With the final of Farm4Fame 2.3 being played this Saturday, between MCiTY and Blight.int, GosuGamers has decided to take the fans back upon Blight.int's path of victory, particularly the semi-final played against Tribal.int.
This game saw some very unusual picks and skill builds, but Blight.int has proved that superior team play and tactics are the deciding factor in any game.
Tribal.int:
Tribal.int vs Blight.int
Bans
Picks
Mode: -cm
Map: 6.65
Download Replay
Tribal.int were given the option of banning first. Medusa was banned for a number of reasons. With the numerous buffs to Linken's Sphere as of late, this item have grown in popularity. Late game, Medusa is one of the strongest heroes around, and coupled with the versatile Linken's Sphere, she can be considered a rather staunch tank.
Slardar was banned for his early/mid game ganging abilities, as well as his carrying abilities later on. Tide has also grown in popularity over the past few versions, mainly for his wide range ultimate which doesn't require as precise placement as a hero such as Earthshaker for example.
Despite being victim of Icefrog's nerf stick over the past couple versions, Dark Seer still manages to be a strong pick, particularly against gang orientated lineups.
Blight.int:
In this map version Fuzzy has proved to be a very scary hero, especially with no cast animation on Overpow, making him an obvious ban/first pick choice.
Beastmaster is an outstanding ganging hero, with an extremely long range on his ultimate. He is strong when solo'ing mid as he can rune whore well with Hawk; his pig and his axes allows Beastmaster to harrass his lane and obtain lane dominance. His hawk is also invaluable later on during the game as it gives a wide area of view and aids in map dominance as well as letting a carry farm a particular lane safely.
Crystal Maiden is an ever popular support hero, due to the 'free' mana pool she provides. A common pick/ban. Now, Sand King isn't a very common ban, but I believe he was banned because Crixalis excels against fragile heroes, of which Blight's lineup is riddled with.
Tribal.int
As their first and second picks, Tribal.int chose Priestess of the Moon and Warlock. PoTM is a common pick because of her strong ganging abilities as well as being a strong semi-carry. Her ultimate is also very useful in a team fight as it can save lives or cause a state of chaos for the enemy team.
Warlock was quite a strange pick. He used to be a very popular hero a couple versions ago but has recently fallen out of favour. That being said, he is still the strongest baby sitter hero with his strong heal. His ultimate is a good initiator, but once it has been cast, his golem can be easily avoided. The reason that he is so unpopular is due to the fact that his other two abilities are just not practicle. Fatal Bonds is only really useful late game and Upheaval is useful, but leaves Warlock unable to do anything else due to channeling. There are simply much better support heroes around at the moment.
Yet another hero risen from the dead appeared in Tribal.int's next picks. Naix recently received a speed boost and this has nicely compensated for the nerf on Open Wounds. In my opinion Witch Doctor was a bad choice. Where he is a nice and annoying disabler with Paralyzing Cask, he works much better in a burst damage orientated team due to the mechanics of Maledict.
Storm Spirit was a good last pick by Tribal.int. Blight's disable was limited and there is no reason why Storm shouldn't have been to tear them apart late game. The only issue however is that Storm is a weak solo against zeus.
Drafting.
Blight.int
Blight.int's first pick was Vengeful Spirit. As far as roaming heroes goes, Vengeful Spirit is on par with heroes such as Earthshaker. He was chosen for his superb ganging abilities with a stun, swap as well as Wave of Terror, which lowers armour and damage.
Admiral and Zeus were they're next picks. Admiral is a great, and some might say underrated, carry. His passive allows for him to farm at ease, and Torrent and X Marks the Spot are excellent ganging abilities. Zeus is a strong pick due to his solo abilities and early game supremecy. When you have the Zeus Guru, Merlini, in your team, he is nothing short of a solid pick. These two heroes are very effective in team fights as a good ultimate by Admiral, along with Zeus' ultimate will just about destroy a team.
Furion and Clinkz were interesting picks. Furion coupled with Zeus allows for global ganging dominace. His trees also allow for Blight.int to push fairly easily as Tribal.int's aoe was very limited. Now, Clinkz is an extremely fragile hero and can either make or break a game. As Tribal's burst damage was limited, he wouldn't have too many issues surviving as his Wind Walk would allow him to dodge the stuns of PoTM and Witch Doctor. His Flame Arrows also allow for lane dominance as they are an orb effect and don't attract creep agro.
In terms of the picks I believe that Tribal.int were out picked as they didn't have much synergy. When picking Witch Doctor one should try go with burst damage instead, otherwise his most valuable skill goes to waste. They had no real early game heroes and the gang power of Blight.int's team was far superior. Tribal's carries, Naix and Storm would have trouble farming against this lineup as they would be permanently harrassed.
Lanes
Tribal.intBlight.int
Sentinel
Tribal.Lacoste_ (Top)
Tribal.BadrHari (Top)
-_-PlaymatE (Mid)
Tribal.Bane (Bot)
Tribal.Baja (Bot)
Scourge
Puppey!SGATE (Roaming)
Sick.Gaming-Bot (Bot)
KuroKy!SGATE (Bot)
Ben!SGate (Mid)
Fear!SGATE(Top)
It can be said that Tribal lost the plot with their lane choices. One would assume that Warlock would be used to baby sit Naix as he was their hardcore carry; while PoTM and Witch Doctor would lane together as PoTM has the highest amount of burst damage.
Instead Tribal went with PoTM and Warlock bottom, and Naix top along with Witch Doctor. They also placed Naix top, where as carries usually farm bot lane, as it provides cover due to the proximity of the Tier 1 tower and it also allows for the support hero to pull neutral creeps. Storm Spirit was solo by default as he is the strongest solo hero in their line up.
Blight would have assumed the more laning options by their opponents, which explains their lane choice. They placed Clinkz solo top, due to the extra protection mentioned earlier. They obviously wanted Clinkz to level up and farm as much as possible, as level four Flame Arrows rip low-level heroes apart. Zeus is a common solo mid hero as rune whoring allows for spam of his abilities. Blight would also be hoping on Zeus to shut down Storm's early farming.
Blight opted for a laning Vengeful instead of a roaming one due to the fact that they wished to hamper Naix's farming and Admiral is more useful with a stun partner, as he is able to place his torrents with ease. One of the deciding factors of the game was that Blight went with a roam Furion instead of a bush one. His tree prison allowed for perfect torrent placement and his global ganging had Tribal on the back foot.
First blood by Scourge.
First blood occurred 1:21 minutes into the game due to a well executed gang by Puppy on bot. Tribal seemed a bit too casual in the beginning as they were quite oblivious to the gang. One could already pick up that Scourge would be targeting Warlock instead of PoTM as PoTM had an escape mechanism in the form of leap.
Now aware of Puppey's presence in their bush, bot lane struggled to farm, as they preferred to stick as close to their Tier 1 tower as possible. This nullified the harassing abilities of Warlock and PoTM with their normal attack. Amateur players can learn from Puppey's play style. If one is playing a roaming hero, it is not only the gangs themselves that are important, but also about intimidating your opponent into thinking that, your hero is nearby, in order to alter their usual laning.
Meanwhile at top Fear's Clinkz was providing Naix and Witch Doctor a great deal of stress, as his Flame Arrows were able to hold them at bay. This allowed Fear to farm without having to hold back as Wind Walk would save him from any kill attempts by his laning counterparts. Fear was able to find a perfect balance between lane control and farming, and unless something was done, Clinkz would be able to tear the Sentinel apart later on.
At 3:33, we see teleport behind Sentinel's tier 1 tower in order to gang a low health Naix and Witch Doctor. Due to either miscommunication by Puppey and Fear or misjudgement, their gang failed because they attacked separate heroes instead of focusing on Naix. Thanks to a well-timed stun by Witch Doctor, Naix survived with less than 50 Hp and Furion was sent running, followed closely by a horde of Sentinel creeps.
Failed gang attempt by Clinkz and Furion.
Both teams exchanged kills, with Blight slowly starting to pull ahead and Tribal's future looked bleak, even in the early stages of the game. At 5 minutes Venge, Admiral and Furion tower dove and ganged a lonely PoTM. If someone had teleported in, such as Witch Doctor, Sentinel would have been able to kill of Admiral and perhaps even Furion. Yet there was no such rescue plan and Tribal fell behind by another kill and a tower.
All this time Zeus was holding down mid, not giving Storm any time to farm. Merlini went with an unusual skill build, opting to level up stats and Lightning Bolt instead of the usual one level of Chain Lightning followed by maxing out Static Field and Lightning bolt. It can be assumed that Merlini opted for straight out nuking power in order to kill Sentinel's fragile heroes as early as possible. This is gave Storm great grief. Well-timed ultimates by Zeus also allowed Scourge's carries to grab invaluable kills.
From the sixth minute onwards, Merlini's early game game play must be disagreed with. Sentinel did not have one ward up yet Zeus did not gang once. One would think that a lane would cower before Zeus' high damage Lightning Bolt and if he has chosen to gang, they would have scored many more kills. It can only be assumed that Zeus did not leave mid as they Blight could not give Storm the chance to farm up.
Scourge tower diving.
10 Minutes in the score was 3-12 in favour of Blight. Stats were as follows: Kuroky had 38 creep kills, two hero kills and one death; Fear had 46 creeps and two hero kills; Naix had 35 and had one kill and one death while Puppey had netted himself 4 kills with a well played roaming Furion.
Perhaps laziness allowed Admiral to push far into bot lane by himself and be picked off by Storm and PoTM, well into the 12th minute. All the while Clinkz was free farming and had managed to push the top Tier 1 tower by himself.
Both sides continued to exchange kills, still with Blight having the upper hand. At 15 minutes we see probably, the biggest team fight of the game due to a well executed gang mid, even though it was interrupted by Storm in the bush. Venge's double damage as well as a torrent and ultimate by Admiral saw Witch Doctor die almost instantaneously. He was however able to get off a Maledict which later lead to Puppey dying. Warlock was nearly able to evade the hungry Scourge team, and was about to teleport out, but the vision provided by Lightning Bolt proved to be too much for him. Warlock was now 0-7.
Well executed gang by Scourge which resulted in two Sentinel deaths.
All this time, Clinkz was still able to free farm and by the 16th minute, he had a Demon Edge, Power Treads and an oblivion staff and was able to pick off PoTM with about five shots. Shortly after Admiral had his Battlefury and Naix had his Armlet. Scourge however, proved to be too strong and had complete map dominance. They continued to pick off Sentinel's heroes one after another, with Clinkz eating them for breakfast.
At 21 minutes Tribal called 'gg' and the match was over.
Even though it was short, this was a highly enthralling game. Puppey's mastermind and superb roaming abilities proved to be too much for Tribal. Tribal was relying on their carries to farm up, but Scourge's line-up and game play allowed for no such thing. If Tribal wanted to have any chance of winning, they should have shut down Clinkz early and hard.
To place your bets on the Farm 4 Fame 2.3 final, between MCiTY and Blight.int click HERE!
Be sure to visit GosuGamers.net for more Gosu style replay analyses.
This game saw some very unusual picks and skill builds, but Blight.int has proved that superior team play and tactics are the deciding factor in any game.
BANS:
Tribal.int:
Tribal.int vs Blight.int
Bans
Picks
Mode: -cm
Map: 6.65
Download Replay
Tribal.int were given the option of banning first. Medusa was banned for a number of reasons. With the numerous buffs to Linken's Sphere as of late, this item have grown in popularity. Late game, Medusa is one of the strongest heroes around, and coupled with the versatile Linken's Sphere, she can be considered a rather staunch tank.
Slardar was banned for his early/mid game ganging abilities, as well as his carrying abilities later on. Tide has also grown in popularity over the past few versions, mainly for his wide range ultimate which doesn't require as precise placement as a hero such as Earthshaker for example.
Despite being victim of Icefrog's nerf stick over the past couple versions, Dark Seer still manages to be a strong pick, particularly against gang orientated lineups.
Blight.int:
In this map version Fuzzy has proved to be a very scary hero, especially with no cast animation on Overpow, making him an obvious ban/first pick choice.
Beastmaster is an outstanding ganging hero, with an extremely long range on his ultimate. He is strong when solo'ing mid as he can rune whore well with Hawk; his pig and his axes allows Beastmaster to harrass his lane and obtain lane dominance. His hawk is also invaluable later on during the game as it gives a wide area of view and aids in map dominance as well as letting a carry farm a particular lane safely.
Crystal Maiden is an ever popular support hero, due to the 'free' mana pool she provides. A common pick/ban. Now, Sand King isn't a very common ban, but I believe he was banned because Crixalis excels against fragile heroes, of which Blight's lineup is riddled with.
PICKS:
Tribal.int
As their first and second picks, Tribal.int chose Priestess of the Moon and Warlock. PoTM is a common pick because of her strong ganging abilities as well as being a strong semi-carry. Her ultimate is also very useful in a team fight as it can save lives or cause a state of chaos for the enemy team.
Warlock was quite a strange pick. He used to be a very popular hero a couple versions ago but has recently fallen out of favour. That being said, he is still the strongest baby sitter hero with his strong heal. His ultimate is a good initiator, but once it has been cast, his golem can be easily avoided. The reason that he is so unpopular is due to the fact that his other two abilities are just not practicle. Fatal Bonds is only really useful late game and Upheaval is useful, but leaves Warlock unable to do anything else due to channeling. There are simply much better support heroes around at the moment.
Yet another hero risen from the dead appeared in Tribal.int's next picks. Naix recently received a speed boost and this has nicely compensated for the nerf on Open Wounds. In my opinion Witch Doctor was a bad choice. Where he is a nice and annoying disabler with Paralyzing Cask, he works much better in a burst damage orientated team due to the mechanics of Maledict.
Storm Spirit was a good last pick by Tribal.int. Blight's disable was limited and there is no reason why Storm shouldn't have been to tear them apart late game. The only issue however is that Storm is a weak solo against zeus.
Drafting.
Blight.int
Blight.int's first pick was Vengeful Spirit. As far as roaming heroes goes, Vengeful Spirit is on par with heroes such as Earthshaker. He was chosen for his superb ganging abilities with a stun, swap as well as Wave of Terror, which lowers armour and damage.
Admiral and Zeus were they're next picks. Admiral is a great, and some might say underrated, carry. His passive allows for him to farm at ease, and Torrent and X Marks the Spot are excellent ganging abilities. Zeus is a strong pick due to his solo abilities and early game supremecy. When you have the Zeus Guru, Merlini, in your team, he is nothing short of a solid pick. These two heroes are very effective in team fights as a good ultimate by Admiral, along with Zeus' ultimate will just about destroy a team.
Furion and Clinkz were interesting picks. Furion coupled with Zeus allows for global ganging dominace. His trees also allow for Blight.int to push fairly easily as Tribal.int's aoe was very limited. Now, Clinkz is an extremely fragile hero and can either make or break a game. As Tribal's burst damage was limited, he wouldn't have too many issues surviving as his Wind Walk would allow him to dodge the stuns of PoTM and Witch Doctor. His Flame Arrows also allow for lane dominance as they are an orb effect and don't attract creep agro.
In terms of the picks I believe that Tribal.int were out picked as they didn't have much synergy. When picking Witch Doctor one should try go with burst damage instead, otherwise his most valuable skill goes to waste. They had no real early game heroes and the gang power of Blight.int's team was far superior. Tribal's carries, Naix and Storm would have trouble farming against this lineup as they would be permanently harrassed.
LANING:
Lanes
Tribal.intBlight.int
Sentinel
Tribal.Lacoste_ (Top)
Tribal.BadrHari (Top)
-_-PlaymatE (Mid)
Tribal.Bane (Bot)
Tribal.Baja (Bot)
Scourge
Puppey!SGATE (Roaming)
Sick.Gaming-Bot (Bot)
KuroKy!SGATE (Bot)
Ben!SGate (Mid)
Fear!SGATE(Top)
It can be said that Tribal lost the plot with their lane choices. One would assume that Warlock would be used to baby sit Naix as he was their hardcore carry; while PoTM and Witch Doctor would lane together as PoTM has the highest amount of burst damage.
Instead Tribal went with PoTM and Warlock bottom, and Naix top along with Witch Doctor. They also placed Naix top, where as carries usually farm bot lane, as it provides cover due to the proximity of the Tier 1 tower and it also allows for the support hero to pull neutral creeps. Storm Spirit was solo by default as he is the strongest solo hero in their line up.
Blight would have assumed the more laning options by their opponents, which explains their lane choice. They placed Clinkz solo top, due to the extra protection mentioned earlier. They obviously wanted Clinkz to level up and farm as much as possible, as level four Flame Arrows rip low-level heroes apart. Zeus is a common solo mid hero as rune whoring allows for spam of his abilities. Blight would also be hoping on Zeus to shut down Storm's early farming.
Blight opted for a laning Vengeful instead of a roaming one due to the fact that they wished to hamper Naix's farming and Admiral is more useful with a stun partner, as he is able to place his torrents with ease. One of the deciding factors of the game was that Blight went with a roam Furion instead of a bush one. His tree prison allowed for perfect torrent placement and his global ganging had Tribal on the back foot.
THE GAME:
First blood by Scourge.
First blood occurred 1:21 minutes into the game due to a well executed gang by Puppy on bot. Tribal seemed a bit too casual in the beginning as they were quite oblivious to the gang. One could already pick up that Scourge would be targeting Warlock instead of PoTM as PoTM had an escape mechanism in the form of leap.
Now aware of Puppey's presence in their bush, bot lane struggled to farm, as they preferred to stick as close to their Tier 1 tower as possible. This nullified the harassing abilities of Warlock and PoTM with their normal attack. Amateur players can learn from Puppey's play style. If one is playing a roaming hero, it is not only the gangs themselves that are important, but also about intimidating your opponent into thinking that, your hero is nearby, in order to alter their usual laning.
Meanwhile at top Fear's Clinkz was providing Naix and Witch Doctor a great deal of stress, as his Flame Arrows were able to hold them at bay. This allowed Fear to farm without having to hold back as Wind Walk would save him from any kill attempts by his laning counterparts. Fear was able to find a perfect balance between lane control and farming, and unless something was done, Clinkz would be able to tear the Sentinel apart later on.
At 3:33, we see teleport behind Sentinel's tier 1 tower in order to gang a low health Naix and Witch Doctor. Due to either miscommunication by Puppey and Fear or misjudgement, their gang failed because they attacked separate heroes instead of focusing on Naix. Thanks to a well-timed stun by Witch Doctor, Naix survived with less than 50 Hp and Furion was sent running, followed closely by a horde of Sentinel creeps.
Failed gang attempt by Clinkz and Furion.
Both teams exchanged kills, with Blight slowly starting to pull ahead and Tribal's future looked bleak, even in the early stages of the game. At 5 minutes Venge, Admiral and Furion tower dove and ganged a lonely PoTM. If someone had teleported in, such as Witch Doctor, Sentinel would have been able to kill of Admiral and perhaps even Furion. Yet there was no such rescue plan and Tribal fell behind by another kill and a tower.
All this time Zeus was holding down mid, not giving Storm any time to farm. Merlini went with an unusual skill build, opting to level up stats and Lightning Bolt instead of the usual one level of Chain Lightning followed by maxing out Static Field and Lightning bolt. It can be assumed that Merlini opted for straight out nuking power in order to kill Sentinel's fragile heroes as early as possible. This is gave Storm great grief. Well-timed ultimates by Zeus also allowed Scourge's carries to grab invaluable kills.
From the sixth minute onwards, Merlini's early game game play must be disagreed with. Sentinel did not have one ward up yet Zeus did not gang once. One would think that a lane would cower before Zeus' high damage Lightning Bolt and if he has chosen to gang, they would have scored many more kills. It can only be assumed that Zeus did not leave mid as they Blight could not give Storm the chance to farm up.
Scourge tower diving.
10 Minutes in the score was 3-12 in favour of Blight. Stats were as follows: Kuroky had 38 creep kills, two hero kills and one death; Fear had 46 creeps and two hero kills; Naix had 35 and had one kill and one death while Puppey had netted himself 4 kills with a well played roaming Furion.
Perhaps laziness allowed Admiral to push far into bot lane by himself and be picked off by Storm and PoTM, well into the 12th minute. All the while Clinkz was free farming and had managed to push the top Tier 1 tower by himself.
Both sides continued to exchange kills, still with Blight having the upper hand. At 15 minutes we see probably, the biggest team fight of the game due to a well executed gang mid, even though it was interrupted by Storm in the bush. Venge's double damage as well as a torrent and ultimate by Admiral saw Witch Doctor die almost instantaneously. He was however able to get off a Maledict which later lead to Puppey dying. Warlock was nearly able to evade the hungry Scourge team, and was about to teleport out, but the vision provided by Lightning Bolt proved to be too much for him. Warlock was now 0-7.
Well executed gang by Scourge which resulted in two Sentinel deaths.
All this time, Clinkz was still able to free farm and by the 16th minute, he had a Demon Edge, Power Treads and an oblivion staff and was able to pick off PoTM with about five shots. Shortly after Admiral had his Battlefury and Naix had his Armlet. Scourge however, proved to be too strong and had complete map dominance. They continued to pick off Sentinel's heroes one after another, with Clinkz eating them for breakfast.
At 21 minutes Tribal called 'gg' and the match was over.
Even though it was short, this was a highly enthralling game. Puppey's mastermind and superb roaming abilities proved to be too much for Tribal. Tribal was relying on their carries to farm up, but Scourge's line-up and game play allowed for no such thing. If Tribal wanted to have any chance of winning, they should have shut down Clinkz early and hard.
To place your bets on the Farm 4 Fame 2.3 final, between MCiTY and Blight.int click HERE!
Be sure to visit GosuGamers.net for more Gosu style replay analyses.
