Alliance have quickly become the team to beat in 2016. After their reunion with EGM and AdmiralBulldog this year and a win at WCA, the proverbial question was raised- “Is Alliance back?” With a strong performance at Starladder 13, they have shown they certainly are.

Having only dropped 3 games in their most recent tournament, teams are undoubtedly looking for strategies to topple Alliance’s sturdy playstyle. And with very few losses to analyse, this may be prove to be a difficult task, as the team’s ability to exploit space in almost any circumstance is unparalleled this patch.

Although Alliance are tough to beat once they have sunk their hooks into a game, they have shown in their recent losses that effective early pressure can dismantle them before they can get a foothold in the game; perhaps, this is the key to diffusing Alliance as they roll towards the Shanghai major.

Gameplay

First and foremost, Alliance are not a team that like to play on a timer. Though they may supplement their drafts with heroes that allow them to be aggressive early, Alliance always draft lineups that are able to take the game late, where they can exploit the space on the map to slowly edge their opponents out.

Their prophylactic style is planned such that they always have more cores farming on the map than the other team, and they achieve this either by drafting lanes that can’t be shut out, or by applying pressure to free up space for their cores to farm. It is very common for Alliance to take their safe lane tier 1 or even tier 2 tower before the 6-10 minute mark by utilizing picks such as Juggernaut and Chen. This is just one of the many ways Alliance distract their opponents from their farming cores; similar to the way a magician uses sleight of hand to distract attention from intension.

Much of their strategy revolves around AdmiralBulldog, who is always drafted heavy farming heroes and functions as essentially a second 1 position. As such, Alliance’s playstyle is heavily reliant on being either even or ahead in the early game, so that the team has the tools to survive while Bulldog farms, so he in turn can make space later until the rest of the team reaches critical mass. Alliance’s large investment in Bulldog’s farm is a strategic focal point for many teams; it’s common to see Alliance’s opponents focus all of their bans, early warding, and lane setups on making sure that Bulldog is unable to be effective.

When Alliance is ahead in the early game, they are often surprisingly capable of dispatching a team quite quickly as they smell blood in the water. By drafting heroes that are able to push effectively to supplement their late game, the team is often able to create ‘either we win or we don’t lose’ situations, where even if their aggression doesn’t close a game out, they can easily fall back on their strong late game or split pushing ability.

Players

How to Beat - Alliance

Although Alliance have very few recent losses, the games they have lost have been very telling of effective ways to topple them. As a cautious team, Alliance use map information to keep their enemy's attention away from their farming cores and ensure they always maintain initiative.

This makes early smokes very effective, as early unexpected pressure can put Alliance on the back foot, and severely reduce their ability to farm the map efficiently (which is the bread and butter of their strategies).

In tandem with this, drafts that are able to be very aggressive early, or keep track of Alliance’s early game support movements (such as pieliedie’s Bounty Hunter in their quarterfinal game at Star Ladder against Team Secret) can force Alliance to move together more as a team rather than applying pressure and farming efficiently around the map.

Alliance solidify the early game with targeted aggression; not diffusing this kind of aggression can be practically a death sentence against Alliance. Almost all of Alliance’s smokes include Akke, so being mindful of where Akke is on the map could be key to stopping Alliance getting out of control. Ultimately, an aggressive early game that takes the initiative versus Alliance may thwart them before they even have the chance to be aggressive themselves.

Finally, many a team has found themselves battle hard and even begin to pull ahead of Alliance only to find themselves overwhelmed by Alliance’s split pushing in the late game. Therefore, picking a lineup that can at least stand up to Alliance in the late game is important should victory slip away in the early stages. If that is not possible, the best strategy is to take a completely all-in stance on winning the early game to cut Alliance off at the knees and punish their greed.