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SPOILER ALERT Do you really need that?
I can’t control my need to write some thoughts about this Frankfurt Major Final.
This can look like a rant, but I’m more than anything disappointed because I was expecting an exciting final and in the end OG just stomped Secret. It’s like that suck-ass final boss in a great game – and I hate bad final bosses. Secret did great, and getting a second place is not bad. But come on, where are my epic matches?
Congrats to OG for beating – Secret it was?
We all like our favourite flower finally got to blossom and grabbed a big tournament win, but we can’t ignore the fact that Secret played their worst Dota since TI5. Funny thing the team is not close to be the same but the choke feels very familiar. It’s an unpopular opinion, but if I have to put the responsibility in someone’s opinion, it would be Puppey, my favorite player. As a captain, I think he made a lot of mistakes (le 9k mmr 10 years of pro experience user comment)
Game one was a disaster left and right for them, they tilted so hard that they discussed in game what happened in that match (oh and Envy got like 4 midas). Not too much to say here, I don’ blame Puppey for trying to ‘cheese’ OG with that Tiny strat in the first match. BUT during the game they got trashed extremely hard, time and time again. In a game situation in which you have a good fighting chance in the late game, I don’t think is the right call to throw bodies and feed your enemy. You just settle, try to get some farm, try to transition that Tiny into a core and you avoid the enemy as much as you can. Granted they got better late too, but it was a way better shot that trying to create space by killing yourself time and time again. In the end, you got a Shaman that the most impact it had was damaging a T1 tower and a Tiny that had boots. It’s my humble opinion.
Game two was way better, but again they just tried to put themselves in the back foot.
In the draft, as soon as the AA ban came out from OG the Alchemist pick or ban have to happen, or at least, some kind of counter. I mean OG has a 90% win rate on Alchemist and Secret holds a 33%, something had to be done. Another thing that calls my attention is how vs EG Secret first picked the Ember Spirit in two matches (and they let it go in one), compared to the first pick Slardar for team OG. So I did some quick research and OG has a frightening win rate of 82.6% with Slardar whereas Secret has a very good 68.8%, so this tells me that Secret decided to first pick the Slardar in order to deny it to OG. Another comment on the draft is that aside of a Shallow Grave / Winter’s Curse steal, Rubick had no game-changing abilities to steal. And you don’t want to put a Rubick in a position in which he has to steal a spell to win you the match.
In the end of the day, Secret faced this match 50% better than the previous one, but a classic Jacky took away the few chances they had.
In the third game Secret managed to actually put a great draft, and more importantly, their understanting of the game was like completely opposed to the previous matches. The WK pick was on point, good matchup vs a Shadow Fiend in mid, giving space to the AA to get some farm and levels. Weird that Miracle went for a Mek in SF with an AA in place. Secret learnt something in this game: he has to take out the WW + Dazzle combo from OG.
In the final game, understanding OG wants Dazzle + WW, Secret decides to take that combo away from them with the opening bans and picks, but keeping their ban on Io. Since OG has double pick, not banning Io can result on an Io + Doom pick. You can minimize the damage of this if you ban the Doom + WW and then pick Dazzle. Then you will face an Io + anything combo. Is a hard call to make, so letting the Doom go is an option. The Alchemist last pick seemed ok, but a solo kill on him and dying again puts him behind – Alchemist doesn’t play from behind. The Juggernaut picks was kind of odd, Jugg doesn’t like be doomed, goes OK vs a SF since he can dodge requiem but it depends if the SF goes Euls and dodges the Omni or he becomes too tanky for worrying. This game developed in an expected way but Secret failed to keep a minimum of map control to allow Alchemist to do the split pushing, in the end, Envy did more split pushing than a Manta-Radiance Alchemist and again, I feel Misery had no impact in Slardar.
China Dota is ded
People talk about how Dota is losing populairy in China. There are lots of comments about it: some say they are whiny little girls that are only interested if they win (which seems correct), other talks about a lack of new blood – which is an old topic, and other ones seems to don’t care.
I’m just giving my business perspective here (have a degree): it’s impossible to Valve to make Dota2 more popular in any region in which LoL exists. It can happen, but is not because Valve can push it. If there is a region in which it is, is more because it naturally happened.
If I were in Valve’s marketing team, I would worry to lose popularity in China. Granted League is bigger, but losing market share in a region in which the numbers can skyrocket very quickly is not good for a game that must compete with league. I’m not saying Valve has to go to Pepsi and put some heroes in Pepsi cans, but they have to try to defend their market share.
I’m not saying Valve has to help the Chinese competitive scene, but at least they have to put an eye and ask themselves what they can do. Is not like Dota will die with no Chinese teams, but if we reach the point in which we only have EU teams + EG fighting for championships, the lack of diversity can harm Valve’s numbers.
My opinion is that for the next major we should see an stronger Chinese scene, this is because I believe after this depression passes, China will put some good teams together again. This is because I expect the next prize pool to be bigger or to grow with players contribution, since Valve probably learnt that this compendium was very bad and a lot of people would buy it just to get the combo of items + prize pool contribution. After all, even with the market restrictions, last TI prize pool contribution was insane.
Last comments:
- The reshuffle after TI5 brought a healthy balance to the EU scene.
- Secret lost DAC, TI5 and Frankfurt major. But this time at least they made it to the final.
- I like Crit so much; he looks like a chill, humble dude.
- I think it’s time to kill Tusk, QoP and Shadow Fiend – Tinker level of nerf I mean.
Hugs!
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Chinese dota will be back, reshuffle and adjustment time should fix that.
That happened at TI5 when they sucked all year so i don't see it not happening again.
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In the 60 minute game against winter wyvern (who had refresher!) no one on secret had a lotus orb. Major mistake imo. Infinitely stronger than linken's in that situation, and cheaper as well.
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On November 22 2015 09:11 goody153 wrote:
Chinese dota will be back, reshuffle and adjustment time should fix that.
That happened at TI5 when they sucked all year so i don't see it not happening again.
Unlikely. China dota wont be back until those @#%@$#^% billionaire owners and streaming platform stop giving players such ridiculous payout for just streaming and dicking around. Or they start promoting all the new blood on the chinese scene for the tournaments. Make the new chinese teams bootcamp against the korean or SEA regions. AT least they will get a taste of "professionalism"
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Just a minor notice regarding market share. Valve doesn't have a marketing team for Dota. I read an interview a year ago where they shared the commercial cost for the game to date. $0.
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Just having watched game 2 of the finals, I agree with your mentioning envy being his classic self instead of hating on misery. While I think EE and Secret made some plays at the last rax defense, him missing many pounces on slark and seemingly overestimating what he can do with the hero is very unlike his performances in all other games I've watched.
As I've not seen any other final game cause just g2 was recommended, I cannot comment much more on individual performances, but envy seemed kinda off.
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I think it mainly boils down to Amer al-Barqawi being god-tier and w33ha not being as good as his hype. Miracle- has "it".
Also, remember that EE playing perfectly and carrying the game is not the normal state. I think all in all he actually has been playing better than before. PLD too.
You can talk about draft and captaining and etc. but mostly I think the top 3 placed in order of their "it"-ness.
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Games 1 and 4 there was nothing EE could have done to salvage the games.
Game 2 he played a bunch of fights very well and farmed very well but had he avoided a few errors he probably could have won the game for his team. Though the same could be said about Secret just taking one fight differently, not getting caught out or whatever happened when they first started losing ground in that game. Imo it wasn't a game where EE was a poor performer while his teammates did their job brilliantly, but it also was close enough that EE probably could have won the game towards the end had he played perfectly.
About your comments in g1 "transitioning" Tiny to a core is just wishful thinking. If anyone is going to farm while OG pressures Secret everywhere it is the AM and QoP. Ideally the Tiny manages to find his way to a blink and then they have a good lineup to setup kills with. But yea they definitely did force fights that ended terribly for them.
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On November 23 2015 04:12 spudde123 wrote:
About your comments in g1 "transitioning" Tiny to a core is just wishful thinking. If anyone is going to farm while OG pressures Secret everywhere it is the AM and QoP. Ideally the Tiny manages to find his way to a blink and then they have a good lineup to setup kills with. But yea they definitely did force fights that ended terribly for them.
Agree on that, but what I wanted to say is that at that point every little gold was better invested in Tiny than Slardar.
EDIT: Still, very few possibilities for that to happen
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I agree that the finale was somewhat of a letdown. After EG and Secret played amazing matches against each others, both seemed to underperform heavily against OG, who in turn got better and better. That EG and Secret looked so bad might be due to the fact that OG was very dominant however.
I don't think that China is in major trouble. They won ti 2014 and 4 of top 6 in ti 2015 were Chinese teams, including CDEC and LGD on very deserved 2nd and third places. Yes they are struggling 6.85 so far, but 6.86 is supposed to hit this or the next month anyways. Also in Frankfurt EHOME had a good showing and eliminated VEGA, who beat OG before.
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G1 was a complete outdraft. Puppey wanted to run the 4pos Tiny and OG knew exactly how to shut it down, they ganked him at minute 1 and then their supports were playing from behind. Also Envy in the midlane as AM was just a horrible decision, I think he gave up a solo kill a one point. Miracle's Invoker just took the game over.
G2 was up in the air, but as you said I think Rubick wasn't too impactful and Envy made some questionable plays. Overall I think Slark wasn't the greatest choice, sure it won some fights here and there but you're never able to farm as efficiently as Alche and Gyro.
G3 was yeah, a pretty even game and finally a good all around draft from Secret.
G4 I think you've got it, they didn't know the best way to play around the Doom, they needed some linkens heroes here.
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it is nowhere near impossible to make dota2 popular in a lol infested region.
the only reason it hasnt happened is because valves has done literally nothing to make it happen.
they get distributors (perfect world and nexon) to do their job for them, but really they should have marketed the damn game for themselves.
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On November 24 2015 06:37 schmitty9800 wrote:
G1 was a complete outdraft. Puppey wanted to run the 4pos Tiny and OG knew exactly how to shut it down, they ganked him at minute 1 and then their supports were playing from behind. Also Envy in the midlane as AM was just a horrible decision, I think he gave up a solo kill a one point. Miracle's Invoker just took the game over.
I don't see why there was anything bad about putting AM mid. Their original idea with it of course is that because Tiny is pulling mid, AM can get good farm under his tower and QoP is better used to do well in a contested bottom lane. But even with the Tiny pulls somewhat failing, the AM was alright originally, he did not give up any sort of solo kills as opposed to what you said, and also the QoP made Secret's safelane stronger. After 6-7 minutes or so Secret switched the AM away once Invoker had more levels up and it became more dangerous. Where Secret really fell behind was after the laning phase broke down, and a lot of the moves Secret tried were countered by OG. w33 and Misery both had pretty good starts for the game but ended up below pretty much everyone on OG in net worth by the 20 minute mark.
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On November 22 2015 17:36 Yurie wrote:
Just a minor notice regarding market share. Valve doesn't have a marketing team for Dota. I read an interview a year ago where they shared the commercial cost for the game to date. $0.
www.ubergizmo.com
Whut - can you find the article? I couldn't - but that is crazy, to have $0 spent on adverts and $18M/month revenue.
Dem hats.
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On November 28 2015 12:13 Detri wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2015 17:36 Yurie wrote:
Just a minor notice regarding market share. Valve doesn't have a marketing team for Dota. I read an interview a year ago where they shared the commercial cost for the game to date. $0. www.ubergizmo.comWhut - can you find the article? I couldn't - but that is crazy, to have $0 spent on adverts and $18M/month revenue. Dem hats.
Honestly there's no surprise in that Valve does not have a Dota-Only Marketing Team. It's pretty clear since all of 'online games' such as CS, TF2 and Dota are community-managed and advertised in a very similar way - which is none. Never seen advertising of any of those games. It's not bad at all, they don't need a Dota specific team to do their Business intelligence, a small bunch of people can do it for CSGO, TF2 and Dota.
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On November 24 2015 18:24 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2015 06:37 schmitty9800 wrote:
G1 was a complete outdraft. Puppey wanted to run the 4pos Tiny and OG knew exactly how to shut it down, they ganked him at minute 1 and then their supports were playing from behind. Also Envy in the midlane as AM was just a horrible decision, I think he gave up a solo kill a one point. Miracle's Invoker just took the game over.
I don't see why there was anything bad about putting AM mid. Their original idea with it of course is that because Tiny is pulling mid, AM can get good farm under his tower and QoP is better used to do well in a contested bottom lane. But even with the Tiny pulls somewhat failing, the AM was alright originally, he did not give up any sort of solo kills as opposed to what you said, and also the QoP made Secret's safelane stronger. After 6-7 minutes or so Secret switched the AM away once Invoker had more levels up and it became more dangerous. Where Secret really fell behind was after the laning phase broke down, and a lot of the moves Secret tried were countered by OG. w33 and Misery both had pretty good starts for the game but ended up below pretty much everyone on OG in net worth by the 20 minute mark.
You're right about the solo kill, but they had a skirmish mid that they lost badly (because they were diving to shut the Tiny pulls down) and I'm pretty sure he had to go back to base to heal.
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EPT
