EPTVery glad Alliance took home the crown. The finals were an amazing and emotional affair for both teams and all fans on both sides. I'm glad both NaVi and Alliance made it.
Seeing the same first bans in all five games by both teams was really interesting. Showed an amazing confidence that despite getting stomped (on both sides) they knew how they had to play and stuck to it. Both teams banned smart but I feel that NaVi might have had a bit more flexibility with their bans than they used, I don't find Naga to be particularly more high-impact than Io or Batrider, but I guess the idea is they guarantee themselves either Bat or Io whether or not they are first or second pick.
Not entirely sure what NaVi had in mind game 1... they picked an incredibly kill-dependent trilane / lineup and simply didn't have the movement. Seemed like they were trying to catch Alliance off guard with their normal playstyle and steamroll them early, but as soon as Alliance showed any kind of reaction (dodging the trilane) they just didn't seem to have a followup plan. They chose to push the tower instead of change lanes and ended up with quite a late tower and no kills. Also very nice play by s4 on Clock, I was impressed that he held even with a Batrider (even though it's not an absolutely awful matchup, it's not a good one) and made a big impact. From there it was a stomp as Navi just didn't use their lineup properly and made lots of mistakes imo.
Game 2... just must have been Alliance trying to put Navi on tilt and collect a quick victory in the series. Had Alliance won Game 2 with that draft I'm pretty sure the series would have just been 100% over at that point (although Navi are not ones to back down from a seemingly unbeatable opponent). Turns out that despite Alliance being an extremely good team they are not at all invincible. The Venomancer and Spectre picks showed the clear weaknesses of the heroes, and Beastmaster isn't exactly a high impact hero on his own. Navi played well and ran wild over Alliance's quite thin draft, and Alliance just couldn't regain control after the first few ganks. A signature of Alliance's play throughout the tournament was their ability to regain control and force mistakes out of any team if they fell behind early, just playing passively and baiting bad fights and taking only favorable engagements with superior coordination. It was rare to see Alliance lose a full-fledged teamfight all tournament, and even if they did, smart buybacks and big plays mitigated the damage significantly.
Game 3 was really the only genuinely good game of the first four. Bulldog's Lone Druid is nothing short of impressive - the guy just doesn't let himself get shut down and manages to find farm while participating in everything and getting picked off occasionally. The Ogre pick was interesting, Bloodlust bear is certainly strong but I'm not entirely sure it warranted an Ogre offensive tri, as that tri failing horribly was certainly a contributing cause to the struggles Alliance faced midgame. Alliance showed excellent patience keeping it together despite looking to be on the back foot, putting themselves very much in the game only to lose to Navi just taking better fights, burning buybacks, and eventually going for gold. Too bad the rapier bear didn't see much action
Game 4 the turning point for me was Loda's port into bottom tier 2 into a beautiful teamfight for Alliance. Navi just was out of position and it's one of those things you can see coming as soon as Loda TPs, looks good for Navi but I'm sure even Navi knows things can go south quickly against a team as skilled as Alliance.
Game 5, nothing much more needs to be said about game 5, but I'll say it anyway. Once again Alliance's aggressive trilane has some serious issues, dying multiple times to solo XBOCT for absolutely no reason. I felt Loda played quite poorly this game, but he did his job in teamfights and bought back and made correct decisions later on. The fabled split push rax trade by Alliance was just such calm and calculated play, I mean of course they couldn't count on S4 hitting everyone with his coil but he could at least do enough to make sure at least one side of rax would go down at worst. This game showed more than any that Dota is not a game about kills, not a game about gold, not a game about farming, not a game about love and friendship, but a game about taking the throne, and they played to that objective from start to finish. The big turning point for me was definitely Dendi's fall in the Rosh pit after the insane back and forth fight - that fight looked to be overall even at that point, except Dendi was the one getting all the kills and staying alive, leaving him as an absolute powerhouse assuming he gets the Aegis and gets out alive. Unfortunately Alliance and AdmiralBulldog have balls of steel, and his team backs him up perfectly turning things around in one of the most exciting games of anything I have ever seen.
Overall a lot of teams impressed me at TI3. Everyone said coming into it that the floor was wide open and anyone could take games off each other, and boy were they right. Fnatic impressed, Dignitas impressed (what happens if they hold that lead against LGD?!), Liquid impressed, even longtime powerhouses like iG and DK held their ground and showed great play, and tons of individual players had their huge moments. Probably the most exciting ESPORTS event I've ever experienced, and it was a pleasure to be able to watch almost all of it start to finish. Despite my disdain for fountain hooks I jumped and clapped after each successful one and smiled when Navi somehow took it home and eventually made it through to the finals. Poor kyxy. Great player and fantastic play throughout the tournament only to possibly cost his team. We had the longest game in Dota history, a courier kill pretty much deciding a game (LGD vs Fnatic group stage game 2), possibly the most dramatic ending to a tournament ever, multiple rapiers, multiple base races, and oodles of spectacular play.
Glad to see so much great Dota, sure lived up to my hopes. Hope I can make it to TI4... as a player!
Hope everyone else enjoyed.
Nick
