Mike is a transcendent being aiming to subject the world, both ingame and out, to his stache dominion. As such he prefers global impact heroes tree armoring, relocating and charging the opposition into submission. Where his allegiance lies though, remains to be seen.

Bulba, a clockwerk orange, intelligent, emotional, off. Ever he waits, biding his time, intent on catching his opponent off guard, cogblocking, lassoing and sprouting, Bulba, the hunter, he seals them away from the light of day.

DavoS

United States4605 Posts

July 21 2013 17:17 GMT

#42

Be cheering for you guys come TI3!

Fake)Plants

United States373 Posts

July 21 2013 19:12 GMT

#43

On July 22 2013 01:28 Saechiis wrote:

Show nested quote +

Well this post caused me to nearly choke to death on my food, thank you haha.

Fluff, your blogs are very well done and I enjoy every single one. Liquid Dota has been a great story thus far, and these blogs really add to that tale. Really cheering for you guys at TI3!

skyrunner

371 Posts

July 21 2013 23:39 GMT

#44

Good music

MrCon

France29748 Posts

July 22 2013 11:28 GMT

#45

Nice blog.

Just a point I noticed in your games, is that very often your opponents can just do roshan without you notice, I don't have any stats, I'm not even sure how feasible such a stat is, but my guess would be that TL is the team that "lose" roshans the most (by that I don't mean a fight for roshan, but just the other team doing roshan and TL doesn't even notice/try to stop them).
I guess it goes on pair with the lack on focus on objectives like towers.

Proseat

Germany5113 Posts

July 22 2013 15:28 GMT

#46

Great blog as usual, thanks!

Since you shed some light on some of the happenings and developments within the team, could you say something about TC (the usual level-headed hard carry) and Korok (the usual aggressive semi carry / mid) having changed roles which happened already before bootcamp? Was that just experimentation? It seemed to last for a long time just for that (maybe it still does?).

Also, you say it's important to hide your new strategies and stuff right before TI3. How does that affect your performance in online tournaments such as The Defense (go win it!

) that you're currently still playing in?

Anyways, good luck to you guys! Make the bootcamp count and then go conquer The International! Remember that there will not be another one until next year.

GL HF

bailando

Germany332 Posts

July 23 2013 17:51 GMT

#47

Who is that Mig guy? I just love this house.

What profession do i need to have for this lovely home.

sluggaslamoo

Australia4494 Posts

July 24 2013 05:15 GMT

#48

Hey Fluff I've been following your blogs and this is what I think.

I believe you have a really creative mind which revels in very deep thought processes, this is something I believe is really suited for strategic (outside of the game) planning rather than tactical planning (on the go). It is also the type of mind that is very subject to tilt, and needs a lot of discipline to carry out its maximum potential. When you are thinking outside of the game, you aren't subject to tilt, and you can get in the zone quite easily.

There is no reason however, that you can't bring this potential in game as well, it just requires a ton of discipline. I would recommend having a look at something like poker and getting used to playing with higher level thinking.

If you play loose, your tight play becomes more powerful, and if you play tight, your loose play becomes more powerful. If you bluff a lot, then you can extract a lot of value when you hit a real hand, however if you aren't thinking at the right level, you just end up losing a lot of money, that doesn't mean bluffing a lot is bad. Alliance is an example of a tight team, that times their loose play for maximum effect. For a while that was also the best way to play poker, but the very best poker players now are all loose players! I feel that there is no reason you can play loose every game and time your tight plays for maximum effect, it seems much more suited to your team.

"Loose drafting" might be a losing strategy at first, but when you do your due diligence and work out the expected outcomes, it should be really powerful. Being able play loose and throw 'curveballs' nonstop thought requires much higher level thinking, and I think that is what is missing from the drafting process.

"Loose drafting" is the reason that TeamLiquid always has that aura that it can beat every team despite mechanical disadvantages, now that you've become more conservative, your weaknesses have become much more apparent and you've lost your mojo. Loose drafting allows you to gain the upper hand because you've been practicing a style that others have not practiced against closing the gap between decision making ability.

Don't throw away your greatest strength. Just make sure to think on a higher level, think about what they are thinking, and then base your draft on that. You've got the creativity, your strategies just need to be more refined, be prepared to show your hand early, and then counter their counter.

Think about what the opponents would have learned from previous games, and then devise a counter to their counter of your original play, and really fuck with their heads. Right now its just like, "well this is unpredictable, hopefully they haven't practiced enough to know how to counter it." Although you shouldn't let that get to your head, sometimes teams won't prepare for you, know what those teams are and don't think too high level or you end up countering yourself. Always think one level higher than your opponent, no more, no less.

You've kind of got it right with the whole Puppey style of luring a certain draft, but Puppey also thinks on a higher level than that. He's thinking many games ahead when his team plays, so that when teams prepare for Na`Vi, because of low level thinking, the opponents preparation is not only a waste of time, but it works against them.

This is just my opinion, hopefully it helped you expand your mind a little bit.