Howl, and Swap all scale favorably to the late game), but that doesn't mean we can't find him a place.
My first thought is to skip levels on Fireblast and favor Ignite through level 7. My second thought is to skip Multicast and max both damage spells by 8. Multicast isn't worth the +30 mana on Fireblast when you only have the Mana to cast 1 or 2 Fireblasts anyway. Depending on how items pan out for Ogre it could also be beneficial to sandbag Multicast until after getting a few levels of Bloodlust or even stats.
As far as items go, Ogre Mage doesn't need a whole lot for himself. I dislike Soul Ring even though it seems like the item was made for him. Before Multicast you "waste" 45 mana, and after Multicast your Soul Ring won't even cover the cost of Fireblast. Soul Ring is better the more efficient it is on the hero, and it's frankly not very efficient on Ogre Mage.
Arcane Boots seem necessary. It's good to be able to replenish your allies' mana, and having the expanded mana pool gives Ogre a lot more capacity to utilize the reduced Fireblast cooldown after getting Multicast.
Beyond that there are some options. Naturally, he wants some mana regeneration, especially since time spent going to base is lost experience. There are a number of mana regeneration options. On the cheap end, you have Urn (combos nicely with Ignite) and Medallion (which is just a good support item in general). On the more expensive end, there's Eul's Scepter (which helps with his below-par move speed), Orchid Malevolence, and even Guinsoo's if the game goes long enough.
Veil of Discord could be good on him. Soul Ring into Veil is one build where Soul Ring actually seems like a pretty good choice.
Rod of Atos is too expensive and inefficient. Ogre Mage has plenty of health built in--it's cheap mana and regeneration that he lacks.
I'm going to be playing around these builds in public DotA1 games. I will try to update as I flesh it out.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Shoutout to TC
Sorry for a lack of posting recently; I've been an active participant in the drama surrounding the Fire vs N9 match and it has been hurting my desire to blog about DotA.
However, I have finally gotten around to watching Fire's other games from the qualifier. My plan is to do a post sometime this week about the "Fire strat," the strategy that Fire used to roll through the qualifier. Right now, though, I'd just like to give a big shout out to TC from Fire for making some exceptional skill plays in their games. I haven't seen Rhasta played that well in a long time. Very impressive.
However, I have finally gotten around to watching Fire's other games from the qualifier. My plan is to do a post sometime this week about the "Fire strat," the strategy that Fire used to roll through the qualifier. Right now, though, I'd just like to give a big shout out to TC from Fire for making some exceptional skill plays in their games. I haven't seen Rhasta played that well in a long time. Very impressive.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Prodigious Picks, Part 1
The word "outpicked" gets thrown around a lot, especially after a particularly one-sided game (and it's even more likely if it was one-sided in favor of a team viewed as the underdog). Most of the time it's used by people who have no idea what they're talking about, and on a certain level an argument can be made that the idea of "outpicking" an opponent is ridiculous (because picks set the stage but play unfolds the events of the game). ArtStyle has said as much before. While games are never won the picking phase, good/bad picks can make winning much easier/harder. As such, it's important to understand what goes into "good picks."
Inexperienced/lower-level captains often consider the draft portion in terms of banning/picking individual heroes rather than picking a single to fill out a coherent strategy and game plan. While it's possible to win games this way (after all, that's the style of picking that most players will be going up against most of the time), it's very difficult to win tournaments by just haphazardly grabbing whatever "good" heroes fall through the draft.
As a general rule, you want to be able to answer the following questions about any strategy:
- How/when can this strategy take towers? How strong are this strategy's pushes?
- Does this strategy defend towers well?
- Does this strategy take advantage of the jungle?
- Does this strategy deny the enemy resources? (e.g. Dark Ritual fully denies a full creep each wave; blocking the enemy lane camp stops them from pulling creeps)
- How/when does this strategy win the game?
- When can this strategy do Roshan?
- How many Arcane Boots does this strategy need?
- Who gets [item]? Some items, such as Mekansm and Pipe of Insight, are almost must-haves in every strong strategy. Other items, such as Orchid Malevolence, are conditionally important and it's good to have the option to get them.
- How strong are this strategy's lanes?
- Who is the 1 (hardest support), the 2, the 3, the 4, and the 5 (hardest carry)? (My numbering system might be different from 2009's; in my system, the numbers are analogous to the basketball positions.)
While this isn't an exhaustive list, it's a good starting point for understanding DotA on a strategic level. Next time will be less abstract as I delve into what "metagame" actually means and get into some real-world examples of strategy decision/picking situations.
Inexperienced/lower-level captains often consider the draft portion in terms of banning/picking individual heroes rather than picking a single to fill out a coherent strategy and game plan. While it's possible to win games this way (after all, that's the style of picking that most players will be going up against most of the time), it's very difficult to win tournaments by just haphazardly grabbing whatever "good" heroes fall through the draft.
As a general rule, you want to be able to answer the following questions about any strategy:
- How/when can this strategy take towers? How strong are this strategy's pushes?
- Does this strategy defend towers well?
- Does this strategy take advantage of the jungle?
- Does this strategy deny the enemy resources? (e.g. Dark Ritual fully denies a full creep each wave; blocking the enemy lane camp stops them from pulling creeps)
- How/when does this strategy win the game?
- When can this strategy do Roshan?
- How many Arcane Boots does this strategy need?
- Who gets [item]? Some items, such as Mekansm and Pipe of Insight, are almost must-haves in every strong strategy. Other items, such as Orchid Malevolence, are conditionally important and it's good to have the option to get them.
- How strong are this strategy's lanes?
- Who is the 1 (hardest support), the 2, the 3, the 4, and the 5 (hardest carry)? (My numbering system might be different from 2009's; in my system, the numbers are analogous to the basketball positions.)
While this isn't an exhaustive list, it's a good starting point for understanding DotA on a strategic level. Next time will be less abstract as I delve into what "metagame" actually means and get into some real-world examples of strategy decision/picking situations.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Illinois 79 > (5) Ohio State 74
How it happened: For the first time in conference play, Meyers Leonard played like the 7'2" man he is instead of like a big baby... at least for the first half or so. Brandon Paul made up the difference by scoring 43 points on 15 shots (8-10 3FG), the third highest single-game total in Illinois history, and blocking 4 Buckeyes shots inside.
Interesting tidbit: With neither team's bench able to find the basket, this game became about the match-up between two star big men, Leonard and player of the year candidate Jared Sullinger. Then it became all about Brandon Paul.
Looking ahead: Major concern for Illinois fans as long as point guard Sam Maniscalco is out, since the half court offense looked stagnant at best and was downright awful at worst tonight. The inability of perimeter players to find Leonard with good position on the low block was heartbreaking (as it robbed the viewer of at least four monster two-hand jams). Ohio State's starters looked good: Aaron Craft did Aaron Craft things and Jared Sullinger played like a man, looking like he was back to early-season form after coming back from that injury. But the Buckeyes' bench let them down, shooting a combined 0-6 from the floor and failing to contribute in any meaningful way. While Illinois's bench was also scoreless, they at least came up with three big steals that lead to Illinois buckets in transition.
I'd like to give a big shout-out to the morons at the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll for consistently ranking Wisconsin and fucking Harvard over the Illini this year. So what if Harvard is 13-2? They play in the fucking Ivy League! And Wisconsin? Really, Associated Press and Coaches Poll? They opened the season 12-2 with 11 home games, losing to the only two good teams they played (North Carolina and Marquette), and then dropped a fat deuce in conference play (1-3 with their only win coming against Nebraska, which we all know joined the Big 10 because of its basketball program). Nice back-to-back-to-back losses against Iowa, Michigan State, and Michigan, Wisconsin!
Interesting tidbit: With neither team's bench able to find the basket, this game became about the match-up between two star big men, Leonard and player of the year candidate Jared Sullinger. Then it became all about Brandon Paul.
Looking ahead: Major concern for Illinois fans as long as point guard Sam Maniscalco is out, since the half court offense looked stagnant at best and was downright awful at worst tonight. The inability of perimeter players to find Leonard with good position on the low block was heartbreaking (as it robbed the viewer of at least four monster two-hand jams). Ohio State's starters looked good: Aaron Craft did Aaron Craft things and Jared Sullinger played like a man, looking like he was back to early-season form after coming back from that injury. But the Buckeyes' bench let them down, shooting a combined 0-6 from the floor and failing to contribute in any meaningful way. While Illinois's bench was also scoreless, they at least came up with three big steals that lead to Illinois buckets in transition.
I'd like to give a big shout-out to the morons at the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll for consistently ranking Wisconsin and fucking Harvard over the Illini this year. So what if Harvard is 13-2? They play in the fucking Ivy League! And Wisconsin? Really, Associated Press and Coaches Poll? They opened the season 12-2 with 11 home games, losing to the only two good teams they played (North Carolina and Marquette), and then dropped a fat deuce in conference play (1-3 with their only win coming against Nebraska, which we all know joined the Big 10 because of its basketball program). Nice back-to-back-to-back losses against Iowa, Michigan State, and Michigan, Wisconsin!
Na'Vi vs. N9
I wouldn't put much stock in this game. When there is obvious delay on both sides the team with the simpler strategy wins more often than not, and that's what happened here. I did, however, want to address a couple of points made by zMuffinMan over on NADotA.
"Against a majority of teams na'vi would have pulled a game like that off. The reason why the draft is weaker is that by having naix in the jungle it weakens their lanes by stretching 4 heroes out over 3 lanes (naix isn't a ganking jungler like chen) and going midas on naix(very poor move) weakens their early game, allowing N9 to exploit a huge early-mid game hole in na'vi's power in order to gain a ridiculous advantage. Of course, N9 must play tight and make minimal mistakes and take down early towers, which is what they did, because if na'vi were given even an inch of room they would have been lethal. I think a lot of teams wouldn't have done so well in this draft match up as N9 did. It isn't as simple as saying ns+furion = autowin."
I'm not exactly sure what he means by "the draft" being "weaker," but my guess is that he means Na'Vi's picks are worse than N9's. This is wrong, but I'm not going to harp on it since I'm not sure that's exactly what he meant.
I strongly disagree with his assertion about Midas on Naix. I think Midas on Naix was an essential move, something that Na'Vi were planning on from the beginning, and that it in no way cost them the game. There's no way for Na'Vi to fight profitably during the first night against Nightstalker/Furion with Ravage protection and Dazzle keeping everyone alive. Na'Vi's strategy sacrifices early towers against N9 with the intention of dragging the game out until Naix and Slardar can more-or-less solo the N9 team (which would happen earlier than you might think). Naix's Midas lets him reach that gold and experience advantage much faster than he otherwise would farming the jungle and bottom lane, sacrificing an early Armlet (which would have done nothing against N9 anyway) to have more items when he would have an opportunity to really do the first damage anyway. Unfortunately the execution by Na'Vi ended up being really poor (in some ways I'm sure this was due to delay; just watch Puppey's Puck make misplay after misplay), and they never reached the point where Naix and Slardar would be the difference-makers. That doesn't undermine the fact that Midas was the right choice for Dendi's Naix, however.
"Against a majority of teams na'vi would have pulled a game like that off. The reason why the draft is weaker is that by having naix in the jungle it weakens their lanes by stretching 4 heroes out over 3 lanes (naix isn't a ganking jungler like chen) and going midas on naix(very poor move) weakens their early game, allowing N9 to exploit a huge early-mid game hole in na'vi's power in order to gain a ridiculous advantage. Of course, N9 must play tight and make minimal mistakes and take down early towers, which is what they did, because if na'vi were given even an inch of room they would have been lethal. I think a lot of teams wouldn't have done so well in this draft match up as N9 did. It isn't as simple as saying ns+furion = autowin."
I'm not exactly sure what he means by "the draft" being "weaker," but my guess is that he means Na'Vi's picks are worse than N9's. This is wrong, but I'm not going to harp on it since I'm not sure that's exactly what he meant.
I strongly disagree with his assertion about Midas on Naix. I think Midas on Naix was an essential move, something that Na'Vi were planning on from the beginning, and that it in no way cost them the game. There's no way for Na'Vi to fight profitably during the first night against Nightstalker/Furion with Ravage protection and Dazzle keeping everyone alive. Na'Vi's strategy sacrifices early towers against N9 with the intention of dragging the game out until Naix and Slardar can more-or-less solo the N9 team (which would happen earlier than you might think). Naix's Midas lets him reach that gold and experience advantage much faster than he otherwise would farming the jungle and bottom lane, sacrificing an early Armlet (which would have done nothing against N9 anyway) to have more items when he would have an opportunity to really do the first damage anyway. Unfortunately the execution by Na'Vi ended up being really poor (in some ways I'm sure this was due to delay; just watch Puppey's Puck make misplay after misplay), and they never reached the point where Naix and Slardar would be the difference-makers. That doesn't undermine the fact that Midas was the right choice for Dendi's Naix, however.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Dark Seer
When J4T came out with that Dark Seer pick against Na'Vi, Synderen mentioned that it was a "German pick," and then explained that Dark Seer has been showing up in the Germans' games for the past few weeks. Apparently a top League of Legends player who switched over to DotA2 had been talking to him about Dark Seer and asking why the hero wasn't picked more in competitive games.
My gut reaction after watched J4T pull out a strategic win (in other words, one where both teams made roughly the same number of mistakes and the other team simply won due to a strategy advantage) was that Dark Seer was a strong hero who could probably see play in a lot more lineups. Wall of Replica was alright as a spell that scaled with the strength of your opponents, but the fact that they could simply back off and wait for it to dissipate before pushing drastically reduced its potential effectiveness. Being able to use Scepter to copy yourself and allied heroes takes it to an entirely new level. Now, Dark Seer teams can throw a Wall up a safe distance away from a base tower, copy themselves, suicide push with the images, and repeat until the Wall goes away. As the defender, killing the images isn't effective unless you deal enough damage to kill them before they can damage the tower, since every image is immediately replaced when it dies. The only way to "stop" a Wall of Replica push is to go out and kill the enemy team, at which point you're fighting around Wall of Replica, which is exactly where the Dark Seer team wants you to be. Seems strong, doesn't it?
Then I took a step back. The key to the success of the Dark Seer strategy is not Dark Seer himself, but Enigma, and, to a lesser extent, Death Prophet. Baiting the enemy out to a fight near the Wall is good, but not great. Baiting them into chokes where they are going to have to be nigh-perfect in their play to avoid eating a full Black Hole is great, and baiting them out into the open where there are no buildings or creeps to soak up Exorcism damage is what gives the strategy its killing potential (at least in the mid game). Dark Seer may have been the catalyst that set up J4T's team fights in this case, but using Enigma to disable and kill the enemy team isn't exactly metagame-shifting.
What do you guys think? Is Dark Seer/the Wall of Replica push the foundation of J4T's strategy, or is it really the Enigma/Death Prophet combination?
My gut reaction after watched J4T pull out a strategic win (in other words, one where both teams made roughly the same number of mistakes and the other team simply won due to a strategy advantage) was that Dark Seer was a strong hero who could probably see play in a lot more lineups. Wall of Replica was alright as a spell that scaled with the strength of your opponents, but the fact that they could simply back off and wait for it to dissipate before pushing drastically reduced its potential effectiveness. Being able to use Scepter to copy yourself and allied heroes takes it to an entirely new level. Now, Dark Seer teams can throw a Wall up a safe distance away from a base tower, copy themselves, suicide push with the images, and repeat until the Wall goes away. As the defender, killing the images isn't effective unless you deal enough damage to kill them before they can damage the tower, since every image is immediately replaced when it dies. The only way to "stop" a Wall of Replica push is to go out and kill the enemy team, at which point you're fighting around Wall of Replica, which is exactly where the Dark Seer team wants you to be. Seems strong, doesn't it?
Then I took a step back. The key to the success of the Dark Seer strategy is not Dark Seer himself, but Enigma, and, to a lesser extent, Death Prophet. Baiting the enemy out to a fight near the Wall is good, but not great. Baiting them into chokes where they are going to have to be nigh-perfect in their play to avoid eating a full Black Hole is great, and baiting them out into the open where there are no buildings or creeps to soak up Exorcism damage is what gives the strategy its killing potential (at least in the mid game). Dark Seer may have been the catalyst that set up J4T's team fights in this case, but using Enigma to disable and kill the enemy team isn't exactly metagame-shifting.
What do you guys think? Is Dark Seer/the Wall of Replica push the foundation of J4T's strategy, or is it really the Enigma/Death Prophet combination?
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Leading your team
A few days ago Lust made a great post over at NADotA.com about how to improve individually as a DotA player (I highly recommend it for anyone who is really trying to improve their play). The discussion in the thread was pretty good, but then derailed into talk about coordination and team play. I wanted to take a little bit of extra space to answer a question posed in the thread:
"In my case i (sic) have trouble communicating with my team. Sometimes one tries to call the shots but that ends up losing a teamfight, other times people try to lead the teamfight and completely ignore the captain of the team. Any suggestions as to how to lead a team properly?" -- candypuddin
To be a good leader of a team you have to command the respect of your teammates (in terms of your decision making and general, well, leadership), and understanding the personalities of your players is a big part of this. Some players will be extremely deferential (sometimes too deferential) and rely on you to tell them where to go and what to do, especially at the lower levels of play. Other players are confident in their own abilities and will sometimes disregard the call of the captain in order to try to make a play that they deem correct. The captain or leader of a team simply cannot manage the actions of every single player. What becomes important, then, is to guide your teammates along the paths outlined by your strategy, "macromanaging" rather than micromanaging your players.
The level of management that a leader has to take on is also dependent on the skill levels of the players on his team. At highest levels of play, support players know where to ward and counter-ward in the context of their team's strategy and the evolving game state. At lower levels, though, it might be necessary for the team leader to identify specific areas that need to be warded and/or counter-warded. Similarly, it can be important to outline target priority in team fights. Earlier today, Panzer played against mouzsports for the group stage of The Defense. A major factor in mouzsports's loss was a failure to prioritize targets correctly: while a fragile Panzer Broodmother was doing the vast majority of damage to mouz in fights, they were consistently prioritizing Kuroky's Dragon Knight. As a result, they lost a number of team fights that they should have won, resulting in an insurmountable Panzer advantage.
Other times it's up to the leader of a team to call the support heroes together to go Smoke ganking or to protect a farming carry in a lane. This translates well across levels of play; there is a reason the hard carry players are not also the in-game leaders for many top teams.
The best suggestion I can give, though, is to lead by example. Especially at the low- and mid-skill levels of play, the leader has to be able to demonstrate through his play that he "deserves" to be leading. If you as leader are consistently leading your team into bad fights and losing games, maybe it's time to hand the reins off to someone else and try letting them lead for a few games. You should always be reviewing your games and the decisions you made to see where you can improve. When I was leading Perplexity, I usually tried to lead my team through the in-game chat. Not only did this circumvent possible Ventrilo difficulties (e.g. Ventrilo lagging, people talking over each other), it imprinted a record of my decisions on the game replay so that I didn't have to try to remember what I was saying to my teammates as the game unfolded.*
I hope this was able to help candypuddin and any other in-game leader aspirants. Leave feedback and questions in the comments; I'll be happy to expand on any unclear points or things that I neglected to touch on in the post.
*It is also important to be able to lead using voice chat, especially for tournament games. Using text chat to lead is simply a good way to record your actions for later review.
"In my case i (sic) have trouble communicating with my team. Sometimes one tries to call the shots but that ends up losing a teamfight, other times people try to lead the teamfight and completely ignore the captain of the team. Any suggestions as to how to lead a team properly?" -- candypuddin
To be a good leader of a team you have to command the respect of your teammates (in terms of your decision making and general, well, leadership), and understanding the personalities of your players is a big part of this. Some players will be extremely deferential (sometimes too deferential) and rely on you to tell them where to go and what to do, especially at the lower levels of play. Other players are confident in their own abilities and will sometimes disregard the call of the captain in order to try to make a play that they deem correct. The captain or leader of a team simply cannot manage the actions of every single player. What becomes important, then, is to guide your teammates along the paths outlined by your strategy, "macromanaging" rather than micromanaging your players.
The level of management that a leader has to take on is also dependent on the skill levels of the players on his team. At highest levels of play, support players know where to ward and counter-ward in the context of their team's strategy and the evolving game state. At lower levels, though, it might be necessary for the team leader to identify specific areas that need to be warded and/or counter-warded. Similarly, it can be important to outline target priority in team fights. Earlier today, Panzer played against mouzsports for the group stage of The Defense. A major factor in mouzsports's loss was a failure to prioritize targets correctly: while a fragile Panzer Broodmother was doing the vast majority of damage to mouz in fights, they were consistently prioritizing Kuroky's Dragon Knight. As a result, they lost a number of team fights that they should have won, resulting in an insurmountable Panzer advantage.
Other times it's up to the leader of a team to call the support heroes together to go Smoke ganking or to protect a farming carry in a lane. This translates well across levels of play; there is a reason the hard carry players are not also the in-game leaders for many top teams.
The best suggestion I can give, though, is to lead by example. Especially at the low- and mid-skill levels of play, the leader has to be able to demonstrate through his play that he "deserves" to be leading. If you as leader are consistently leading your team into bad fights and losing games, maybe it's time to hand the reins off to someone else and try letting them lead for a few games. You should always be reviewing your games and the decisions you made to see where you can improve. When I was leading Perplexity, I usually tried to lead my team through the in-game chat. Not only did this circumvent possible Ventrilo difficulties (e.g. Ventrilo lagging, people talking over each other), it imprinted a record of my decisions on the game replay so that I didn't have to try to remember what I was saying to my teammates as the game unfolded.*
I hope this was able to help candypuddin and any other in-game leader aspirants. Leave feedback and questions in the comments; I'll be happy to expand on any unclear points or things that I neglected to touch on in the post.
*It is also important to be able to lead using voice chat, especially for tournament games. Using text chat to lead is simply a good way to record your actions for later review.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The Defense: Praeter Cunctas vs. Team Shakira
As Grant pointed out over at NADotA yesterday (and as should be obvious to anyone who watched dignitas vs Shakira), Shakira is bad. So when a team loses this poorly to Shakira, they must be really terrible.
For anyone who appreciates high level DotA (e.g. anyone who wake up at four in the morning to watch Russian language re-streams of G-league), this game was painful to watch. Arguably the most important skill for a DotA player to have is situation assessment and reaction, commonly referred to as decision-making. From the beginning, Praeter Cunctas (as the Radiant side) put on a clinic of terrible decision-making. Starting at top, before the majority of heroes had even reached level 2, pC's Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden were hanging out to the right of top lane, presumably to keep vision against Shakira's Venomancer and Tidehunter, and give their Razor some space to farm and harass Spectre in the lane. However, instead of using their positioning to threaten Shakira's heroes off the pull and protect Razor, Earthshaker decided to look for a kill. While not an incorrect decision in and of itself, his excitement to drop a fissure that would block Venomancer's possible retreat path ultimately cost his team first blood, as Razor was too far off in the lane to come kill Venomancer quickly enough, and forcing the 3-on-3 fight meant Crystal Maiden had to come over and tank Venomous Gale, Gush, and Spectral Dagger. It seemed later on that Earthshaker would continue trying to be too cute with his fissures, opting to go for blocks when it would have been better to throw a stun on two or more heroes. At one point Shakira's Nightstalker inexplicably leaves middle lane before the first nightfall, probably hoping to get some kills against pC's tri-lane at top. For pC, this decision is a boon: your solo mid Slardar now gets free gold and levels over Nightstalker, and since they had knowledge of Nightstalker's position the entire time they could easily back off the lane while he wastes his time. When pC's Razor got caught out by the tri-lane of Shakira, a simple fissure into the block of three heroes would have given Razor enough time to back off to tower, where the positioning becomes significantly in pC's favor, even in the 3-on-4 situation. Instead, Earthshaker decides to throw his fissure into the river, blocking Nightstalker's path to the lane. This ends up not mattering, as 3 heroes for Shakira easily dispatch the lone Razor, and Nightstalker simply walks back to mid lane.
Earthshaker wasn't the only player making poor decisions, however. At one point during the first night, Nightstalker is playing very aggressively in the middle lane. Slardar, who is low on health, lucks out and finds a double damage rune at top to refill his Bottle. Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden are both hidden behind pC's middle tower, with Nightstalker farming on the Radiant side ledge. Earthshaker makes a good block against Nightstalker to block his path of retreat into the lane, forcing him to run up and towards the Slardar with double damage. Slardar, however, simply activates his rune and doesn't drink his full Bottle to restore his health. What ends up happening is Nightstalker is able to kill Slardar before being finished by Crystal Maiden, resulting in a 1-for-1 trade.
As an aside, trading 1-for-1 on heroes is bad in general, but it's especially bad if you're trying to come back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in the first night is very strong, and getting it 1-for-0 is an excellent way to generate some momentum and start coming back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in this situation would have given pC the chance to bring five heroes mid and take the tower, getting some much-needed gold for all their heroes and reducing Shakira's map control. Trading 1-for-1, however, doesn't enable a push from pC, and giving Nightstalker the kill greatly reduces the advantage generated by killing him in the first night.
Later, pC catches Nightstalker in a 2-on-1 that quickly turns into a 3-on-1 situation, when Nightstalker goes to the Radiant secret shop to buy his Point Booster then foolishly roams down into fog, presumably looking for a kill on heroes hiding behind the Radiant's tier 1 top tower. He runs right into a Slardar who is low on health and full on mana. Now, I personally feel that the correct decision in this situation is for Slardar to Crush and walk back towards the lane and the tower where he has additional help. He was low enough that two Void's plus an Urn charge would grant Nightstalker a kill. Instead, Slardar decides to fight, thinking that because he has an Earthshaker with him and a Windrunner nearby that they can pick off the Nightstalker 3-on-1. Slardar and Earthshaker do a good job chaining their stuns, but Nightstalker's levels and items give him too much health for these two heroes to kill him quickly enough. Nightstalker, realizing that he is out of position, starts to run back towards river, at which point Slardar decides to chase him. Slardar is able to get off a second Crush, but Windrunner misses Powershot against an unmoving target, and Nightstalker is able to finish Slardar off again before dying to the Earthshaker and a newly-arrived Crystal Maiden.
There was a lot of tower diving and overly aggressive play going on this game. When BuLba talks about "shitty Euro style," this game is pretty much what he means.
Also interesting to me is the fallacy of the enormous comeback. For one reason or another, bad teams often think they have a chance to come back from enormous disadvantages. This game was decided by the 20 minutes mark, when pC's Slardar (their most farmed hero, in terms of creeps killed) had Bottle, Boots of Speed, and a Magic Wand, while Shakira's Spectre was sitting on Vanguard, Power Treads, and Sacred Relic (she would finish a Radiance in the net three minutes, while Slardar would finish his Phase Boots). Here are the facts: in public games, it's possible for a team to throw away huge advantages because of a lack of coordination and individual player skill. When your individual players are worse than the other team's individual players, however, and you're playing against a team of players coordinating their movements and actions, there is no chance of coming back from such an enormous disadvantage. I rarely observe this phenomenon in other games. Competitive Magic players will more often than not extend the hand when they realize they have no chance of winning, even if their opponent hasn't yet reduced them to 0 life (and might have to take a number of additional turns to do so). The same goes for Korean Brood War professionals, who have been known to GG a game after losing a single unit for no gain in some situations. Even in WarCraft III, the game whose engine is the basis for original DotA, it is not unheard of for a player to concede early in a match after a harassment goes terribly wrong or a hero gets picked off while creeping.
Even if you admire pC's resolve to finish out the game, the chance of them coming back went from infinitesimally small to literally zero by 27 minutes when they had lost their top barracks. Yet they subjected the Steam servers and the observers to another few minutes of twitching and flailing about, their death throes casting a pall over the events of the afternoon (at least until EG vs Panzer gave us a much better game).
For anyone who appreciates high level DotA (e.g. anyone who wake up at four in the morning to watch Russian language re-streams of G-league), this game was painful to watch. Arguably the most important skill for a DotA player to have is situation assessment and reaction, commonly referred to as decision-making. From the beginning, Praeter Cunctas (as the Radiant side) put on a clinic of terrible decision-making. Starting at top, before the majority of heroes had even reached level 2, pC's Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden were hanging out to the right of top lane, presumably to keep vision against Shakira's Venomancer and Tidehunter, and give their Razor some space to farm and harass Spectre in the lane. However, instead of using their positioning to threaten Shakira's heroes off the pull and protect Razor, Earthshaker decided to look for a kill. While not an incorrect decision in and of itself, his excitement to drop a fissure that would block Venomancer's possible retreat path ultimately cost his team first blood, as Razor was too far off in the lane to come kill Venomancer quickly enough, and forcing the 3-on-3 fight meant Crystal Maiden had to come over and tank Venomous Gale, Gush, and Spectral Dagger. It seemed later on that Earthshaker would continue trying to be too cute with his fissures, opting to go for blocks when it would have been better to throw a stun on two or more heroes. At one point Shakira's Nightstalker inexplicably leaves middle lane before the first nightfall, probably hoping to get some kills against pC's tri-lane at top. For pC, this decision is a boon: your solo mid Slardar now gets free gold and levels over Nightstalker, and since they had knowledge of Nightstalker's position the entire time they could easily back off the lane while he wastes his time. When pC's Razor got caught out by the tri-lane of Shakira, a simple fissure into the block of three heroes would have given Razor enough time to back off to tower, where the positioning becomes significantly in pC's favor, even in the 3-on-4 situation. Instead, Earthshaker decides to throw his fissure into the river, blocking Nightstalker's path to the lane. This ends up not mattering, as 3 heroes for Shakira easily dispatch the lone Razor, and Nightstalker simply walks back to mid lane.
Earthshaker wasn't the only player making poor decisions, however. At one point during the first night, Nightstalker is playing very aggressively in the middle lane. Slardar, who is low on health, lucks out and finds a double damage rune at top to refill his Bottle. Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden are both hidden behind pC's middle tower, with Nightstalker farming on the Radiant side ledge. Earthshaker makes a good block against Nightstalker to block his path of retreat into the lane, forcing him to run up and towards the Slardar with double damage. Slardar, however, simply activates his rune and doesn't drink his full Bottle to restore his health. What ends up happening is Nightstalker is able to kill Slardar before being finished by Crystal Maiden, resulting in a 1-for-1 trade.
As an aside, trading 1-for-1 on heroes is bad in general, but it's especially bad if you're trying to come back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in the first night is very strong, and getting it 1-for-0 is an excellent way to generate some momentum and start coming back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in this situation would have given pC the chance to bring five heroes mid and take the tower, getting some much-needed gold for all their heroes and reducing Shakira's map control. Trading 1-for-1, however, doesn't enable a push from pC, and giving Nightstalker the kill greatly reduces the advantage generated by killing him in the first night.
Later, pC catches Nightstalker in a 2-on-1 that quickly turns into a 3-on-1 situation, when Nightstalker goes to the Radiant secret shop to buy his Point Booster then foolishly roams down into fog, presumably looking for a kill on heroes hiding behind the Radiant's tier 1 top tower. He runs right into a Slardar who is low on health and full on mana. Now, I personally feel that the correct decision in this situation is for Slardar to Crush and walk back towards the lane and the tower where he has additional help. He was low enough that two Void's plus an Urn charge would grant Nightstalker a kill. Instead, Slardar decides to fight, thinking that because he has an Earthshaker with him and a Windrunner nearby that they can pick off the Nightstalker 3-on-1. Slardar and Earthshaker do a good job chaining their stuns, but Nightstalker's levels and items give him too much health for these two heroes to kill him quickly enough. Nightstalker, realizing that he is out of position, starts to run back towards river, at which point Slardar decides to chase him. Slardar is able to get off a second Crush, but Windrunner misses Powershot against an unmoving target, and Nightstalker is able to finish Slardar off again before dying to the Earthshaker and a newly-arrived Crystal Maiden.
There was a lot of tower diving and overly aggressive play going on this game. When BuLba talks about "shitty Euro style," this game is pretty much what he means.
Also interesting to me is the fallacy of the enormous comeback. For one reason or another, bad teams often think they have a chance to come back from enormous disadvantages. This game was decided by the 20 minutes mark, when pC's Slardar (their most farmed hero, in terms of creeps killed) had Bottle, Boots of Speed, and a Magic Wand, while Shakira's Spectre was sitting on Vanguard, Power Treads, and Sacred Relic (she would finish a Radiance in the net three minutes, while Slardar would finish his Phase Boots). Here are the facts: in public games, it's possible for a team to throw away huge advantages because of a lack of coordination and individual player skill. When your individual players are worse than the other team's individual players, however, and you're playing against a team of players coordinating their movements and actions, there is no chance of coming back from such an enormous disadvantage. I rarely observe this phenomenon in other games. Competitive Magic players will more often than not extend the hand when they realize they have no chance of winning, even if their opponent hasn't yet reduced them to 0 life (and might have to take a number of additional turns to do so). The same goes for Korean Brood War professionals, who have been known to GG a game after losing a single unit for no gain in some situations. Even in WarCraft III, the game whose engine is the basis for original DotA, it is not unheard of for a player to concede early in a match after a harassment goes terribly wrong or a hero gets picked off while creeping.
Even if you admire pC's resolve to finish out the game, the chance of them coming back went from infinitesimally small to literally zero by 27 minutes when they had lost their top barracks. Yet they subjected the Steam servers and the observers to another few minutes of twitching and flailing about, their death throes casting a pall over the events of the afternoon (at least until EG vs Panzer gave us a much better game).
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Inbloguration
I was trying to think of a good topic for a first post, realized I should probably give some kind of introduction, and then couldn't really think of how to break the ice.
I made this blog primarily as a way of recording my own thoughts about a number of things in a public forum, with hopes of stimulating some kind of discussion and information exchange. By no means am I a top player at any of the things I'm going to be commenting on, but I do have a fairly robust understanding of them and good gaming strategies/practices in general, which actually seems like a good topic for this icebreaker.
A lot of people will look at two things that are different (say, basketball and DotA) and assume there is little or no overlap. However, there are a lot of 'umbrella' elements that can be applied generally to any sort of competitive endeavor. The best practices of preparation for a basketball, DotA, Magic: the Gathering, WHFB, Starcraft 2, or 40k tournament are the same. I won't get into specifics now (after all, I need to save some material for future blog posts).
I think keeping the first post short and sweet is probably the best plan. Welcome to the blog. Feel free to leave feedback/flames in the comments. I'll try my best to respond to honest questions and ignore trolls.
I made this blog primarily as a way of recording my own thoughts about a number of things in a public forum, with hopes of stimulating some kind of discussion and information exchange. By no means am I a top player at any of the things I'm going to be commenting on, but I do have a fairly robust understanding of them and good gaming strategies/practices in general, which actually seems like a good topic for this icebreaker.
A lot of people will look at two things that are different (say, basketball and DotA) and assume there is little or no overlap. However, there are a lot of 'umbrella' elements that can be applied generally to any sort of competitive endeavor. The best practices of preparation for a basketball, DotA, Magic: the Gathering, WHFB, Starcraft 2, or 40k tournament are the same. I won't get into specifics now (after all, I need to save some material for future blog posts).
I think keeping the first post short and sweet is probably the best plan. Welcome to the blog. Feel free to leave feedback/flames in the comments. I'll try my best to respond to honest questions and ignore trolls.
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