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On January 17 2016 02:31 Lachrymose wrote:
So let's talk about Alliance being a patch team. Again.
The patch partially undid a few things that were specifically targeted at stopping Alliance in 2013. Largely this was not because they were unfair or overpowered or cheesy. They were just solid.
And so they remain. There's nothing really cheesy about what has changed for Alliance. You look at Liquid with DP, ES, Oracle and you consider that more indicative of real Dota than Alliance because LD got pulled out of the bin, safe lane creep equilibrium was moved back a little and Batrider exists?
Yeah, maybe Savage Roar is something, or maybe there's another example, but it's really not to the extent of what other heroes have right now or other things that have existed in recent patches. If you look at the Dota Alliance is playing on this patch I feel like it's really hard to consider it specifically less-Dota-y than other recent metas.
I don't think any changes have scratched the surface of the nerfs that killed alliance. 2013 was a drastically different game. Offlane was massively different, supports were poorer, smoke was visible to wards, sentry wards had their own vision, a larger amount of obs wards, buyback was less punishing, blink dagger still had a manacost etc.
The vision changes had the most impact. Icefrog's main reason was probably because he saw the game becoming massively boring as teams would inevitably copy and catch up to what Alliance was doing, so he made it far less safe. Akke gave an interview about 6-7 months (I think) after 2013 when they weren't doing so well, and he said the change to smoke and wards was their main difficulty.
Their style now is not similar to their 2013 style IMO. They take way more risks when opportunities are presented. I mostly attribute this to S4's time away from Alliance getting gameplay ideas from Secret. At the same time, they favor 2013 heroes which is unique but exploitable. I don't like their constant rubick picks, and the way they structure drafts puts far too much on S4's back. I think their laning phase can get messed with a lot through clever picks/laning compared to just using meta heroes.
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Loda is the thing that balances the team out. S4 makes the space, if he has a hard time Loda will try to rotate earlier to give him time to farm his blink or whatever. And if Bulldog is on a farming hero Loda will go a figthing build on his carry but if Bulldog is less farmy loda can rice harder. I dont think hes exceptional in any way but he does exactly what the team needs at any given point and he does it well.
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worth noting about loda is that his "signature heroes" are generally just non-meta heroes that he makes work
for whatever reason, he doesn't seem to need the kind of practice on heroes that most people do in order to make them deliver, so he can just randomly pick riki one game out of a hundred and deliver a better performance than anyone ever has on the hero
they aren't his specialty so much as they're a sign of his lack of specialization in that sense
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He does his job for the team but he's definitely not exceptional on his role nor very flexible but he does his job which is what matters.
Like you know maybe and shiki difference for CDEC, maybe is definetely the better mid player but shiki does his job on CDEC.
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On January 17 2016 02:49 Lachrymose wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2016 02:35 DucK- wrote:On January 17 2016 02:31 Lachrymose wrote:
So let's talk about Alliance being a patch team. Again.
The patch partially undid a few things that were specifically targeted at stopping Alliance in 2013. Largely this was not because they were unfair or overpowered or cheesy. They were just solid.
And so they remain. There's nothing really cheesy about what has changed for Alliance. You look at Liquid with DP, ES, Oracle and you consider that more indicative of real Dota than Alliance because LD got pulled out of the bin, safe lane creep equilibrium was moved back a little and Batrider exists?
Yeah, maybe Savage Roar is something, or maybe there's another example, but it's really not to the extent of what other heroes have right now or other things that have existed in recent patches. If you look at the Dota Alliance is playing on this patch I feel like it's really hard to consider it specifically less-Dota-y than other recent metas. What this patch has done is: 1) Allow Alliance to reliably play LD/NP + 1 carry. 2) Free bulldog from playing a playmaking role 3) Allow s4 to play playmaking heroes without sacrificing a dual core strat My point is what's wrong with that? What's so unfair about these things? Why is being good at that not indicative of actually being good at something worthwhile?
Personally I dislike it because it shows that they are a team that can't adapt or evolve. Other top teams have shown that they can deal with changes, but Alliance has failed to. Which means Alliance is by the mercy of the patch.
I do credit them though for finding their 2013 formula that no one seem to be able to crack for some reason.
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On January 17 2016 02:51 lolnoty wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2016 02:31 Lachrymose wrote:
So let's talk about Alliance being a patch team. Again.
The patch partially undid a few things that were specifically targeted at stopping Alliance in 2013. Largely this was not because they were unfair or overpowered or cheesy. They were just solid.
And so they remain. There's nothing really cheesy about what has changed for Alliance. You look at Liquid with DP, ES, Oracle and you consider that more indicative of real Dota than Alliance because LD got pulled out of the bin, safe lane creep equilibrium was moved back a little and Batrider exists?
Yeah, maybe Savage Roar is something, or maybe there's another example, but it's really not to the extent of what other heroes have right now or other things that have existed in recent patches. If you look at the Dota Alliance is playing on this patch I feel like it's really hard to consider it specifically less-Dota-y than other recent metas. I don't think any changes have scratched the surface of the nerfs that killed alliance. 2013 was a drastically different game. Offlane was massively different, supports were poorer, smoke was visible to wards, sentry wards had their own vision, a larger amount of obs wards, buyback was less punishing, blink dagger still had a manacost etc. The vision changes had the most impact. Icefrog's main reason was probably because he saw the game becoming massively boring as teams would inevitably copy and catch up to what Alliance was doing, so he made it far less safe. Akke gave an interview about 6-7 months (I think) after 2013 when they weren't doing so well, and he said the change to smoke and wards was their main difficulty. Their style now is not similar to their 2013 style IMO. They take way more risks when opportunities are presented. I mostly attribute this to S4's time away from Alliance getting gameplay ideas from Secret. At the same time, they favor 2013 heroes which is unique but exploitable. I don't like their constant rubick picks, and the way they structure drafts puts far too much on S4's back. I think their laning phase can get messed with a lot through clever picks/laning compared to just using meta heroes.
worth noting is that the single best strategy for messing up alliance is to disrupt s4's game, and that it was the same way on secret
every team s4 has been on has massively relied on him to make space and take over games, and for the most part he lives up to that need with his crazy play and hugely self-sufficient laning
probably the next level for alliance is learning how to protect him properly when the other team tries to put on pressure, because s4 does have a tendency to just fold from time to time, compared to players like sumail who won't even flinch from the worst of starts
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What's happening with twitch vods ? When I look at past broadcasts, everything is there, but when I click it the 4 hour vod becomes a 5 minute video  It happened for every day of starladder TT
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While Alliance is doing far better than they have had with any of their other rosters, and are overall playing a lot better than many expected them to, I think people need to rein in some expectations here.
This [A] is nowhere near the strength of TI3 [A]-they were one game loss away from not making playoffs after losing to the bottom two teams of their group. Then they beat a Secret that hasn't done particularly well since Frankfurt and Liquid (though I missed game 1, game 2 was a pretty awful choke). This is miles better than they've managed in ages, and I would definitely invite them over Liquid if invites happened after this tournament, but it's not "OMG best team ever".
Most of the games I saw looked like they'd mastered the Alex Garfield art of psychically forcing enemies to feed which is a potent skill though.
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On January 17 2016 02:53 goody153 wrote:
He does his job for the team but he's definitely not exceptional on his role nor very flexible but he does his job which is what matters.
Like you know maybe and shiki difference for CDEC, maybe is definetely the better mid player but shiki does his job on CDEC.
i mean, and thats fine, teams should be created around each other pros and cons, alliance its that
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Vatican City State1573 Posts
consistency
that is the difference between loda and fear
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On January 17 2016 03:13 MrCon wrote:What's happening with twitch vods ? When I look at past broadcasts, everything is there, but when I click it the 4 hour vod becomes a 5 minute video It happened for every day of starladder TT
yeah same here, says 11 hours 57 mins. Then i start it and its 56 mins and every vod on youtube is 360p atm
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Man after seeing the two games, Liquid made Alliance the best team in the world. I have a feeling EG is just going to destroy them unless Alliance pick broodmother, which they probably will since it's EG's Achilles heel.
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yup, honestly both teams played not that good, mistakes here and there, lots of tilting. If EG played like yesterday they can rekt A or TL for sure
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On January 17 2016 03:41 calippo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2016 03:13 MrCon wrote:What's happening with twitch vods ? When I look at past broadcasts, everything is there, but when I click it the 4 hour vod becomes a 5 minute video It happened for every day of starladder TT yeah same here, says 11 hours 57 mins. Then i start it and its 56 mins and every vod on youtube is 360p atm
Yeah, if you reduce the quality to low you'll have one hour of vod...it started happening a few weeks ago but then I would just refresh a few times and somehow the vod was there, but it doesn't work anymore.
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About Loda, he's in dota scene for what, around 10 years now ? He's obviously a solid player, some years ago he was still a god player, now he's "just" a solid T1 team carry with some ups and downs. Still good enough to win a TI, then be on the back foot and back to relevance again, which is already more than can be said about most players.
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On January 17 2016 02:54 DucK- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2016 02:49 Lachrymose wrote:On January 17 2016 02:35 DucK- wrote:On January 17 2016 02:31 Lachrymose wrote:
So let's talk about Alliance being a patch team. Again.
The patch partially undid a few things that were specifically targeted at stopping Alliance in 2013. Largely this was not because they were unfair or overpowered or cheesy. They were just solid.
And so they remain. There's nothing really cheesy about what has changed for Alliance. You look at Liquid with DP, ES, Oracle and you consider that more indicative of real Dota than Alliance because LD got pulled out of the bin, safe lane creep equilibrium was moved back a little and Batrider exists?
Yeah, maybe Savage Roar is something, or maybe there's another example, but it's really not to the extent of what other heroes have right now or other things that have existed in recent patches. If you look at the Dota Alliance is playing on this patch I feel like it's really hard to consider it specifically less-Dota-y than other recent metas. What this patch has done is: 1) Allow Alliance to reliably play LD/NP + 1 carry. 2) Free bulldog from playing a playmaking role 3) Allow s4 to play playmaking heroes without sacrificing a dual core strat My point is what's wrong with that? What's so unfair about these things? Why is being good at that not indicative of actually being good at something worthwhile? Personally I dislike it because it shows that they are a team that can't adapt or evolve. Other top teams have shown that they can deal with changes, but Alliance has failed to. Which means Alliance is by the mercy of the patch. I do credit them though for finding their 2013 formula that no one seem to be able to crack for some reason.
Which teams showed that ? plz , tell me ? you gonna say EG right ? even though it was different players , also EG might be the ONLY team that had longer then a year on top .
Lets look at TI winners :
Navi - gone for a while.
iG - gone from the scene.
newbee - gone.
Alliance - are back.(were gone for less then 2 years mind you).
EG - still here.
So you dislike all the above teams aside from EG ? Dota is such a competitive game that an edge like being better then everyone else on certain heroes gives you a push over the rest and allows you to dominate , it happened to every top team , you can only argue that EG are still there after such a long run , you cant possibly say that EVERY TEAM is bad/ cant adapt or what not , top CIS disbanded (vp/empire several times), top CN teams disbanded , top EU teams disbanded - Secret 1.0 burnt out and crashed .
you have really unreasonable expectations from a top tier team , sorry Duck but i think you are really biased against alliance.
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On January 17 2016 03:14 TheTenthDoc wrote:
While Alliance is doing far better than they have had with any of their other rosters, and are overall playing a lot better than many expected them to, I think people need to rein in some expectations here.
This [A] is nowhere near the strength of TI3 [A]-they were one game loss away from not making playoffs after losing to the bottom two teams of their group. Then they beat a Secret that hasn't done particularly well since Frankfurt and Liquid (though I missed game 1, game 2 was a pretty awful choke). This is miles better than they've managed in ages, and I would definitely invite them over Liquid if invites happened after this tournament, but it's not "OMG best team ever".
Most of the games I saw looked like they'd mastered the Alex Garfield art of psychically forcing enemies to feed which is a potent skill though.
Current Alliance would easily win against TI3 Alliance since they are much better. Problem is that everybody else is also much better than TI3 Alliance was. (Take any team 2.5 years ago and the current one is better. Even Navi.)
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On January 17 2016 04:50 bluzi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2016 02:54 DucK- wrote:On January 17 2016 02:49 Lachrymose wrote:On January 17 2016 02:35 DucK- wrote:On January 17 2016 02:31 Lachrymose wrote:
So let's talk about Alliance being a patch team. Again.
The patch partially undid a few things that were specifically targeted at stopping Alliance in 2013. Largely this was not because they were unfair or overpowered or cheesy. They were just solid.
And so they remain. There's nothing really cheesy about what has changed for Alliance. You look at Liquid with DP, ES, Oracle and you consider that more indicative of real Dota than Alliance because LD got pulled out of the bin, safe lane creep equilibrium was moved back a little and Batrider exists?
Yeah, maybe Savage Roar is something, or maybe there's another example, but it's really not to the extent of what other heroes have right now or other things that have existed in recent patches. If you look at the Dota Alliance is playing on this patch I feel like it's really hard to consider it specifically less-Dota-y than other recent metas. What this patch has done is: 1) Allow Alliance to reliably play LD/NP + 1 carry. 2) Free bulldog from playing a playmaking role 3) Allow s4 to play playmaking heroes without sacrificing a dual core strat My point is what's wrong with that? What's so unfair about these things? Why is being good at that not indicative of actually being good at something worthwhile? Personally I dislike it because it shows that they are a team that can't adapt or evolve. Other top teams have shown that they can deal with changes, but Alliance has failed to. Which means Alliance is by the mercy of the patch. I do credit them though for finding their 2013 formula that no one seem to be able to crack for some reason. Which teams showed that ? plz , tell me ? you gonna say EG right ? even though it was different players , also EG might be the ONLY team that had longer then a year on top . Lets look at TI winners : Navi - gone for a while. iG - gone from the scene. newbee - gone. Alliance - are back.(were gone for less then 2 years mind you). EG - still here. So you dislike all the above teams aside from EG ? Dota is such a competitive game that an edge like being better then everyone else on certain heroes gives you a push over the rest and allows you to dominate , it happened to every top team , you can only argue that EG are still there after such a long run , you cant possibly say that EVERY TEAM is bad/ cant adapt or what not , top CIS disbanded (vp/empire several times), top CN teams disbanded , top EU teams disbanded - Secret 1.0 burnt out and crashed . you have really unreasonable expectations from a top tier team , sorry Duck but i think you are really biased against alliance.
Uhem, Navi remained relevant for 3+ years, more than alliance exists as a team.
And coincidentally Duck like(s/d) 'em.
So, no, he is absolutely objective on the subject, if a team can't adapt when her playstyle gets nerfed... well.
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I'm not really sure if current Alliance would win. They're insanely better than they were in their slump, but some aspects of their game sense feel like they've fallen off a little. Not just relative to everyone else, but also in general. They're just starting to come back from a long term of near-irrelevance, too, and so there are probably still some mental barriers to break through before they reach their full confidence and potential. For example, old Alliance used to have some games every so often where they would just break the other team early and run rampant over them, kind of like how EG treats teams from time to time. Alliance have started doing that in a few games, but it always peters out. It's things like that which make me think that new Alliance still hasn't regained their full power over the game.
Although the level of play in general has gone significantly up, and some aspects of Alliance's execution have as well, I don't think it was just execution that brought them to the top of the world.
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On January 17 2016 04:50 bluzi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2016 02:54 DucK- wrote:On January 17 2016 02:49 Lachrymose wrote:On January 17 2016 02:35 DucK- wrote:On January 17 2016 02:31 Lachrymose wrote:
So let's talk about Alliance being a patch team. Again.
The patch partially undid a few things that were specifically targeted at stopping Alliance in 2013. Largely this was not because they were unfair or overpowered or cheesy. They were just solid.
And so they remain. There's nothing really cheesy about what has changed for Alliance. You look at Liquid with DP, ES, Oracle and you consider that more indicative of real Dota than Alliance because LD got pulled out of the bin, safe lane creep equilibrium was moved back a little and Batrider exists?
Yeah, maybe Savage Roar is something, or maybe there's another example, but it's really not to the extent of what other heroes have right now or other things that have existed in recent patches. If you look at the Dota Alliance is playing on this patch I feel like it's really hard to consider it specifically less-Dota-y than other recent metas. What this patch has done is: 1) Allow Alliance to reliably play LD/NP + 1 carry. 2) Free bulldog from playing a playmaking role 3) Allow s4 to play playmaking heroes without sacrificing a dual core strat My point is what's wrong with that? What's so unfair about these things? Why is being good at that not indicative of actually being good at something worthwhile? Personally I dislike it because it shows that they are a team that can't adapt or evolve. Other top teams have shown that they can deal with changes, but Alliance has failed to. Which means Alliance is by the mercy of the patch. I do credit them though for finding their 2013 formula that no one seem to be able to crack for some reason. Which teams showed that ? plz , tell me ? you gonna say EG right ? even though it was different players , also EG might be the ONLY team that had longer then a year on top .
LGD.
Also, it's not necessarily about always being on top, it's about delivering consistent results and being competitive. Plenty of teams showed that, even lower tier teams like Complexity and MVP.
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EPT
