Starladder season 4 has ended. Four teams qualified for the finals and brought us the best that CIS dota has to offer. While full results can be found here, read on for a rundown of each LAN series.

Na'vi vs Fnatic

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Na'vi hasn't been doing well… at least in terms of what we expect from them. They lost at Dreamhack and at the ASUS open shortly before the SL S4 LAN Finals. And yet, Starladder has always been Na'vi's ground. This is their kingdom, their castle, and as they would once again confirm… their throne. In fact, in many ways, Fnatic were just a stepping stone on their journey to wards it.

Game One

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Na'vi struck first, and fast at that, taking down Batrider often and denying him his Blink Dagger. Dendi dominated middle while XBOCT farmed like crazy on his Naix. Dendi operated as a second right-click dps on his QoP, and Na'vi took down towers quickly. In the end, Fnatic had no chance with only Tiny being able to farm. Needless to say, they lost the first game.

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Game Two

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Fnatic attempted an offensive trilane but was unable to shutdown Naix's farm. Their draft made it so that their AM was their only real source of damage. Puppey's enchantress together with Dendi's Pandaren Split made it possible for Na'vi to make easy work of all the towers on the field early on and thereby choke Anti-Mage's farm. With no items on the Anti-Mage and an overall defecit in XP and gold, Fnatic had to tab out.

Empire vs VirtusPro

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Game One

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The story of this game was the early Mekanism and Funn1k on his Dark Seer. Funn1k soloed Lina and Eearthshaker in the enemy jungle as Outworld Destroyer was farming, and off the back of a strong teamfight in the early game, he was able to secure a fast Mekanism while Scandal was able to get a quick Blink Dagger. These items meant that while VirtusPro had Magnus, they did not have the stronger teamfight. Pickoffs with Batrider's Blink Dagger allowed Empire to swiftly take towers and choke Outworld Destroyer. Obviously, OD has a very hard time farming from behind and in the end Virtus.Pro fell to the farmed Luna of Blowyourbrain.


Game Two
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In this game we saw Spectre from Empire, and boy did it not work out for them. VirtusPro with their strong heavy ganking lineup was able to outmaneuver Empire. Empire in theory had the stronger teamfight but VirtusPro never engaged 5v5. VP played smart and always went for pickoffs and splitpushing. Though Spectre eventaully got her Radiance, it was too little too late, and Virtus Pro tied up the score 1-1.

Game Three
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Once again, this is a story of Funn1k on his Dark Seer. Early on, he was able to 1v2 Tiny and Wisp and get away with a double kill. Scandal was also able to kill Storm Spirit middle in the run for a rune. Thereafter, Storm Spirit was ganked relentlessly and he was never able to make an impact on the game. Though VirtusPro made a valiant effort to get back into the game and evened up the kill score, they could never quite push towers against the Keeper of the Light and despite the kills being even, the gold and experience were not. During all this, Blowyourbrain went Midas and Battle Fury on his Faceless Void. With a strong Reverse Polarity and Chronosphere combmo Empire was able to take the game and knock Virtus.Prom down to the lower bracket.

Fnatic versus VirtusPro

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Game One
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Fnatic on the Radiant with Chaos Knight and Wisp is basically Fnatic in their comfort zone. With Wisp pulling the small radiant camp and Era farming away, Fnatic won middle lane. Trixi on Dark Seer was able to destroy Invoker top as Invoker was unable to stand against the Ion Shell push. Though VirtusPro fought back and devoted resources to shutting down Trixi, Fnatic, with their dualcore of Sven and Chaos Knight proved too strong in the mid to lategame. Trixi was able to surge Lifestealer's targets and as such effectivly kite Lifestealer during Rage. After rage expired the stuns from Fnatic were too strong and they easily destroyed Lifestealer. Ultimately, with no damage and no hope, VirtusPro had to concede the first game to Fnatic.

Game Two
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Witch doctor was the pick-up for VirtusPro this game and it worked out nicely for them. An early dive from Fnatic turned into disaster as VirtusPro used it to secure 2 kills of their own. With good map awareness and sensible ganks, VirtusPro was able to shutdown Luna while Weaver destroyed Syllabear. The quick Mekanism and the Witch Doctor heal allowed VirtusPro to push with impunity and at 15 minutes all the T2 towers had fallen for Fnatic. With no Radiance on Syllabear and no BKB on Luna, Fnatic was forced to tap out. Game three was now on the cards.

Game Three
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The game started strong for VirtusPro. They took an early lead and Tinker was able to get a quick Boots of Travel. With Tinker, Furion and Weaver splitpushing, the situation looks extremly grim for Fnatic. Yet the Weaver, despite having an 18 min Linken's, is picked off quite often. With good ganking and strong Echo Slams from H4nn1, Fnatic is able to turn the game around. With 42 minutes gone, Era's Chaos Knight has a BKB, Heart, Armlet and Treads. With Weaver only having a MKB and a Linken's, Era is virtually untouchable. Yet this is Fnatic and they do not like to play 4-1 very often. The other arm of Fnatic's dualcore was also farming silently. Eventually, Syllabear and Chaos Knight just overwhelm VirtusPro.

This marks VirtusPro's exit from Starladder, and while they did end up in last place, this team is certainly not to be underestimated. After all, they did make it to the Starladder LAN Finals placed second in the ASUS open, beating out Na'vi in the process. It turns out that NS is not even close to being done with Dota.

Na'vi vs Empire - Part I

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Game One
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This game gave us a classic Empire lineup - Funn1k on the safelane on Clinkz, Scandal mid and an offensive trilane with Siren, Bane and Undying. Empire traded even on the trilane and won the toplane. However, Dendi absolutely demolishes his lane and makes his presence well known. At 13 minutes in, the kill score is 5-3 in favor of Na'vi with Dendi having all of those kills to his name. Funn1k is still able to secure a fast Orchid and with the stronger teamfight heroes, Empire has the upper hand. The team however gets overconfident and overcommits on a set of Barracks. Na'vi is able to come back strong and with good pickoffs is able to secure the game.

Game Two
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Despite an epic game one, this set was somewhat anti-climatic. The story of this game is AA on his Nyx Assasin. With good roaming, AA particpates in 9 of the 11 kills that Na'vi has at only 13 minutes in. With a superior teamfight and a stronger pushing capability via double Midas, it seems like only a matter of time before Na`vi take the game. They finally catch out Empire near the T1 tower of the Radiant and demolish them 4-0. With Dendi on a godlike spree and a Radiance done on Syllabear, it is all but over, and Empire once again falls to Na'vi.

Fnatic vs Empire

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Game One

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This game gives us a rather farm heavy draft from Fnatic - a tri-core lineup with Syllabear, Chaos Knight and Lifestealer. Once again, Fnatic retire to their comfort zone - Chaos Knight Wisp middle with Wisp pulling the easy camp into the lane. All of Empire's heroes are simply too squishy and with good ganks from Fnatic, Broodmother is never able to accomplish much. With QoP dying relativly fast, Empire is unable to deal any damange, and the ball of death that is Fnatic's tri-core lineup rolls through Empire as they convincingly take game one.

Game Two
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In game two, Empire realised a weakness of Fnatic. Fnatic love their Wisp and they love their dualcore of Chaos Knight Syllabear. Not only does Fnatic love their Wisp but they also fear it. In game two Empire had first pick and as such Fnatic banned the Wisp. Empire thereafter quickly banned Chaos Knight and Syllabear. Without these two heroes, Fnatic looked a little lost. In the game they lost all three lanes and Funn1k obtained a 10 minute Blink Dagger on Batrider. Then, with a fast Mekanasm and Blink Dagger on Scandal, Empire was able to pickoff heroes and towers. With no map control, Empire took game two.


Game Three
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The draft from Fnatic was once again constricted, as Empire banned out Wisp and Syllabear. This forced Fnatic to pick heroes who were relatively weak laners. Empire dual laned the Undying and Keeper and allowed their Tidehunter to gain experience while pulling for Funn1k, instead of going for the traditional offensive trilane. This meant that Tidehunter got a relativly quick level 6 and had a fast Ravage. Though, Fnatic was off to a good start, the weaknesses of their lineup started to show. Funn1k slowly but surely grew out of control on his Clinkz. As Fnatic attempted to contest Roshan, Silent, with good positioning, Ravaged all 5 members of Fnatic, leading to a 6-1 trade in favor of Empire. From this point onward the game was in Empire's hands. Keeper on his own was able to hold all pushes that Fnatic had to offer, and the sad Crystal Maiden became food every time Empire looked at her. Eventually Fnatic was overwhelmed by a stronger teamfight, and Empire moved on to the Grand Finals.

Fnatic has done very well for themselves recently, beating nth at the Thor open and placing third in Starladder. Yet the team did show some weakness in the finals that Empire abused very well. They relied a lot on 3 heroes - the Wisp, The Chaos Knight and the Syllabear. Nevertheless Fnatic treaded on CIS ground and despite being the ''foreigners,'' a third place is nothing to scoff at considering the competition around them.

Na'vi vs Empire - Part II

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Destined to meet once again, the challengers of the CIS throne and the enthroned themselves took to the booths in this Grand Finals. Note that due to coming from the Winner's Bracket, Na'vi starts up one game against Empire in this bo5.

Game Two
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This draft was remniscent of a certain dreamhack game of Empire's. Though Empire offensively tri-laned the Tinker against Lifestealer, XBOCT is still able to farm quite decently. Soon, Empire gets ahead in kills but is still down in CS. Tinker obtains a quick pair of Boots of Travel via ancient stacking and then starts controlling the map. Na'vi find themselves unable to push and Empire has the stronger teamfight. With good maneuvering, Na'vi is still able to farm, but so is Empire. Ghost Sceptres were the item of the game as most of Na'vi's damage was physical. With Lifestealer being unable to kill anyone during Rage, Empire kills XBOCT easily. With the main carries of Na'vi being unable to do damage, Empire takes the first game in the series.

Game Three
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They say Undying is the king of trilanes. Well, Undying met Keeper of the Light and Phantom Lancer this game, and XBOCT's Phantom Lancer went on a mega kill streak only 6 minutes into the game. The tri-lane of Phantom Lancer, Keeper of the Light and Rubick vastly outperformed the Gyrocopter, Jakiro and Undying lane. 15 minutes in, XBOCT has Vlads, Diffusal and treads. Then, the extreme experience advantage that Na'vi took during the laning phase showed clearly as they destroyed Empire in the mid game. Empire fought back valiantly and was able to smoke gank Na'vi from behind, leading to a teamwipe in Empire's favor. Yet Phantom Lancer did not stand alone. LightOfHeaven on his Syllabear made for a fine dualcore, and eventually the two carries outfarmed The Gyrocopter and Templar Assasin. With no way to deal with these carries, Empire had to tap out.

Game Three
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This game was rather passive, and passive was good for Na'vi. One of the core problems of Lion is that he needs quite a few levels to be effective. However, since this was such as passive game, Puppey was able to get them without a problem. Everytime Finger of Death was off cooldown Empire had to play carefully as Puppey could just pick them off. While kills were being traded throughout, Empire was unable to push due to Keeper of the Light. With a tower advantage that translated into a map control advantage, Na'vi eventaully outfarms Empire. Also, with no BKB up on either Faceless Void or Queen of Pain, Empire was particularly vulnerable to Hex and Impale. In the end, Na'vi slowly but surely sieged Empire's base and took the game.

Despite having some trouble recently, Na`vi showed that Starladder was their home, their stronghold, and let's say it… their throne. Above all, they showed us all that one does not simply walk into Kiev to take that throne away from them.

Congratulations to Na'vi, The Starladder Season 4 champions!

Statistics

16 games played.
52 different heroes were picked or banned.
47 different heroes were picked.

Popular Heroes
Dark Seer 16(100%) banned or picked. Picked 10(50% winrate) banned 6.
Wisp 16(100%) banned or picked. Picked 6(80% winrate) banned 10.
Magnus 16(100%) banned or picked. Picked 11(54,5% winrate, banned 5.
Bounty Hunter 15(93,75%) banned or Picked. Picked 5(20% winrate) banned 10.
Batrider 15(93,75%) banned or picked. Picked 7(46,6% winrate) banned 8.
Lifestealer 15(93,75%) banned or picked. Picked 8(62,5% winrate, 4 of the 5 wins are from Na'vi.) banned 7.
Undying 15(93,75%) banned or picked. Picked 7(57% winrate) banned 8.

Remarkable Stats
Weaver 10(62,5%) banned or picked. Picked 4(75% winrate) banned 6. Popular with Virtus pro, they played it 3 times and banned it none of the times.
Sven 10(62,5%) banned or picked. Picked 5 banned 5. His great cleaver seems to not be as popular or as troublesome as one might have thought.
Templar assassin 8(50%)banned or picked. Picked 3 banned 5. What happened to our sweet Templar Assassin this tournament?
Funn1k's Clinkz. Na'vi and VirtusPro banned it 3 times each against Empire. Showcasing great respect for our favorite Clinkz player.

Team Liquid caught up with Na`vi mid player Danil "Dendi" Ishutin to see what he had to say about his team's performance at the Starladder LAN Finals.

How do you feel about Na'Vi's performance in the weeks leading up to the Starladder S4 LAN Finals?

Our performance was mediocore... we are doing pretty bad.


Does your performance at the Starladder Finals satisfy you? Or do you still think the team is doing bad?

Our team looked sharp at ASUS. But at SL it was getting even better because we played a few practice games between ASUS and SL. I dislike our performance at SL but I think it was decent because we won!


What would you change about Na'Vi's performance at Starladder?

I didn't like all this entire support/carry thingy. :D . I'll give you an example about XBOCT btw - he never blames anyone for stealing his kills/farm. The logic behind being that if anyone takes his kills/creeps, he will find another place to farm. And if someone does take it - it means they realise they are slowing down XBOCT's farm for their own good. This means we realise that at some point we are supposed to carry the game after that. So, I would say we have 5 carry heroes because everyone in Na`vi farms! I'm not saying it's good or bad ... in some situations it can be good, and in some situations it can be bad. Why do I dislike Na`Vi's performance at SL? Because we could have done much better.


Do you think people put too much emphasis on these estabilished ideas and forget to be spontaneous in Dota? What's good and bad about about this "everyone is a carry" system? Can you give us some examples?

I have no idea! I like that we try different things all the time, and that we aren't afraid to do so! But we need to do this in China to see if it's effective or not. :D Then again, I think at some point we were doing this in TI as well? So I guess it's working to an extent.


Let me ask you about some heroes Na'Vi picked in the Starladder S4 finals. You guys really favored Lifestealer and you got to play a lot of Magnus. What do you think about the heroes that are trending right now?

Lifestealer is very strong and he doesn't need much to deal huge dmg. He has huge surviveability and can do many other tricky/sneaky things. He has a 6 second of immunity from spells, and in 4 seconds he can cast it again.

Magnus on the other hand is a freewin against teams with weaker teamplay. You just need to ulti 3 people once and you already almost won a game. Also, he can do so many things overall. Both heroes are super strong and most of the heroes that are trending can fit any lineup and also be effective against most lineups.

For example, Batrider can go mid lane, can go hardlane, can go jungle, can go anywhere basically. He can destroy almost any hero 1v1 on lane, can easy handle 1v2 lanes, can farm super fast in jungle, and have huge impact in teamfights overall. He can also disable heroes in BKB, and can pull them far away and win teamfights like that, and many other things, so he is often one of the first picks.


What about Nyx Assassin? I remember like 6 years ago, the first match I had the chance to watch you playing. It was Team Ukraine (Travka, Goblak, DKPhobos, you and... I'm sorry, I can't remember the fifth) against team Sweden (with people like Loda, Drayich). You played solo-mid Nerubian Assassin and killed everyone on the map with Dagon 5. Anub'arak is no longer around, but Nyx Assassin is, and he feels stronger than his ancestor.

He got a buff on carapace, and that was crucial. Before the buff he could reflect dmg from 1 guy and the spell would go off. Now he can have the spell on for 3 seconds and it can stun 5 enemy heroes at once, so it's SUPER huge for a support hero. He also can fit in almost any lineup. Without any items at level 7, he can kill any int suppport that is also level 7, and he scales well into the lategame because his manaburn has x5 int with only 4 seconds of cooldown, which is imba. D He has a great AOE stun and a great ulti for mobility and sneaky tactics. We see LGD.int picking it solo mid, we see it support and we see it jungle/roam, so he is a "strong" hero like batrider, thought he can't disable heroes in bkb. :D


Do you miss playing Invoker? Since he got beaten to the ground by the nerfstick, only rarely he's used.

He got a small nerf - 4 dmg early on, so I dont think he become unplayable! :D Yeah, I miss him, but I think Puppey will pick him for me if I ask him enough. Yesterday we played ROOT and XBOCT just gave me a new item for Pudge so I said to Puppey - "Hey, I can make some pancakes with meat now." He picked me Pudge! :D But I was sad! The match was played on US East, and the ping is unplayable for pudge. There was a moment when Bounty ran and I saw him via a sentry ward. I knew I could hook him. I cast it and if it was EU it was a 100% hit. But I missed! :D I was so pissed about that. There were many moments like that, but I rememberd that one.


How often does Puppey get you the heroes you want to play? Is he more like a tyrant, or a prime-minister that listens to a house of representatives?

He rarely listens, but in most important matches he does take our input on picks. I guess people are afraid to take the "game" on their shoulders by asking something, so Puppey does it himself. If not, if something goes wrong with the game it can end up being your fault!


Have any teams in G-League impressed you so far If you had a chance to play one of them, which team would you like to play against, and why?

All teams are strong. I would like to play any team.


Have any players in particular impressed you? G has been playing very well lately, in my opinion. In the beginning he would switch roles with Brax a lot, but now he seems to have estabilished himself as the guy who plays mid.

G was always impressive. I enjoyed watching Misery playing Chen and Ench as well.


Dendi, thank you for the interview, I wish you and your team success and a happy new year. Do you have any shoutouts?

Happy New Year! A shout out to everybody who is cheering for us. Also, a big shoutout to Frogs, because they are very green!

Lifestealer was picked or banned 15 out of 16 times in the Starladder S4 LAN Finals. Why do you think he is suddenly such a popular pick?

Aside from the rage duration buff (which lasts way too long!), Lifestealer is a strong laner with a good late game presence. His skillset gives him a very strong presence in the laning phase because he can initiate fights with Open Wounds, and Rage allows for him to never be initiated on which allows him to farm relatively safely.

He has a lot of flexibility in his laning choices, as he can defensively trilane short lane to shut down any aggression from the enemy, aggressively trilane quite effectively to punish any greediness with Rage and Open Wounds and also solo the safe lane against heroes such as Furion, Dark Seer or Windrunner and receive secure farm. He can also mid against some heroes such as Night Stalker, Nyx Assassin or Brewmaster or even start in the jungle, though this is less common. Rage allows him to safely farm what is normally considered very dangerous positions due to the ability it gives him to simply TP out whenever necessary.

Finally, the duration buff coupled with items such as Phase and Drums of Endurance or Basher to prohibit kiting makes him very powerful in team fights and he is thus relevant throughout the late game.