Phase 1
Meet Your MakersNirvana.Malaysia
Bans
In the first banning phase, Nirvana.Malaysia is banning what is considered some of the strongest heroes at the moment; where as MYM is banning heroes that are secondary to those of scourge, but nevertheless heroes that Nirvana.Malaysia are known for playing.
Faerie Dragon is first banned, as Nirvana.Malaysia is especially known for playing a team-fight oriented line-up and Faerie Dragon is one of their best heroes in this regard.
“Nirvana.Malaysia has a notorious amount of love for Puck and pick it whenever they have the chance to get it. It is a great hero to dominate in 5v5 and countergank-setups.” Doom Bringer is banned afterwards, which is a very standard ban. Having a great farming mechanism, a high-damage nuke, high HP and is a counter to loads of heroes thanks to his ultimate, he is considered the most over-powered hero in the current meta-game and thus a standard ban.
“ Most likely banned simply due to it's sheer imbalance and the fact that MYM has first pick.”
Alchemist is banned second as he is known for being able to accumulate the most farm of all heroes. Besides this he too goes well with a team-fight oriented line-up, as well as being one of the best tanks in-game and can anti-push really well.
“Again a hero that's simply too good. The cloud makes it virtually impossible to push and his tank-ability makes him close to invulnerable. In the later stages of the game he will just be too much of a hassle to bring down.” Following the Alchemist ban, Nirvana.Malaysia quickly bans Broodmother, a hero that MYM is known for playing, and as one of her best counters (Alchemist) is banned, it could seem as MYM is going for this pick.
Furthermore, Broodmother is a hero that has the ability to push one, or maybe two, towers while the rest of the heroes are caught up in a team-fight, a feature that are feared by many teams all over the world.
“Nv.my seems to be banning heroes that are straight up considered somewhat imbalanced more than what they expect MYM to play; safe bans in a sense.”
Still fearing the team-fight line-up, MYM continues to ban Storm Spirit, as he is known for his initiating as well as ganking abilities. The ability to simply use his Ball Lightning and immediately remove a hero from the rest of the team-fight is fearfully.
“ Storm Spirit, especially with Doombringer being banned, is a really strong hero, sets up ganks very easily and takes down any runners. Perfect for initiate after obtaining BKB. MYM won't risk having to play against it.” Oblivion is yet another of the really strong heroes, and as he is a great counter to any team-fight line-up that Nirvana.Malaysia is probably going to do, he is an understandably ban; in addition to this, Nirvana.Malaysia usually features a lot of mana intensive heroes which is another set of heroes that Oblivion is known for countering.
“Yet another 'default' ban by Nv.my which further strengthens my point of them simply removing heroes they find difficult to beat or overpowered.”
Picks
The first picking phase is a very standard picks; mixed with some unconventional, yet very famous picks concerning the teams. Picking Vengeful Spirit first is standard, as she is arguably the most imbalanced support hero and can work in pretty much any line-up.
“The greatest support hero there is with a stun, a minus-armor spell, it's damageaura for later in the game and a swap that's perfect for initiation. Simply a hero that's almost always a certified first pick in European tradition.” Seeing the standard pick of Vengeful Spirit, the Nirvana.Malaysia is answering with two other versatile heroes; Windrunner who has the ability to solo any lane and Necro'lic who is one of the best tri-lane carries as well as fitting into the team-fight line-up that Nirvana.Malaysia favours.
“Windrunner is a standard hero for Nirvana.Malaysia, and especially Yamateh is known for playing her really well. Necro'lic is another hero Nirvana.Malaysia is known for picking, and Xtinct known for playing; quite standard actually.”
Beastmaster is a unconventional pick, but as DeMon is known for the Beastmaster play, it is understandable; this is followed up by Earthshaker, yet another hero that MYM is famous for. Both heroes signalizes a ganking strategy incoming.
“ We began to look into Beastmaster in the ending of RGC, as he has a great initiation, can tank a lot, is one of the best gankers and he grants his team a lot of map-control. To top it off, he has a really strong aura which in combination with Vengeful Spirit gives a massive boost to the carry. Basically he was a forgotten hero that we have begun to embrace yet again. Earthshaker is a very standard hero, and especially in EU he is a very famous hero, with Puck as the only hero who somewhat resembles him; as Tidehunter is not nearly as good in my opinion. ”
Why is it that you see Tidehunter as a lesser hero than Earthshaker; in level 16 his ultimate has a three times greater range?
“Without his ultimate, Tidehunter is simply not as useful as Earthshaker. He is outplayed in laning and in roaming.” Nirvana.Malaysia is answering with Tidehunter, a hero which are known for his amazing team-fight capabilities; thus trying to prevent the ganking strategy by initiating a team-fight oriented strategy.
“ A hero that ensures Nirvana.Malaysia they have enough team-fight capable heroes.”
Phase 2
Bans
In the second banning phase, we have a lot of high-potential heroes banned as both teams has the ability to perfectly position these due to their line-up.
Although not a specifically strong hero, MYM do right about fearing Lich in this current situation, as he has a well known synergy with Tidehunter as well as he is countering melee heroes (which is currently 2/3 of MYM's roster).
“Not a hero I would normally ban, personally I would be more afraid of Witch Doctor, Necrolyte or Admiral. Banning Enigma, Nirvana.Malaysia is practically banning the only hero that are able to counter their team-fight line-up as he is one of the few that has a stun that are not countered by Kraken Shell and good initiation from him will be devastating for Nirvana.Malaysia.
“A hero that does not look very thought-through for me. We would never really pick this hero, as we can not jungle him due to having picked Earthshaker and Vengeful Spirit already, and having him solo the long lane would only allow one late-game hero which would then be placed in a tri-lane.” Demon Witch This is probably the hardest ban to understand as MYM's line-up currently only features one low life hero, and although Demon Witch does enhance the AOE disabling power of Nirvana.Malaysia, they would not have any need of Demon Witch specific. He does counter the ganking strategy overall though, as he can practically shadow the MYM team, and deny them some much needed ganking power. “Nirvana.Malaysia are missing a supportive, disabling, hero; and with heroes such as Gorgon and Tinker, Demon Witch can be quite an annoyance throughout the game.” Shadow Fiend Nirvana.Malaysia do not have a counter for a Shadowfiend but MYM has plenty, they are simply denying MYM what they themselves has already been denied. “A generally strong hero, both in team-fight and in late-game; and he would have been allowed a lot of space since we would have already gotten the map control.” Picks In the second picking phase, we see both teams completing their line-up; and while Nirvana.Malaysia is closing with mid game heroes, MYM is choosing late game heroes. First picking Gorgon might seem odd, as MYM is not known for any turtling strategy, but as they are playing with one stand-in they have less of a team-synergy than any other team and as such a turtling (or in this situation a semi-turtling) line-up is needed to counter this heavy setback. “An obvious tank/damage dealer for the current team, as MYM has both Earthshaker and Vengeful Spirit which will make it difficult for the Nirvana.Malaysia to initiate, and Beastmaster which will make it difficult for them to gank; and with the massive aura stacking, they are confident to know that Gorgon will be able to out-damage anything late-game.” As Nirvana.Malaysia is in need of a support hero, they naturally chooses the best which is left in the pool: Witch Doctor. A hero that has perfect synergy with their team-fight based line-up as all four of his spells has high damage (or healing) potential. Furthermore he decreases the tankiness of any hero, and as they are facing the most tanky hero (Gorgon) in the game, he is definitely not a bad pick! “They needed a support hero in the tri-lane, and Witch Doctor was the obvious choice.” MYM is finishing off with an amazing Tinker pick, completing the ganking line-up as well as giving the team some much needed late-game potential. Besides all of the positive values, he is a hero that takes focus off of any team-fight as he can solo push a tower in a short time-span if the enemy team is not keeping an eye out for it. “One of MiSeRy's favourite heroes, having a strong late- as well as early-game which really just completes the MYM-lineup.” One of Nirvana.Malaysia's favourite heroes, giving a huge amount of EHP in skirmishes and team-fights. “Simply just a really strong hero, which have a great synergy with Witch Doctor as the combined healing in a push or team-fight is overwhelming.” Summary Bans Picks MYM is clearly going for a ganking strategy which offers them a lot of early/early-mid game dominance. This should give them enough momentum in the mid game to secure the late game, where Tinker and Gorgon hopefully will win the game for them.Nirvana.Malaysia on the other hand is going for a team-fight based line-up, and although they do not have much early-game potential, they do feature a good mid-game line-up in which they hope will obliterate the enemy team. Was there anything in particular you would have done different? “I would normally not have picked Gorgon, but if I were to, I would probably have picked her as the fifth pick, since Nirvana.Malaysia would never have picked her themselves; and if I were to do so, I would definitely have banned Necrolyte instead of Lich.” Laning Analysis
Lanes Meet Your Makersvs Nirvana.my
Top MYM.Razer.Missy (APM: 118)
MYM.Razer.Pstr (APM: 109)
MYM.Razer.MaNia (APM: 123) vs Nirvana.MuShI-| (APM: 115)
Putting the tri-lane top against a solo Necrolyte is going to put a huge amount of pressure on him as a nuking tri-lane is extremely difficult for any solo hero. This gives Tinker the ability to almost free farm, and thus get an early Boots of Travel which will be crucial; while it denies a key hero of the scourge the farm to act as required by him.
Mid MYM.Razer.DeMoN (APM: 141)vs Nirvana.YamateH (APM: 145)
Nirvana.Ice (APM: 153)
As Beastmaster is usually a pretty good solo hero, he is able to stand his own against the soloing Windrunner. Windrunner does counter Beastmaster though, as she can beat him to the runes, kill his summons with her powershot, have a longer ranging nuke as well as the most important advantage: she is ranged.
Bot MYM.Razer.Mamma (APM: 106)vs Nirvana.XTiNcT- (APM: 232)
Nirvana.Net (APM: 115)
Gorgon is usually not doing too bad against a tri-lane, but as this tri-lane features two slows as well as three damage amplifying skills she is pretty much denied any farm until she reaches level five. The reason for Gorgon to be especially hurt by long term skills (slows and amplifies) is that she do not have an escape mechanism, but only her Mana Shield, and although it do protect her against a nuking lane (as the fights in this are rather short) a long fight will leave her without any mana, and thus any HP too.
Summary
We can see that Nirvana.Malaysia is sacrificing their top lane for dominance in the other two. This descision is taken by MYM too though, as they are sacrificing Gorgons early game for a superior early-game for Tinker, hoping she can catch up during mid game and still become a factor late game.
MYM is countering the solo laned Necrolyte with a tri-lane, while they themselves are having a single hero up against a tri-lane, was this a good trade-off in your opinion?
“There are three points in this: This was the best trade we could do, seeing as we would lose in any tri-lane face-off. If they did decide to do a lane-swap, Gorgon would now easily win her lane and would naturally be a lot safer from ganks. Gorgon can always catch up in farm, whereas Necrolyte is more dependent on that early game. Necro’lic is not as dangerous with farm as Tinker is, as a quick Boots of Travel can be decisive.”
Warding Analysis
Meet Your MakersNirvana.my
[1] This ward is obviously placed in anticipation of a tri-lane top as it prevents any pulling as well as any backstabbing attempt. As the scourge are now featuring a solo lane top, this ward is pretty much useless as a pulling attempt is highly unlikely.
[2] This ward is beautifully placed, greatly hindering the ganking strategy that are sure to happen from the MYM team as well as giving sight of the top rune spot.
[3] Another really well placed ward. Giving sight of the bot rune as well as any heroes travelling between bot and mid.
[4] Expecting the tri-lane to face each other bot, Nv.my obviously want vision of this crucial area, this is not the case however, and the ward is therefore somewhat useless.
It is noteworthy that Nirvana.Malaysia has covered both rune spots, and although the [2] ward is needed, the [4] could have been placed more to the south (if we are following their mindset that they would face a tri-lane bot), covering a greater area in the jungle.
Game Overview
At the 2nd minute action is happening on top lane; after having received some harassment; the sentinel team of Earthshaker, Vengeful Spirit and Tinker is tower-diving and manages to kill Necrolyte. Just after the action on top, action is happening on mid lane, as Beastmaster ventured too far ahead and ended up dead to a Power Shot.
While the kill is happening mid, bot lane heroes are tower-diving and manage to kill Gorgon after some initial pre-harassment.
At the 5th minute the bot lane are at it again, and this time the scourge team do not need to pre-harass as they are simply just tower-diving and killing Gorgon.
We see that Nirvana.Malaysia tower-diving in order to kill Gorgon, why did she not receive any teleport-support?
“Looking back, a teleport-support would have been the optimal choice, but I do not think we neither had the necessary overview nor the needed mana for that.”
Scoreboard: (5 min)
MYMTowers: 0/0Score: 2/3 Nirvana.myTowers: 0/0Score: 3/2
MYM.Razer.Missy28/112/0/0 Nirvana.XTiNcT24/72/0/0
MYM.Razer.DeMoN15/70/1/0 Nirvana.MuShI-|2/10/2/0
MYM.Razer.Mamma3/10/2/0 Nirvana.YamateH26/51/0/0
On top lane the soloing Necrolyte is easily outlaned, and even with an extremely passive laning the sentinel team still managed to kill him.
In spite of being severely outlaned, Necrolyte still levels up his Sadist instead of Stats which would give him some much needed HP or Heartstopper Aura which would passively damage the enemy heroes, and maybe preventing some tower-dives.
In mid Windrunner is easily winning the lane after the early kill she gained and is just behind the free farming Tinker on top lane.
On bot lane we have a outlaned Gorgon, and with 2 deaths and 3 creep kills it pretty much mirrors the top lane.
Seeing that both teams has a lane where the enemies are tower-diving every now and then, you can ask yourself why they do not receive any tp-support; scourge could easily had gotten a kill on top lane in the last gank as an example. But more important, scourge has a slow-killing tri-lane and if they chooses to tower-dive they are extremely prone to any tp-support which probably will safe the life of Gorgon as well as killing one or even two of the scourge heroes.
It is notable too that the sentinel team are now entering their prime-game, especially since Tinker now has gained some massive farm and are close to his Boots of Travel.
We see that MaNia buys the first pair of wards, but after the crow has been upgraded, Pusher takes over, and buys the rest of the wards. Is this something you have chosen to do, Pusher with the pure-support role, while MaNia has a more semi-support?
“Pusher has always chosen to take the role die-hard support on him; but in this specific game, MaNia [Ed: Earthshaker] is crucial for our game, holding half of all the stuns on our team, and thus he does not only need Kelen’s Dagger, but the buy of Black King Bar is somewhat needed, as his Kelen’s Dagger cannot be afforded to be disabled by a long range Ravage or Powershot.”
In this game, we see MaNia going Bottle to Arcane Boots, while an Earthshaker normally chooses either one or another, can you give an explanation of this?
“Personally I would go directly for Arcane Boots, but as MaNia likes to be able to help his team as soon as possible, he went for the early bottle. We do all agree though, that the Arcane Boots are vital on Earthshaker, as it increases his mana-pool and allows him to spam his Fissures.”
MYM has in games before this one gone for dual-Arcane Boots, and it generally looks like you like this addition.
“Arcane Boots is a great item, and it work wonders in most of the strategies; especially if you focus on destroying towers or team-fights; and I really cannot understand why Nirvana.Malaysia does not feature at least one on Witch Doctor, as both Witch Doctor, Necro’lic and Necrolyte becomes that much stronger with this item.”
Beforehand we have seen MYM buying both sentry and observer wards from the beginning, while as you only buy a single set of observer wards now, was this a conscious transition?
“Yes, beforehand people used to ward-jungle since the teams in this period was focused a lot on jungling, and in combination they were focused on denying the pull-camps, so we felt it was necessary; while as now, we are more focused on pressuring the lane itself and keeping them at bay.”
At the 6th minute the Necrolyte has been bullied away from his lane, and are trying to at least gather some farm in the scourge jungle. It is here Vengeful Spirit and Earthshaker are finding, killing him, once again.
At the 7th minute it is yet again on top lane the action is happening, as Beastmaster is ganking. After a successful kill on Necrolyte and a teleporting Witch Doctor, they manage to destroy the tie one tower too.
After the first tower has been destroyed, the four sentinel heroes are pushing further, and at the 8th minute they manage to once again kill Necrolyte as well as a late-incoming Tidehunter.
At this point however, Windrunner and Witch Doctor as well as a teleporting Necrolyte is appearing; killing Vengeful Spirit by shear force of number, and nearly killing Earthshaker, but are however scared off by the nuking power of Tinker; this nuking power enables Beastmaster to backstab a fleeing Windrunner though, leaving the score 3-1.
Scoreboard: 10 min
MYMTowers: 1/1Score: 8/4 Nirvana.myTowers: 1/1Score: 4/8
MYM.Razer.Missy
Items: Bottle, BoT47/136/0/1 Nirvana.XTiNcT
Items: Treads50/152/0/2
MYM.Razer.DeMoN
Items: Bottle, BoS20/71/1/3 Nirvana.MuShI-|
Items: BoS9/10/5/0
MYM.Razer.Mamma
Items: Treads18/10/2/0 Nirvana.YamateH
Items: Bottle, Phase55/61/1/1
As the laning phase is now over, we can easily see that top lane was obliterated by the sentinel team, and Necrolyte had problems farming even in the jungle due to some amazing hawk management by Beastmaster.
Mid lane was won handily by Windrunner as the early kill simply gave her the ability to out lane Beastmaster the rest of the game; with which she gained the highest creep score.
Although Gorgon did not die in this section and actually managed to get a decent amount of farm, the sentinel play was still questionable, as she would have gained a lot from a tp-suppport.
At the 18th minute, the scourge are caught in a gank on bot lane, and the gank quickly evolves into a full team-fight; with the sentinel team as initiators. The initiators are however initiated upon, and they quickly lose Beastmaster and Vengeful Spirit, signalling the retreat of the rest of the team.
Due to this retreat, the scourge team is lead to believe they have the upper hand, and are spreading out; and as Gorgons teleportation are cancelled, she, as well as Tinker, is determined to continue the fight, managing to deal loads of damage to the enemy before they are forced to retreat once again.
You initiate on Necro’lic, but does not manage to kill him as he activates the mechanism, and this costs you the team-fight, seeing it afterwards, was it a good call to initiate?
“ Definitely not. You could argue that we did not have the necessary vision, and it was too close to a tower, but with teleport-delay and all, I would say it was a good call, and that Necro’lic never died was really just bad luck mixed with some bad judgement from Gorgon as a Mystic Snake from her would have ensured the kill.”
Scoreboard: 20 min
MYMTowers: 3/1Score: 11/8 Nirvana.myTowers: 1/3Score: 8/11
MYM.Razer.Missy
Items: Bottle, BoT, Ultimate Orb80/168/0/2 Nirvana.XTiNcT
Items: Treads, Meka76/174/0/3
MYM.Razer.DeMoN
Items: Bottle, BoS, Dagger44/72/2/5 Nirvana.MuShI-|
Items: Treads50/40/7/0
MYM.Razer.Mamma
Items: Treads, Perse72/60/2/0 Nirvana.YamateH
Items: Bottle, Phase, Ultimate Orb105/111/1/5
Having just exited there peak of advantage, one might be diluted to say that the sentinel team underperformed heavily as the score is pretty much equal. This is not the truth however, as the sentinel team most of the time managed to kill the carries of the scourge team while losing mostly the supports. This combined with the tower kills as well as the most important fact: Gorgon was able to farm up in this period (only four creeps behind Necro'lic!), means that the sentinel team are heading well-prepared into the mid-game.
Due to this, the scourge mid-game is diminished as Necrolyte was denied almost all farm, having less than two creeps per minute.They are not all lost though, as Necro'lic was able to farm up his Mechanism.
Three towers destroyed by MYM, is this acceptable?
“ I would say yes. The mid tier two tower is especially difficult to take if you do not have secured yourself with a numerical advantage, and as Gorgon has been constantly farming on bot lane, we did not have the opportunity to push this one yet.
On the other hand, we have been able to defend the mid tower, which is crucial.”
At the 27th minute, the sentinel team are aiming for a push, and as they approach the tier two bot tower, they manage to both kill Tidehunter as well as destroying the tower before moving on to mid lane where they too claim the tier two tower. At this point however, the scourge team are entering, and while the sentinel team are retreating, they manage to kill Vengeful Spirit, Earthshaker as well as Gorgon.
After the team-fight mid, the scourge team decides to kill Roshan; but as the sentinel team are reviving, the scourge team are scared off (although they do manage to kill Vengeful Spirit).
Having scared the enemies away, the sentinel team decides to claim Roshan for themselves, but forgets about the power of the familiars who manages to stun the entire team based around Roshan;
and although they manage to finish Roshan the team are doomed as they are picked off one by one with Gorgon as the sole survivor.
Scoreboard: 30 min
MYMTowers: 6/2Score: 13/18 Nirvana.myTowers: 2/6Score: 18/13
MYM.Razer.Missy
Items: Bottle, BoT, Guinsoo115/1710/1/2 Nirvana.XTiNcT
Items: Treads, Meka, HoD114/177/0/9
MYM.Razer.DeMoN
Items: Bottle, BoS, Dagger56/72/5/6 Nirvana.MuShI-|
Items: Treads, HoD, PB120/111/7/6
MYM.Razer.Mamma
Items: Treads, Linkens, Yasha148/80/3/0 Nirvana.YamateH
Items: Bottle, Phase, Guinsoo140/115/2/10
Looking at the farm, we can see that Gorgon has now caught up with the rest of the heroes, due to the early game dominance the sentinel team provided.
But while the Gorgon got farm, Necrolyte too caught up from his poor start, and are rapidly gathering EHP.
Nirvana.Malaysia has only destroyed three towers, one of which is the standard when a solo hero is facing a tri-lane. Is this due to the aggressive style from MYM?
“Pretty much, add to this the fact that Nirvana.Malaysia has allowed us to take all of their tier two towers, which adds to an increase in the pushing of the lane.”
Even though you have pushed all of the outer towers, you have not tried to take Roshan, why?
“The risk is simply too great, in order to do it safely, we need to kill both Tidehunter and another hero; this risk is portrayed in the last Roshan attempt where we manage to kill Roshan, but loses the following team-fight.”
This team-fight clearly shows that you have some communicative problems as you never manage to focus a single hero, can you elaborate on this?
“We simply lack the mid-game fighting potential. Vengeful Spirit and Gorgon does close to no damage and Beastmaster does not have any significant DPS output; so it was pretty much lost from the beginning.
What we need is to set up a better team-fight, by taking key heroes out.”
We see that Earthshaker has acquired a Kelen’s Dagger, while Tidehunter still has not; should you actually try to focus Tidehunter now in order to keep this advantage?
“Not really, since Nirvana.Malaysia are winning the team-fight and claiming towers, he will get his Kelen’s Dagger no matter what, our focus should be more to get our own items. What we could have done though, was to not allow him free-farm, but make sure that Tinker would constantly teleport in and harass him.”
At the 38th minute Necrolyte is caught farming on top lane by Tinker, but as he is heavily stacked now, Tinker got problems even scratching him and ends up taking even more damage than the Necrolyte due to creeps attacking him.
And although the rest of the sentinel team are arriving, the scourge team is close behind them, and thus they are forced to retreat; during the retreat the scourge does manage to kill Earthshaker though.
This skirmish marks the end of the MYM pushes, as Nirvana.Malaysia now gets the Gem of True Sight; if it was you who called the shot, would you go into a full-out turtle strategy, or still retain some of your offensive powers?
“In this instance and forward, I miss split-pushing. In theory a full-out turtle would work, but the fact is that Gorgon is caught too many times without Mana Shield activated. But seeing as we are constantly on the scourge side, a split push with Tinker (which has Black King Bar) pushing one lane, and the rest of the team protecting Gorgon as she pushed another would have been preferred.”
Scoreboard: 40 min
MYMTowers: 6/3Score: 14/21 Nirvana.myTowers: 6/3Score: 21/14
MYM.Razer.Missy
Items: Bottle, BoT, Guinsoo, BKB230/2210/1/3 Nirvana.XTiNcT
Items: Treads, Meka, HoD, Pipe, Ultimate Orb138/187/0/11
MYM.Razer.DeMoN
Items: Bottle, BoS, Dagger, Ultimate, Vlad124/73/5/6 Nirvana.MuShI-|
Items: Treads, HoD, PB, Agha, Shiva's246/172/7/7
MYM.Razer.Mamma
Items: Treads, Linkens, Manta268/80/4/0 Nirvana.YamateH
Items: Bottle, Phase, Guinsoo, Linkens245/148/3/11
Looking at the farm, it is pretty even, but while the scourge team can do well with the farm, Gorgon can utilise the farm a lot more effective. This effectiveness is somewhat decreased though, as Necrolyte wisely got a Shiva's Guard.
The dependence on Gorgon can be seen on the supportive items and aura's which means that while Beastmaster do not do that much damage, he picked up a Vladimir's Offering which together with Command Aura and Inner Beast gives a lot of much needed extra damage to Gorgon. This pooling does give the drawback that the Gorgon now has to be extremely careful with her positioning as one wrong move will result in a maledict, Reapers Scythe combo which will doom the sentinel team.
At the 46th minute, we see a team-fight occurring on mid lane and as scourge is spread out, it is easy for the sentinel team to position themselves in order to cut off Windrunner from any immediate support and thus they manage to break the aegis.
Despite of this early start, the sentinel team does not manage to capitalize on it, and are using their time on waiting for Windrunner to respawn, allowing the scourge team to position themselves.
When the respawn is happening, we see an immediate Ravage from Tidehunter, catching three heroes and thus the upper hand is yet again on the scourge team; and although Tinker is teleporting in to support the solo Gorgon now, they do simply not have the single targeted damage to bring down the scourge heroes, and thus the entire sentinel team are dying for a Necrolyte (although the rest of the scourge heroes left with a small amount of HP!).
We see that you start out good, managing to pick off the aegis, but then you suddenly halt, waiting for Windrunner to resurrect which is what costs you the team-fight; what would you have done differently?
“We should either just have run away or focus another hero right after, and as you can see they all escape with a low health-pool, a fight which is essentially barely won.”
At the 51th minute we have a series of smaller encounters mid, with Necro'lic as the main initiator as he kills Vengeful Spirit. This sets off a hunt on the scourge heroes which manages to set up a trap in the sentinel jungle, isolating and killing first Earthshaker followed by Tinker; and although it looks like they are close to killing Gorgon too, a Nether Swap saves her.
Scoreboard: 50 min
MYMTowers: 6/3Score: 16/32 Nirvana.myTowers: 6/3Score: 32/16
MYM.Razer.Missy
Items: Bottle, BoT, Guinsoo, BKB, Shiva's, Dagger266/2312/3/3 Nirvana.XTiNcT
Items: Treads, Meka, HoD, Pipe, Guinsoo162/1811/0/14
MYM.Razer.DeMoN
Items: Bottle, BoS, Dagger, Ultimate, Vlad171/73/8/7 Nirvana.MuShI-|
Items: Treads, HoD, PB, Agha, Shiva's, Guinsoo322/186/8/10
MYM.Razer.Mamma
Items: Treads, Linkens, Manta, B-fly335/80/5/1 Nirvana.YamateH
Items: Bottle, Phase, Guinsoo, Linkens, MKB302/149/4/14
We have now arrived to he point where the whole game is centred around one hero: Gorgon. Her team-mates are all degraded to pure support heroes, while the enemies is trying to worsen her chances of winning the fight, either by stunning her or by taking out the key 'support' such as Beastmaster.
Having this mindset, does mean that scourge now has three guinsoo's compared to the sentinel's two, which gives the upper hand for the scourge in any prolonged team-fight, as Gorgon can now be hexed for up to 10.5 seconds!
However, when Gorgon is not hexed, she is able to dish a tremendous amount of damage: this was shown at the 46th minute team-fight, as the scourge team was not able to properly focus Gorgon, and she was just left alive for a very long time; which means that if Windrunner did not have the aegis, the sentinel team would have a very high chance of winning the team-fight.
In spite of all this, the scourge team are still in the advantage though, which can be seen by how many wards they have bought (22 for sentinel, 36 for scourge) and the kills in the last 30 minutes (8 for sentinel, 24 for scourge)
We see that MYM is losing more and more momentum, can you give us a reason for this?
“Around the 42-44 minute mark, we make too many crucial mistakes which gives the scourge team the edge; while as if we had played this correctly, a split push would have ensured a continued farming advantage to our team while chipping away on their tower.”
At the 55th minute the sentinel team are catching the scourge team in a Roshan attempt, but are initiated upon themselves;
and a Ravage followed up by a Reapers Scythe immediately kills Beastmaster. This is quickly followed by a kill on Tinker and a sacrificing Vengeful Spirit, effectively ending the team-fight and giving the Roshan to the scourge team.
At the 56th minute the scourge team are pushing mid, clearing the mid tier two tower without any resistance; and with a late teleport from Gorgon they are allowed to clear the tier three too. An overextension from Necrolyte however, spells doom for the scourge team and are thus forced to retreat as the sentinel heroes are approaching.
In spite of this, the sentinel team are not allowed much time to recover, as Necrolyte are buying back and immediately teleports back. This signals the scourge to once again try a push, and trying to forego Gorgon they are going behind the line in search of the weaker heroes. This plan backfires however, as Gorgon is able to deal a massive amount of damage to almost all the heroes, resolving in a kill on Tidehunter and the rest of the team are left with low HP.
Before leaving completely though, Necrolyte is throwing in a little present for Gorgon as she too has received quite a lot of damage, and manages to kill her with Reaper's Scythe although it too costs him the life.
After the battle mid (59th min), the sentinel team gathers and are aiming straight for the mid rax as the scourge team is still trying to recover from the team-fight.
They manage to catch the scourge off-guard and win a crucial second or two which they use to attack the tower.
The scourge heroes are gathering though, and they manage to push the sentinel heroes back; as they are pursuing they are however caught off guard, and the sentinel manages to kill Witch Doctor and Necrolyte (buys back). Gorgon are caught in a crossfire though and ends up killed too, although she immediately buys back, buys a Boot of Travel and are thus back in the fight three seconds after.
The collective forces of the sentinel thus manages to take down the mid tower, but Gorgon makes a huge mistake of charging further on without activating her mana-shield, this turns out to be a crucial mistake as Vengeful Spirit had used his Nether Swap and thus she is an easy kill for the scourge team.
In the aftermath the scourge manages to kill Tinker too, an extremely costly team-fight for the sentinel team!
Definetly a close call in the last team-fight as it would appear you would win it with a resurrecting Gorgon; any comments on this?
“If we had had a Gorgon with a Buriza Do-Kanon at this point, the game would have been to our advantage; the problem simply is that we are having a lot of heroes that dies really quickly, and with three Guinsoo’s on their team, Gorgon is not allowed to do much.
I am sad to say, but the game is pretty much over by now, the last 15-20 minutes it has been a fight uphill. The only reason why the game has been prolonged up until now is because of Nirvana.Malaysia not being able to position themselves well enough.
Necrolyte dies with cheese on him, which stalls the push until he resurrects, Tidehunter is in general just miss-placed as his ultimates are too late most of the times, which costs them some heroes that they should never have lost; and in general they just give Gorgon way too much room.”
Scoreboard: 60 min
MYMTowers: 7/5Score: 23/41 Nirvana.myTowers: 5/7Score: 23/41
MYM.Razer.Missy
Items: Bottle, BoT, Guinsoo, BKB, Shiva's, Dagger289/2315/5/5 Nirvana.XTiNcT
Items: Treads, Meka, HoD, Pipe, Guinsoo, Plate Mail173/1812/1/20
MYM.Razer.DeMoN
Items: Bottle, BoS, Dagger, Ultimate, Vlad, Guinsoo189/73/10/9 Nirvana.MuShI-|
Items: Treads, HoD, PB, Agha, Shiva's, Guinsoo370/1811/10/13
MYM.Razer.Mamma
Items: Treads, Linkens, Manta, B-fly, HotD435/84/8/4 Nirvana.YamateH
Items: Bottle, Phase, Guinsoo, Linkens, MKB, HotD369/1511/5/21
In the last team-fight the sentinel definitely had the advantage, but blew it as Gorgon was caught without the mana shield activated. This crucial mistake was what costed them the team-fight which could have resulted in a possible rax-kill and thus gaining the advantage.
It is now 60 minutes into the game, and although MYM has a Gorgon on their team, they do seem to have lost this one; why is the game still progressing?
“57-59 minutes into the game, Nirvana.Malaysia should have ended the game, or at least taken two sets of raxes; but they do not manage to do so because of pure bad play if you ask me.
That Nirvana.Malaysia have not ended it yet, grants MYM a chance, and they really do perform well in the 59th minute team-fight. MiSeRy plays exceptionally well, and we manage to set it up really well, just too bad Gorgon is making the mistake with the Mana Shield which is what costs us the fight.”
We see that Nirvana.Malaysia is trying to mirror the MYM aura-based strategy, are they forced to do this to counter?
“I would not say ‘forced to’, as these items in general are really good, and works wonders with the tanking line-up they feature. It is items that indirectly counters Gorgon though, so in this game they are pretty much a ‘must have’.”
Did the MYM’s Shiva’s Guard come too late?
“In my opinion it came when it was needed. You could have wished that Beastmaster or Earthshaker had been able to farm it, so that Tinker could have gotten some DPS.
What we really needed though, was that Gorgon had spent some of her buy-out gold and bought that Buriza Do-Kanon, as this is really what we needed.”
So you are an advocate of the more risk-taking decisions?
“No, quite the opposite; but having 5000 gold is simply too much.”
After the team-fight the scourge looks like they are ready for a push mid, hoping they can catch Gorgon without buyback gold. This plan is torn to shreds though as Beastmaster are pushing top and Tinker is benefiting that some creeps managed to get to the mid rax and with a fast teleportation he manges to take the ranged rax although he later dies.
Despite of this the scourge still tries to push mid, but Beastmaster (who has lured all along on a farming Necrolyte) manages to cancel his teleportation, thus effectively ending the push that the scourge team wanted; brilliant play from both Misery and DeMoN!
At the 66th minute the scourge team are trying to kill Roshan, but due to having the Familiars assisting them, Roshan venture out of his area, wasting valuable time and the sentinel team are able to arrive before they can kill him. As the scourge team are retreating, the sentinel team are caught in a bad situation, and a Tidehunter ultimate wreaks havoc among the ranks of the sentinel team and killing Tinker.
The sentinel team do manage to kill Roshan and Beastmaster quickly claims the aegis and cheese, but dies shortly after and suddenly Gorgon is left alone. Beastmaster does resurrect though, and with some fast finger DeMoN manages to blink right next to Gorgon and handing her the cheese just before he himself dies (Vengeful Spirit dies at this point too). With the help of the cheese Gorgon thus crawls out of the Roshan area, and with a great fissure Earthshaker is sacrificing himself for the survival of Gorgon.
This massive sacrifice is leaving the sentinel base open though, and the scourge are not late to grab this opportunity; forcing Gorgon into a single handed defence in which she is torn apart within seconds; but does manage to buy back. This buy back along with the resurrection of the sentinel team forces the scourge to retreat but as Gorgon is venturing a bit too far they turn around and within a matter of seconds they kill her once again; and once again she buys back.
At the 75th minute the scourge are yet again pushing top, and although it looks like Gorgon is yet again going down, a perfectly timed Nether Swap rescues her from what would be the killing blow of a Reaper's Scythe.
She does end up going down though, as Earthshaker is just half a second too late with his Earth Stomp.
She does buy back, but in the meantime the scourge team manages to kill Tinker and as the sentinel team are now focusing different heroes, they end up being picked out one by one, and not even a fast buy back from Gorgon can stop the scourge team from claiming the game.
We are at the end, and it is time to sum the game up now; what would you say was the reason for MYM’s loss?
“I would say it was the play from 25-30 and onwards which costed us the game, we simply made too many bad calls and we never bounced back from them.”
Did Mammamiya play up to your expectations?
”Definetly yes, I simply can not ask anything else from a player that have not played with the team, but when that is said any EEDL-player would probably have done better since they are more accustomed to us.”
OP's Comment
MYM definitely suffered from not having a leader, as both Maelk and Playmate were not able to attend. This meant that what is considered the most stable roster in EU was suddenly left with only two of their original members, two members that has been recruited within a very short amount of time and one stand-in.
This was commented by the MYM team too, complaining about not having someone to "call the shot" which many times meant that they did not pursue their advantage.
That Gorgon was controlled by a stand-in was visible too, as she in many cases were out of sync with the rest of the team (especially visible when the time to retreat came).
This could be seen too with the build, where she constantly had enough gold for a buy-back, where as the rest of the team was more prone to spend their gold, thus half (yes, Gorgon would count as half of the team) of the team was being conservative while the other half was not, an agreement on this matter would have been a lot more preferable.
As a bit of a rant, we can see that Gorgon many times was that crucial two seconds too late to teleport back when the base was under attack, actually arriving after Nirvana.Malaysia had started the fight.
When all of this is said, Mammamiya has been out of the DotA scene for a while, and when he played, he was support; and taking this in consideration, he did play well.
Concerning Nirvana.Malaysia, it was an amazing decision to let Necro'lic farm up a Mechanism in early game, costing them a lot of early game, but granting them the much needed mid-game substitution for Necrolyte.
MVP
OP: MYM.Razer.Pstr (Vengeful Spirit)
“The MVP was not as hard a decision as it may look like, Nirvana.YamateH (Windrunner) played really well, he dominated the entire game from the second minute mark and onwards, and out-carried Gorgon even into a part of then late-game; but he was overshadowed by the support players of MYM. Here MYM.Razer.MaNia did a really great job in many team-fight and skirmishes, landing perfect Fissures all over the map and hitting those good Earth Stomps in (almost) any team-fight. He did miss a couple though, where as we saw some incredible play by MYM.Razer.Pstr (Vengeful Spirit), using his Nether Swap to near perfection throughout the whole game, saving Gorgon from many an untimely death, letting her heal up a bit until re-entering the fight, while sacrificing herself. I can simply not stress how well this was played in words alone, if you ever wondered how to play Vengeful Spirit, go back and watch this replay, and study the timing of the swaps, amazing play!”
Maelk: Nirvana.XTiNcT (Necro'lic)
“In my opinion, MiSeRy is MVP on the sentinel side, but Necro’lic has played really well, and deserves the overall MVP.
Xtinct has really damaged the MYM play, both with his exceptional bird-control and his DPS which is probably around the same as Windrunner’s.”
Final words
Thank you very much for participating, any last shoutouts?
“You are welcome; shoutout to our sponsors: Razer, Puma and Western Digital.”
