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DK: Winning Ain’t Easy

As we mentioned last week, the sixth week of WPC play would finally be DK's chance to shine. With five matches lined up they had a chance to gain ground against those on top and solidify their chance in the playoffs. It seems fate was not on their side, however, and after splitting matches against Vici Gaming , DT^Club, and TongFu.WanZhou, plus an 0-2 performance against CIS-Game they now find themselves barely above the middle of the pack.

While the situation is far from dire straights, it's possible that with one series left they may miss the post-season - a fact that seems hard to fathom for a team that was nigh unstoppable just a few weeks ago.


In a recent interview LightOfHeaven said he thinks DK have gotten complacent after their StarLadder victory, and he may be right. Their utter decimation of the LAN was truly a sight to behold, and perhaps it is only natural to become a little complacent after you manhandle the entire Western world with such ease. The Chinese forums will tell you that DK hasn't been practicing as much after StarLadder, and you could argue that they don’t have a reason to go all out just yet.

However, there’s no running from the fact that since StarLadder, DK’s performance has been mediocre, especially for a team of such caliber. They dropped their ESL One qualifier series against DT^Club, and then had a string of losses versus second tier Chinese teams in WPC this week. They seem to be struggling a little to figure out 6.81, and the nerfs to Ember and Lycan seem to be affecting them at least a little.

DK has many strengths, with top notch communication, team fight coordination, game sense, and great farm allocation to cores and supports. By far DK’s greatest strength, however, lies in their incredible individual skill. In fact, when LoH described his dream team in the same interview we cited above, all three carries he chose were from DK. The fact that a player of LoH's caliber chooses every last-hitter in DK for his personal dream team is indeed telling.

It is no secret that DK is perhaps the most individually skilled team in the world, and BurNing, Mushi, and iceiceice (with the help of their stellar supports, of course) can all be trusted to win their respective lanes. This was Mushi’s strength when he led Orange last season, and it is a trait he carried over to DK. BurNing’s farm is that of legend, and of course, and iceiceice can stay alive in the offlane against pretty much any opposition. All of this carries them through the laning stage, and thus DK usually go into the midgame with all their heroes equally farmed and ready to go.

Unfortunately, this is also one of their biggest weaknesses. Problems arise for DK when their lanes don't play out the way they want them to. Times are a-changin', and Chinese teams are quickly figuring out how to counter them. Even second tier Chinese teams like DT^Club and CIS have been discovering in the past few days that the way to defeat DK is to beat them in the laning stage. They’re slowly realizing that perhaps the best way to beat a highly skilled player during the early phases is to stack the odds of the lane against him, and that’s exactly what they did this week in WPC. Let’s look at their games vs CIS.



Apparently, the bigger they are, the harder they fall pick Sniper, and indeed, doing so in an era in which everyone and their dog gets Blink is pretty much suicide - though that’s for another time. Let's focus instead on Game 2, which is perhaps one of the most extreme examples of an opponent picking a lineup that perfectly counters Faceless Void. BurNing's Void is a Void that looks to farm safely before using Chronosphere to blow up the opposing carry. However, Wraith King cannot be killed in a single Chrono, and a Darkseer is perfect to (safely) mess with a safelane trilane. CIS were clearly focusing on making BurNing ineffective this game, and it worked to a large extent.



In this game, despite securing a 4:42 Midas (well ahead of the 7 minute average Midas timing on Void), BurNing is harassed by Darkseer and Bounty Hunter, and with some excellent Ion Shell usage, Mini is even able to wipe the lane.

Then, we have a team fight top which quickly evolves into a microcosm of the issues we have discussed.









Perhaps focusing on a momentary lapse in his usually competent decision making here is us being a little hard on BurNing, but then again, this is the kind of scrutiny that comes your way when you are called the best carry in the world.

Starting with this disastrous teamfight in which all three of DK's cores perish, the game slowly but surely unravels for DK. DK dooes manage to even the score soon, but in many ways the damage has already been done. In the end, despite BurNing's Midas, even Inflame ends up with more networth than the faceless time-bender.

Patch teething issues aside, and Sniper picks notwithstanding, DK’s focus going forward should undoubtedly be looking at how they can play top-tier Dota even when they don’t come out even or ahead in all three of their lanes. In Dota, sometimes winning a game means losing a lane or two and playing from behind, and this is what DK have to learn to do, or at least do better. While they do have time to figure out this aspect of their play, they don't have forever. TI4 is only months away, and it is with a certain sense of urgency that DK fans will watch their team at The Summit LAN finals and in the WPC Playoffs. The DK we saw at StarLadder made winning look easy, but the team we have seen since then has given us a gentle reminder that it is anything but.

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