|
I was able to watch most of the games live and because I've also been casting recently, I naturally tend to think about the drafts a lot. Drafts obviously don't predetermine the outcome of the game but often play a large role in deciding when and how difficult the game is at various stages of the game. Execution is almost always more important than the draft but here are my not-too-in-depth thoughts on the games. Admittedly, a good portion of my opinions might be in hind-sight. I generally root for whoever's losing to see closer and more interesting games instead of rooting for one particular team so a lot of my opinions are dissecting flaws in the draft of the losing team.
Game 1
========
Liquid: Invoker, Phoenix, Void, Witch Doctor, Necrophos
Secret: Lion, OD, Tide, Enchantress, Slark
My initial impression when the draft was complete was that Liquid only have 1 point of initiation: Void. Any time there's only 1 realistic initiator, the game is restricted to a few play styles, especially if that source of initiation isn't even that good. Chrono doesn't provide any damage, is unreliable, and has one of the longest cooldowns among rival spells. I've seen single initiation drafts pulled off well before but they were usually done on the back of heroes like Batrider, Earthshaker, Slardar etc. Void just has too many flaws to be played the same way.
Compare that to what Secret's line-up has to offer: Lion, Tide and Slark. Lion and Tide are a classic duo that used to be especially popular in China because the hex initiation guarantees a commitment from the opposing team, ensures a non-Sheever Ravage and bypasses BKBs if you succeed with the element of surprise.
Liquid also have 0 natural BKB building cores which determine how impactful Tide and, to a lesser extent, OD are going to be. If you're going to be just as vulnerable to Ravage at 30 minutes as you were at 15 minutes into the game, you better have some good alternatives. With the already crazy good start Misery had (something like 12 minute arcane boots + mek), team fights were going to be almost impossible for Liquid.
The reason I emphasize the forms of initiation comes back to the fact that Liquid have Invoker and Necro as their two main cores. These heroes don't perform well when there's no control on the team, especially Necro because the hero is so fragile for a large portion of the game that he needs assurance to get in deep and be a hero instead of a gold sink.
Lastly, on top of having poor sources of initiation, Liquid also had 2 static supports and a Void. Usually you look for roamers and early/mid game play makers in the offlaner and supports. With such bad roaming potential, the lanes were bound to play out in Secret's favor because the only way Secret find themselves in a bad position would be to YOLO into paralyzing casks or play like MVP on a bad day.
Game 2
========
Liquid: Tusk, Invoker, Beast, Lycan, Oracle
Secret: Lion, Ursa, Darkseer, DP, Wyvern
The line-ups in this game were much more evenly matched than the previous game. Liquid had a more balanced draft than game 1. Secret had a pretty straightforward lineup as well. If I had to pick the line-up I like more, I would pick Secret's if not for the fact that I dislike Ursa as a hero.
Each team has two of the best aegis claiming heroes. The only difference is that I'd say Ursa 'needs' aegis while Lycan simply takes it easily and it helps in sieging scenarios. My reasoning is that Ursa farms ridiculously slow, often can't afford to go BKB because of opportunity costs which means he has to rely on a second life to go HAM.
One of the reasons I think Secret had a tough game is because of Ursa's pitiful ability to split push and clear waves. All three of Liquid's cores are great at pressuring lanes as we saw how much damage Mind_Control's Beastmaster was able to do in the top lane during the midgame. Then you combine the fact that DP and Darkseer generally aren't independent play-by-yourself kind of heroes, it created an awkward scenario where Secret had to deal with the split push with heroes that excel at full scale team fights.
Having been on a team whose signature heroes used to be Death Prophet before it became popular, I can tell you that these heroes want to fight on the other side of the river. Blowing long cooldown ultimates on your side of the map is only worth it if you can get valuable kills. Such a high percentage of the action happened on the Dire side so I felt like Liquid had so much room for error because stuff was happening far away from their base.
I also felt that Envy's Ursa quickly became irrelevant as he chose to go for Aghanim's followed by an early Boots of Travel. Two items that don't contribute much to what Ursa as a hero needs to do: kill other heroes. To expand on my earlier comment on why I dislike Ursa as a hero:
1. Doesn't contribute to objective gaming (Bad at wave clear/lane pressure, bad at high ground, bad at rat)
2. Item slot issues
3. Can't farm for shit
I'd say #2 and 3 were pretty apparent in this game. Overall though, this game could've gone either way. I would've liked to see more Ursa/Lion combos as they complement each other nicely.
Game 3
========
Liquid: Io, OD, Lion, Tide, Tiny
Secret: Furion, Invoker, Doom, Clinkz, Disruptor
I dislike Io and Lion paired together as support duos. Io is a greedy support who needs to get an acceptable level of farm. That means your other support ideally is someone that requires minimum farm and has good laning presence despite being poor. Lion provides good setup for relocates but meets neither of those conditions. One of the reasons that Secret had such a high win rate with Lion this tournament was that first and foremost PLD played excellently but also that he was given the space to grow. This might not entirely be the Io pick's fault but then again Liquid chose to go for a duo-core with the OD instead of duo-catch/space creation heroes which I much prefer when running Io/Tiny.
There were a lot of misplays on Liquid obviously but Tide having a tough lane while Io/Tiny being tied mid vs. a superior lane, Lion just being a weakass hero pre-midgame, OD needing space all added up to a miserable early game for Liquid.
By the time BKBs were available it was too late anyway but Liquid also had 0 BKB control. A potential sheepstick on OD and a farmed Lion could potentially act as pseudo BKB control but that's sort of whatever in the context of how the game unfolded. I personally like BKB control in Io/Tiny lineups because Io/Tiny games usually go at least semi-late game and it gives you so much more map control if you do have lockdown through BKB.
Ultimately Liquid's lineup had comparable growth potential to Secret's but the laning phase was too harsh and I simply don't think heroes such as OD have enough space or time to farm up in Io/Tiny lineups or at least not in THAT lineup.
Game 4
========
Liquid: Invoker, Tusk, Dazzle, Void, Drow
Secret: Lion, Doom, Beast, Windranger, Slark
I feel this has always been true with Void where picking Void means you pick damage to synergize with the Chrono and since the remake of Void, this is even more true. Invoker and Drow alone are too unreliable to deal damage on to Chrono'd targets versus competent opponents. As we all know, you can only get to the late game with a strong foundation for the early/mid game. This could have worked out completely different maybe if Tusk and Dazzle were replaced with something that synergize better with Void.
Another thing I dislike about Void + Drow is that Drow peaks post-laning phase through the mid game and Void's lack of blink dagger and levels (shorter CD) in the early half of the game mean that Chrono is unreliable and has a high cost in terms of risk and opportunity cost. Usually, with Drow lineups you want to mow down towers and one of the key ingredients to do so is the ability to control teamfights and that includes the ability to not take team fights when you don't want to, aka disengage. Chrono is a terrible spell for disengaging as it's just weird to Chrono and run away. So basically, Drow lineup = pick low cooldown heroes or heroes that are useful when ult on cooldown.
That brings me to my next point of Exort Invoker being less than optimal with Drow. It's definitely more than viable and there's probably some inexplicable bias in me that wants to see Wex Invoker when played with Drow. Almost always, the mid hero is the one that benefits the most from Drow aura. Sometimes it's the only hero that benefits from the aura at all. I personally prefer heroes that either hit heroes or towers a lot more aggressively than Exort Invoker when running Drow: Wex Invoker, Lina, Windranger etc. Also Wex Invoker conveniently has Tornado/EMP which happens to be the disengage tool that Drow lineups thrive on to obtain dominance in the game. Exort Invoker tends to farm waves but not pressure the tower and jungle too much to be worth a Drow pick for my taste.
Liquid had first pick in this game which means they last picked Drow in response to Slark which is also a question mark for me. Drow can be good vs. Slark because of the timings but Drow lineups are about everyone else, not about the Drow. Slark is eventually going to have a field day vs. a lineup that has so little damage and bad lockdown. Not to mention Drow doesn't stand a chance against Slark on an even playing field. Then again, Drow matches badly vs. most carries in a vacuum so that might not be a fair thing to say.
Interestingly enough, Secret have only played Doom vs. Liquid this tournament. Whether this is a coincidence or Secret feels that Doom support is greedy but viable vs. Liquid, I don't know. But based on previous games, when Secret first phase picked Doom + Lion, I wonder if Liquid could have altered their draft to punish such a greedy support duo to improve their game.
If I had to guess, I'd say this is the game where Liquid regrets the draft the most as it was my least favorite draft from them in this series.
I ended up not going into gameplay because I intended this piece to be a light recap from memory without having to watch the replay.
Not the closest series but GG, Congrats to Secret and good showing from Liquid this tournament. Finland and my boys getting 2nd and 4th respectively!
|
Thanks for the write-up!
I also think game 4 was mediocre draft coming from Liquid, maybe KuroKy was tilting? I saw a couple of mistakes coming from him in-game as well.
Nonetheless the series was enjoyable for me, great performance from both teams.
|
On March 06 2016 23:22 AquaHeartNJH wrote:
Thanks for the write-up!
I also think game 4 was mediocre draft coming from Liquid, maybe KuroKy was tilting? I saw a couple of mistakes coming from him in-game as well.
Nonetheless the series was enjoyable for me, great performance from both teams.
Overall in this sries, Liquid comes in with a draft disadvantage; secret had too many comfortable picks such as puppey enigma, chen, to pieliedie lion, to w33voker etc. So what ended up happening was liquid kept using picks to deny heroes. Such as the lion and invoker picks. In the end, liquid had to pick their poison.
However, particularly in game 4, liquid seemed to have got cold feet in the draft. They last picked drow when there were heroes like OD, sven etc in the pool. And also they bottlenecked themselves banning Tide, so secret saw a mile away in the void pick( in fact througout the tournament secret deferred to using tide to counter void very successfully) so secret countered accordingly. Also it seemed that liquid dropped the ball in a teamfight lineup, fearing they needed a push type hero to round their lineup else divine slark would happen again (or late game prowess from secret)
The more interesting thing about this event is puppey's evolving hero pool this event. In this tournaament meta puppey discovered jungle heroes like enigma very good. I wonder if that was the same logic with doom. It can also be said that puppey was very comfortable drafting in this tournament in general.
|
The Doom picks are certainly curious, and if I could suggest some reasoning, it might be that Liquid tend to be willing to sacrifice the laning stage in exchange for a ridiculously strong midgame and rely on that carrying them into the lategame. So, for one, the Doom has a good chance of making it through the early game unscathed, which is needed for it to function. Then, during the midgame, Liquid rely very heavily on tight teamfight organization in order to get an overwhelming lead that allows them to end things. Doom is an excellent hero at breaking that kind of style up, with his ult eliminating a single key element (basically any hero in those two games, with FATA heroes being the biggest mark based on his immense impact all tournament long). If Liquid's midgame is disrupted like that, they aren't going to get the kind of lead they need to win in the lategame, and Doom scales excellently in the meantime. Do you think it could be something like that?
|
Cool write up, thanks heen!
|
My thoughts exactly for game 1. Liquid banked on void getting good chrono, but there were 2 issues: 1) he couldn't get good chrono, 2) his team mates were not in position when he hit good chrono.
Perhaps picking void for mc was championship losing.
|
On March 06 2016 23:22 AquaHeartNJH wrote:
Thanks for the write-up!
I also think game 4 was mediocre draft coming from Liquid, maybe KuroKy was tilting? I saw a couple of mistakes coming from him in-game as well.
Nonetheless the series was enjoyable for me, great performance from both teams.
I watched your stream for the MVP games, Korean hype train 
Thanks for your dedication to somehow keep the Korean community alive.
On March 07 2016 04:02 jinfreaks wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2016 23:22 AquaHeartNJH wrote:
Thanks for the write-up!
I also think game 4 was mediocre draft coming from Liquid, maybe KuroKy was tilting? I saw a couple of mistakes coming from him in-game as well.
Nonetheless the series was enjoyable for me, great performance from both teams. Overall in this sries, Liquid comes in with a draft disadvantage; secret had too many comfortable picks such as puppey enigma, chen, to pieliedie lion, to w33voker etc. So what ended up happening was liquid kept using picks to deny heroes. Such as the lion and invoker picks. In the end, liquid had to pick their poison. However, particularly in game 4, liquid seemed to have got cold feet in the draft. They last picked drow when there were heroes like OD, sven etc in the pool. And also they bottlenecked themselves banning Tide, so secret saw a mile away in the void pick( in fact througout the tournament secret deferred to using tide to counter void very successfully) so secret countered accordingly. Also it seemed that liquid dropped the ball in a teamfight lineup, fearing they needed a push type hero to round their lineup else divine slark would happen again (or late game prowess from secret) The more interesting thing about this event is puppey's evolving hero pool this event. In this tournaament meta puppey discovered jungle heroes like enigma very good. I wonder if that was the same logic with doom. It can also be said that puppey was very comfortable drafting in this tournament in general.
In the Grand Finals, there is certainly a special meta between the two teams since the drafts are going to be very specific to which team they are playing instead of more well-rounded in the earlier stages of the tournament. I noticed that Kuroky never changed his 1st phase ban of Chen/Enigma. While I don't disagree with this, I wonder if Liquid could have changed up the bans a little bit. I'm generally not a fan of people always screaming 'why didn't X team not ban this hero against Y team?' but in a Grand Finals it can be me a surprise factor to let a hero through all of the sudden especially if they are heroes like Chen/Enigma which have a strong character in terms of play style.
But then again Secret did have an absurdly high winrate with Puppey jungling, even on an unconventional hero like Doom so it comes down to 'should've played better' + 'should've picked more appropriate heroes' than banning out stuff.
On March 07 2016 08:26 Acritter wrote:
The Doom picks are certainly curious, and if I could suggest some reasoning, it might be that Liquid tend to be willing to sacrifice the laning stage in exchange for a ridiculously strong midgame and rely on that carrying them into the lategame. So, for one, the Doom has a good chance of making it through the early game unscathed, which is needed for it to function. Then, during the midgame, Liquid rely very heavily on tight teamfight organization in order to get an overwhelming lead that allows them to end things. Doom is an excellent hero at breaking that kind of style up, with his ult eliminating a single key element (basically any hero in those two games, with FATA heroes being the biggest mark based on his immense impact all tournament long). If Liquid's midgame is disrupted like that, they aren't going to get the kind of lead they need to win in the lategame, and Doom scales excellently in the meantime. Do you think it could be something like that?
Looking back on the games, when Secret ran Doom, they did make sure to have strong laning presence everywhere else to make sure he wasn't going to be a burden.
Doom + Darkseer, Spectre, WR, Lion: Darkseer and WR
Doom + Furion, Clinkz, Invoker, Disruptor: Everyone's strong here
Doom + Beast, Slark, WR, Lion: by this time I think he just became a comfort, confidence pick
As you mentioned, the Doom pick seems to come in response to FATA's hero. Twice, the Doom was picked right after seeing FATA's Invoker picked up. And the other time when Liquid picked OD. Both heroes are very good Doom targets but the odd thing is I don't recall them being doomed up all that often.
On March 07 2016 09:05 the bear jew wrote:
Cool write up, thanks heen!
You're welcome <3
On March 07 2016 09:19 DucK- wrote:
My thoughts exactly for game 1. Liquid banked on void getting good chrono, but there were 2 issues: 1) he couldn't get good chrono, 2) his team mates were not in position when he hit good chrono.
Perhaps picking void for mc was championship losing.
The Chronos could've been better but then again how much difference would it have made. I don't think Liquid had enough mobility and burst damage to get full juice out of a Chrono anyway. Every good Chrono could have been a death trap for instance when playing against a massively farmed Tidehunter with no BKBs.
|
Great writeup; I think more people should discuss these drafts. To me, these finals were a clear indication that Liquid was inferior to Secret draft-wise, both in terms of planning/knowledge and versatility.
The last-pick carries in Game 1 and 4 were such enormous mistakes, precipitated by how obvious it was that they wanted Gyro. It really baffled me that in these team compositions so reliant on Void's initiation, Jerax and Kuro decided to trilane and double jungle to babysit their weak early/mid game carry pick, resulting in Void getting completely screwed over and also failing to deny Misery farm and experience. They lost both games before they could even start setting up teamfights around Chrono. Also 3rd pick Dazzle into 4th pick Void (???). Overall their support duos had huge issues throughout the series.
In Game 2 they showed a much better draft centered around constantly shoving in creep waves and taking control of the map, which matched up well against the high-cooldown ults of Secret. Liquid also set themselves up for two great last-pick options: Oracle, an obvious counter to Ursa and DS, and Dazzle who would have allowed Liquid to take early rax. And as a side note, I personally think DS was the most overrated hero in this tournament and lost EG so many games in their drafts.
Game 3, even though I believe Liquid's draft looks better in a vacuum, showed a lot of drafting mistakes. Taking Io OD and giving away Prophet Invoker was something for which they had no good response. I actually liked the Lion pick, especially after Secret went greedy and took both Doom and Clinkz, but then picking a utility offlaner like Tidehunter was a huge mistake. If that 4th pick had been Slark instead of the 5th pick Tiny (one of the easiest heroes in the game for Invoker to control), Liquid had a great shot at taking this game.
A lot of the teams in this tournament seemed to look a lot weaker in drafting overall. I think there may even be a general trend that teams whose drafts were more greedy than usual (Secret, MVP) had more success than teams who drafted less greedy than usual (EG). Obviously greed requires a good plan and great fortune, but I think we've all learned from this major that single-core Sven is awful. As always, great post Heen, and we all hope to see you again soon in the Korean competitive scene.
|
Thanks for the writeup! It made for an interesting and easy to understand read, even for someone like me who usually sort of snoozes through the draft phase.
|
An enlightening perspective.
|
Thanks for the writeup enjoyed the read.
What do you think about QO moving to the safe lane and MP going to mid?
QO gets heavy farm priority on MVP.P and often MP is left playing more traditional mids like Lesh and Invoker. QO's hero pool is more carry based (Slark, PL, PA) and he ends up with highest farm in the team anyways.
Who did you think made the most impact in MVP.P's recent results?
I thought that Forev's Nature's Prophet made the biggest impact. He was able to zone out 2 heroes on the off lane then was able to get picks when the opponents dedicated 3 heroes to stop his farm. QO had a strong "carry like" performance as the mid laner, but that wasn't different from how MVP functioned before. MP felt similar to kpii as a sack carry that complimented QO's impact rather than the difference maker in the fights. Dubu's early performance with Earth Spirit was almost as strong as Forev's NP, but with MVP facing stronger Earth Spirit players like Jerax Dubu had less and less impact as the tournament went along. Febby had a solid performance and made strong rotations, but had less impact than Dubu's pos 5 support.
I think QO's move to carry, MP moving back to mid, Forev getting a larger hero pool as the offlaner, and Dubu and Febby switching farm priority would make MVP's team much stronger.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
