Team Secret Discussion - Page 107

On October 20 2015 19:37 unkkz wrote:
Anything puppey touches just turns into freaking gold.

On October 21 2015 01:18 Piledriver wrote:


You guys talk as if Puppey is playing with a bunch of noname 5kers, but honestly, Misery, EE and arguably PLD have always been on top tier teams. EE might not have first place finishes, but he has had more success than almost every other team/player on the western scene for the past couple of years apart from EG and Secret.

On October 21 2015 02:35 trollcenter wrote:


The way I see it is these players have been trying for years to win tournaments, yet they got a title on their 2nd try under Puppey's leadership, you can't deny he's had a big impact. Same could be said about PPD too, the guy can lead you to success you wouldn't have had otherwise, provided you're at a certain skill level yourself.

The fact that Puppey won with different rosters throughout the years shows that his leadership is the biggest difference maker, especially when it comes to players who weren't considered championship winning material based on their previous teams. You give someone like Ppy or PPD some skilled players who can't win with other teams, they'll make them win.

On October 21 2015 16:51 unkkz wrote:


This.

Besides being very succesfull in Dota 1, Puppey kept Na'Vi in check and succesful with different lineups. He left Na'vi and Na'vi has been in shambles ever since. Secret was an instant success even in it's first non allstar lineup conception, it did ofcourse get even better with it's allstar lineup later on. And now, taking Misery whom tbh i have never been properly impressed by, pub star w33ha, and feeder PLD together with "cannot win lategame to save my fucking life EE" and be succesful. Sure these are no slouch players but as to on paper talent they are no old Secret and no EG.

Goo captaining, good strategy and good drafting matters an awful lot in dota, and Puppey just seems to excell at all of it.

On October 21 2015 17:11 spudde123 wrote:
There's no denying that Puppey is a great player and captain, but for this lineup I find it still pretty early to call if he indeed leads them to be an absolute top team that contends for every title. EE's&PLD's c9 was pretty firmly top5 in the world in the end of last year (also at this time the team even used to be known for their lategame, somehow people make these "EE terrible lategame" comments when it became an issue only with the new c9 lineup), the Misery version was a bit worse in comparison I suppose but even for them their 9th-12th TI placing was under expectations. So in that way imo it is pretty expected that this team would be good.

The question is more whether they can achieve close to EG status and are always around in the finals of tournaments or so , in which case I would agree that something truly changed between the old c9 lineups and this lineup, or if they will just always be around close to the top. And for that it's still pretty early imo, even in this tournament after their early loss to CDEC there were people calling them "least likely to take the title" or something, and now after 2 series wins the comments are more "Puppey god" level. Obviously winning in important games against MB and EG is a good sign for the future though.

I think Nanyang seems like a pretty good tournament to get a sense for where teams truly stand. 2 groups of 5 and in each group all teams play 2 games against each other, followed by double elim playoffs. At least compared to ESL where half the teams go there, play one series and are eliminated.

On October 21 2015 16:51 unkkz wrote:


This.

Besides being very succesfull in Dota 1, Puppey kept Na'Vi in check and succesful with different lineups. He left Na'vi and Na'vi has been in shambles ever since. Secret was an instant success even in it's first non allstar lineup conception, it did ofcourse get even better with it's allstar lineup later on. And now, taking Misery whom tbh i have never been properly impressed by, pub star w33ha, and feeder PLD together with "cannot win lategame to save my fucking life EE" and be succesful. Sure these are no slouch players but as to on paper talent they are no old Secret and no EG.

Goo captaining, good strategy and good drafting matters an awful lot in dota, and Puppey just seems to excell at all of it.

On October 21 2015 17:32 Nikto wrote:



EG status, what EG status, the same status that was also made up for old Na'Vi, gods of LB but in EG's case, suck day one, still win ?

Once people stop being afraid and don't start magically sucking or playing badly handing games over to EG that status will disappear same as Na'Vi s

We were removed from The Summit qualifiers in order to free up their schedule from being locked whilst we attend the Nanyang Championships in Singapore.
It's disappointing however I'm sure we will be back for The Summit 5.

On October 21 2015 17:16 Racket wrote:

Yea well, one thing is saying that Puppey excels at something or has an understanding that not every other player/captain has. That is a given, he is one of the best out there, but he has his ups and downs as any person out there.

The thing is Puppey's fans are so blind that when his team performs bad or sucks it is never his fault and when his team wins it is all thanks to him. Back when Secret sucked bad and s4 took care of drafting, no Puppey fan recognized he was not up to the task, and even when Secret began to rise once again thanks to s4, they kept saying it was all Puppey's doing.

Think about it this way, Dota is a religion, Puppey is the Pope, and when things go bad the believers start a witch hunt that will never point in the Pope's direction.

I just hope Secret hits no slump, otherwise the other four players will begin to suffer the insufferable and this thread will be filled with w33ha sucks, no cheats no wins!!! PLD -> DDD and fEEd-sama's curse is back!.. etc.

On October 24 2015 15:18 uishax wrote:
Lol, secret is so popular they can skip the qualifiers and go straight to the redemption.

However, I think the team is just too busy to attend TS4, they are going to pretty much every lan that's out there. And amongst those, TS4 has one of the smallest prize pools.

On October 21 2015 17:16 Racket wrote:

Yea well, one thing is saying that Puppey excels at something or has an understanding that not every other player/captain has. That is a given, he is one of the best out there, but he has his ups and downs as any person out there.

The thing is Puppey's fans are so blind that when his team performs bad or sucks it is never his fault and when his team wins it is all thanks to him. Back when Secret sucked bad and s4 took care of drafting, no Puppey fan recognized he was not up to the task, and even when Secret began to rise once again thanks to s4, they kept saying it was all Puppey's doing.

Think about it this way, Dota is a religion, Puppey is the Pope, and when things go bad the believers start a witch hunt that will never point in the Pope's direction.

I just hope Secret hits no slump, otherwise the other four players will begin to suffer the insufferable and this thread will be filled with w33ha sucks, no cheats no wins!!! PLD -> DDD and fEEd-sama's curse is back!.. etc.

On October 24 2015 17:17 trollcenter wrote:


Uhm, Puppey had his slumps that he admitted himself and flaws that he's really well known for in the community (his stubbornness with certain picks, extreme greediness at times etc). He also had periods where he wasn't adapting well to meta at all and he was heavily criticized for that. Also, back when s4 started drafting and Secret started winning as a result, people talked about that ALOT, you can easily verify that if you look at old tournament threads.

S4 really was the better choice for that group of players, Team Secret's drafts and plays became more stable with him and a big part of the community acknowledged that, I don't even know where you had to browse to see more praise for Puppey as the leader than for S4 back then. Unless you're one of those guys that's bothered whenever you see someone praising Puppey, even if it's in the minority.

Anyway, Secret was a weird team due to having many strong personalities(egos) and different opinions about the game, it was pretty much the only time when a Puppey team switched captains around (they even had zai draft). I wouldn't call it proof that Puppey wasn't able to lead them though, they got 3rd at DAC as a newly formed team under him after all. But he was more unstable than s4, he'd give away picks that he couldn't beat, he'd try stuff that wouldn't work, whereas under S4, their drafts were just solid. Not too crazy, but solid. He also had slumps in Na'Vi, I remember him picking outdated heros like DP for Dendi and don't know what for Xboct, stuff they weren't comfortable on and that wasn't strong in the meta. He got alot of blame for that as well.

Anyway, there's no point in taking things away from him because he had slumps as well (and he got criticized a lot for them, let's not act like he's been treated like a Dota god who could make no mistakes). Let's not act as if guys like EE and PLD (who hadn't won a tournament in 2 years), Misery (played since the start of Dota 2, didn't win a single LAN) and w33haa (pubstar) were likely to win a tournament like this without a captain like Puppey. It's not ALL thanks to him, these guys are skilled and earned their victory, but it's simply not realistic to act like he wasn't a big reason for their victory. He's still the most consistent player/captain in Dota in terms of results, even with his ups and downs. That's the most interesting thing to me, he always bounces back strong. The fans that praise him no matter what are in the minority, the general trend you see is based on his current form. He wins a tournament, like he recently did, he gets praised. He gets outdrafted and loses, he gets flamed. Just like with any other players.