First Departure winning Armaggeddon Grand Slam. Photo by Armaggeddon.
Meracle the miracle
Titan, a team thought to be one of the two strongest teams in South East Asia, is currently on a 4-18 record in major Chinese tournaments after they brought in Meracle on the 30th of November. He had his three days of glory when he more or less single-handedly won Titan three successive game 2s after the team was down by over 15,000 gold - but it is a joke to be down 15,000 gold in every game to begin with. I remember watching the G-League games live and while I was astonished that it happened, I was not impressed by how my fellow countrymen won the game. "Lucky," I mumbled to myself.
Don't get me wrong - I actually think Meracle is an amazing young talent, which is why I voted him as the most improved player in our GosuAwards. I remember a conversation I had with Iceiceice prior to his departure to China, and the greatest troll in Dota told me in all seriousness that Meracle has a lot of growing up to do. His statement holds a lot of truth because Meracle is and was only known for his split pushing ability, even when he was playing for First Departure months ago.
A few quick conversations with First Departure and Titan members over various LAN events indicated that Meracle is the "game-decider" in every game. All the heros drafted exist to accommodate him and if he fails, the whole team fails since his teammates have spent the entire game creating space for him. This is a classic example of Fear's "high risk low reward" model. It is extremely risky to pin all their hopes on one individual player, it makes their strategy all the more predictable and easily counter-picked.
Does the 4-protect-1 strategy still work?
Yes, it does. We have seen some teams run it, but with a low success rate. The Chinese teams used to do the same thing, but ever since their devastating loss to Alliance in G-1 League, they have moved away from this defensive strategy. Carries now join the fights in the mid-game to make sure that his team is on top. The meta has simply shifted from the traditional 4-protect-1 to an early and mid-game oriented pushing strategy. Late-game does not happen if you don't survive the mid-game. Just look at the increase in Pugna picks in the past few months:
Even when Titan is winning, a coordinated five-man push by the opposing team would expeditiously result in the loss of all their outer towers and most possibly a few Roshan kills. To make it worse, all the good Chinese teams seem to have figured out Titan's strategy and would pick high mobility heroes to pick off Meracle the second he tries to split push. Heroes such as Storm Spirit and Nature's Prophet are perfect in this scenario and you can clearly see the efficacy of this strategy when DK picked Storm twice in their ECL encounter, and with Tongfu picking Nature's Prophet and Storm yesterday. In all these games, Titan knew very well that Meracle couldn't split push and spent the whole game walking around in their base while their opponents farmed the entire map, leading to their eventual demise.
You need to take mid-game fights to get an advantage going into late-game. Meracle avoids all fights and would tend to farm so much that their opponents would just starve the other four to gain a massive advantage in the later engagements.
Meracle's adventure in ECL so far:
Titan vs DK
Titan vs Tongfu
Titan vs iG
Titan vs Tongfu (playoffs)
So what now?
Yamateh holding ACG trophy. Photo by GosuGamers.
Let us not deny the fact that Meracle is still an amazing carry player, but he needs to start joining more fights, distinguish when to and when not to farm, and be more versatile when his opponents ban Naga Siren and Morphling. Titan played with Wei Poong 'Yamateh' Ng at the Asian Cyber Games and there is no doubt that Titan played their best games in months despite not having a single hour of training with the veteran.
Although Yamateh wasn't playing the carry role for the team, his versatility and wide array of heroes allowed Titan to hide their strategies. Out of Titan's 11 games in Asian Cyber Games, Yamateh played a total of nine different heroes, all of them with high mid-game presence while Kang Yang 'Kyxy' Lee played the carry role. Of the 11 games mentioned, Titan only lost one game, in which Yamateh was playing Windranger.
Adapt or become extinct.
This is just natural selection at work. Either Meracle starts playing something other than "rat doto", or risk himself getting booted from the team for bringing the whole team down. Considering Titan players are all used to role switching during their stint with Orange, I am sure they have the perfect conditions needed for Meracle to bring his game to the next level.
The Meracle right now is certainly not the saviour Titan needs.
