[Shanghai Major] Group Stage Day 2 - Page 3

On February 26 2016 10:05 stuchiu wrote:
The most important thing that told me is that Fnatic is going to do well until Mushi forces himself on the midlane again.

On February 26 2016 10:10 Azarkon wrote:
According to http://www.dota2.com/leaderboards/#china, Fnatic's middle player is 5th.

The only players you don't see on the top 10 of the list are the ones on top professional Chinese teams, lelz.

In fact, I don't think I have seen them being in the top 10 for a while.

On February 26 2016 04:50 Azarkon wrote:
Ehome looked bad, though not sure whether they looked much worse than they did at MDL, because the games then were pretty bad, too, as we all said at the time.

But the obvious change from MDL to now is the performance of other teams, such as Secret, who looks to have improved, and the Koreans, who look to have improved several times over.

Were this to hold for other Western teams, then this tournament is already decided - the Chinese are going to lose, the West is going to win, with the Koreans having a shot at taking it too but not necessarily a big one because Secret is, after all, not even one of the three best Western teams in the tournament.

We have every cause to trust that the bulk of the teams ought to be playing at a higher level than they did a month ago because of the fact that this is a larger tournament and the fact that they've had a month to prepare.

But we've seen, today, that Ehome is actually playing worse while CDEC is still as bad as they were before, so this lack of improvement on the side of the Chinese teams is specific to their region. One explanation is the time of the tournament - ie after new years for China - but another explanation is simply that this is the same old skill they've had since the middle of 2015, and thus it's just a return to normal after MDL, which Western teams didn't prepare for.

Whatever the case, I want to say the following: last year when they held a tournament at this time, the best Chinese team in the group was actually Xiao8's retired players team, while the Koreans were dead last in the tournament.

On February 26 2016 08:50 Dracolich70 wrote:
Not sure what eHome you watched at MDL, but they looked sharp, and schooled the best of Western teams.

Is this eHome won, even if they were bad, because Western teams had been on a holiday, even though it was only OG?

What indicative is there teams come in playing better, when only MVP come in and look better? The best of Western teams have had little to no action, since MDL, and very little prior to it.

Isn't this, "We didn't win, because we didn't prepare"- a bit too lazy, and in line with the excuses both of us didn't like from the Chinese fans/teams of old? I understand it fits in with your narrative that eHome stopped the bad chinese run of not winning tournaments. How about giving credit where it is due? Western teams had several teams ending at good positions, thus very little indication that they were worse in relation to competition. Needless to say, eHome were just better, therefore giving them flak for MDL seems odd.

Who are "We"?