Pro Team roster changes - Page 2

On May 02 2016 23:40 karazax wrote:
I don't know who they can roster change for this late in the season that would improve them enough to bother. Next season seems very likely though. It really isn't the same game as it was when C9 won Blizzcon due to many patch changes, and the meta shifts have not been kind to them. Some of their players seem to have limited hero pools and that really restricts their draft options.

On May 02 2016 23:49 SC2John wrote:


I'm not sure it's a problem with draft only. Even their mechanics are looking questionable lately, and I think that's a factor of team tensions and miscommunication. Arthelon and DunkTrain in particular are struggling the most.

Saw a few threads here and on reddit; also some discussions in-game general chat about the C9 games in HGC. Lot of misconceptions about why they lost, their drafting, the relative strength of their team vs asian teams.

So here are a few of my thoughts on the matter. I'll go over the games quickly then talk about C9's drafting and style of playing.

They played 3 series vs EDG (chinese), mYi (european), and eStar (chinese).

vs EDG

The first game was on EDG's map sky temple. EDG had a really solid comp for that map, while c9 played an incredibly fragile one. The reason they lost was a slight misplay by Arthelon on thrall when he didnt get the value needed at bot temple. The shift of momentum lost them the advantage that their comp needed. However overall c9 played a lot better than EDG, both mechanically and in rotations. EDG had simply too many get out of jail cards (tyrael, uther, falstad).

Game two was a decisive victory for c9 on their map temple of doom with a strat that caught EDG completely off guard (murky). Again it was a very technical comp that allowed for almost no mistakes. The fights were incredibly close in terms of outcome, although c9 played a comp that was a lot harder to execute. Just look at how low every single one of c9's members was at the end of some of the fights. Spreading the damage so cleanly among themselves when not having a healer isnt easy. Especially vs double jaina (aba).

In game three (the chen game) they got somewhat outdrafted (EDG map and 2nd pick) and had to adapt. C9's comp was very fragile and incredibly hard to play vs a stun heavy comp. They played amazingly and made some incredible chen/falstad plays. The amount of technical play needed to make chen/fal/tass work to isolate muradin really showed their skill. The chen gamble was paying off, contesting hard the thrall solo lane top. Unfortunately Chen/iDream did throw a bit at some point and EDG's comp was just solid overall to capitalize once c9's deaths became stacked.

vs mYi

They got outdrafted in game one with targeted bans to their falstad/zera, while also allowing mYi the power of thrall + greymane. To top it off they chose an incredibly technical tass+aba comp. Needless to say the artanis (power of blind + heavy melee lineup for mYi) was a gamble and didn't work out.
They spread themselves too thin in draft trying to deny tass to grey/thrall, while also securing their own aba-centric strat. However the rest of the games where they managed to secure their falstad and force their draft they won.

vs eStar

The drafting was very complex in g1 and they had to make some concessions ending up with a comp that gave room for no mistakes. By this point they were exhausted and half way into the game they started losing steam.
By the time game 2 was played c9 was too tilted.

Now let's talk about drafts.

You might ask why c9 appears to get outdrafted a lot.
It's due to their hero pool and the overlap between their players and heroes. There are two ways to deny the enemy picks either by banning or securing them yourself.

C9 generally focused on crippling their enemies' warrior lineup (ETC ban was most common) because of how hard uther + ETC is to deal with (not to mention tyrael in there). However, because their draft focuses on securing falstad + muradin, they rarely took away thrall + greymane from their opponents. This is because they are most comfortable with playing a more technical style and being patient. They like the flexibility of heroes like falstad and tassadar over "go hard comps" like thrall + tyrael or poke hard comps that center around li ming. Their style revolves around forcing positional plays with gust. When falstad is not available they still like muradin, tass, or zera as tools to create position and space for picks. Although they can hold their own in dirty fights, they don't like gambling on li ming resets as a fighting win condition. They also don't like compositions that require big setups like maw/mosh, vp/mosh, sundering/mosh.

By the time they adapted in g1 vs estar and chose muradin + greymane, instead of muradin + falstad in first pick round, they were too tired to play outside of their comfort zone. You can see vs estar that by only having greymane and falstad as playmakers, they weren't able to secure those needed li ming kills in g1 - although some were incredibly close. g1 is a good example of how when the enemy has a more flexible comp in terms of win condition (they can win fights OR push with sylv and force c9 out of the temples) then c9 can't capitalize on their rotational plays. Compare g1 vs estar on sky temple to g1 vs EDG on sky temple, where zera pushing top pulled falstad back home, allowing c9 for a 5v4 engage shortly after.

Focusing on securing muradin over the midliners early in a draft creates a lot of restrictions on the possible permutations for your comp overall.

The big problem that c9 has right now is in hero/role allocation.

k1 is arguably the best ranged assassin in NA, but his hero pool is very limited at the moment. He primarily only plays falstad with valla as a backup. Although he dislikes li ming, it's a hero that he should add to his pool, freeing arth to play a midliner rather than have li ming + valla/falstad whenever c9 does grab li ming. Lunara has been shown a lot in the NA scene but in globals the damage is just not burst enough to make th cut. I'd like to see k1 (and maybe arth) also pick up zagara more.

The next issue is support. Dunk plays an incredible support when he's in a passive/defensive role. He's solid at staying alive and healthy in the backline, but other styles of support are just not his forte. Whenever he plays tyrande, it's a very safe backline style, and not aggressive enough to secure picks or to pressure (think of Bakery's tyrande). k1 has shown at blizzcon that he can play a stellar tyrande, but that would leave dunk on something like tass and the permutations of tyrande + 2nd support are limited and rarely fit the draft - even more so because you'd need a ranged assassin either way, so in those cases they place arth on tyrande. Kharazim is out of the question for dunk vs the asian teams in terms of mechanics.

Speaking of Arth on second support: I was very disappointed in his performance on tyrande and tassadar throughout the tournament. I think arth needs to step up his game. His style of tass is still backdated to before the scaling patch when tass could midline at all stages of the game. As it is right now tass players have to stay healthy pre 13/16 and then be very aggressive in the later stages of the game. It was a big misplay for him to die on sky temple vs eStar g1 in the early game, and then not frontline enough (to save falstad in one instance) in the late game.

Warrior picks are also fairly problematic - c9 has too strong of a bias for Muradin with weak backup plans. In the NA scene enemy teams fear Caff's muradin so much that they target ban that hero often, opening up a lot more options for falstad + zera with stitches/johanna/leo to simply body the enemies in lane early game. In the global scene we see the asian teams placing a lot more emphasis on securing solid midliners and letting the warrior picks sort themselves out. Korea has shown they are comfortable in throwing a lot of warriors into the frey - including leap sonya.

I think Arth showed very questionable plays in most games. His ranged assassins (valla, li ming) were often at risk, while his support plays (tass, tyrande) made his team struggle - not to mention force barrier on tass? It's clear to me that c9 is still unsure on how to utilize arth consistently and it's preventing them from running double midliner (2 of either sonya, thrall, and greymane) because of the lack of synergy between him and dream in a lot of fights.

While most deaths by the other members can be scratched off to cc lockdown (e.g most of caff's deaths on xul) or rotational plays by the enemy, arth's death were primarily avoidable with better positioning or use of skills. Compare k1's valla to arth's or compare dunk's tass to arth's.
Imagine if Arth had played better in g1 vs EDG, avoiding the set vs mYi and keeping c9 fresh for the winner's match-up, maybe things would have been a lot more different.

(TL;DR)
To sum it up C9 needs to diversify their hero pool better and find the correct overlap for their players. Caff and k1 should explore other heroes for their roles, while iDream and Arth should practice more midliner synergies. Dunk needs to master solo tyrande play. All of this will lead to more options for draft which will strengthen their choices considerably.

MVP Black has shown that when you diversify the hero pool of each player enough it doesn't matter if the enemy cripples your warrior, midline or support choices: there are still plenty of ways out in the draft. As it stands C9's draft pivots around too few key heroes (Falstad, Muradin, Zeratul).