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[KaOTiK]

The first prelims matches are going on right now on TwitchTV

I'm watching on this stream right now for Navi vs Fanatic
http://www.twitch.tv/beyondthesummit

DotaTV crashed but TwitchTV is holding up well...

Last year the Grand Finals had about 600k people watching... this year the FIRST game of the prelims have 500k people watching! D::thumbsup:

Doesn't Blizz have the SC2 thing going on too? lol

 

[Destiny]

Doesn't Blizz have the SC2 thing going on too? lol

Yeah... but not sure if SC2 stuff started yet... I'm too busy trying to watch 4 games at once...D:

 

[smackababy]

HoN trash Fnatic beat Na'vi. >_> Always nice to see.

 

[Destiny]

HoN trash Fnatic beat Na'vi. >_> Always nice to see.

I lost all my Rares in my other DOTA 2 account.... :'(

I'm pretty sure every team knows that Fnatic have a 70% win rate when Era uses Life Stealer... Na'vi didn't ban him to see if they can still win against Era using LS... now everyone knows for sure to ban LS when playing against Fnatic...

Or they let Fnatic win just to pull the HoN fans...

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Quite a few good games this morning. Wasted half an hour on iG vs RS, not quite sure why. Had a bit of a better time watching Alliance vs LGD.

 

[KaOTiK]

Orange vs TL match was good. Lasted like 72 mins and was entertaining for the majority of it.

 

[Destiny]

Alliance is NUTS!! They pwned IG! D:

 

[Zeze]

Alliance is NUTS!! They pwned IG! D:

They did convincingly pwn iG in a G-League (second biggest tournament) on iG's very own soil (was it Shanghai?).

Alliance is a beast. And I'm surprised why iG has been lackluster since February. Good to see them go 6-0.

Friggin' spent all day doing wedding planning errands. Today I can finally watch the second day prelims from start to finish.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Alliance is NUTS!! They pwned IG! D:

Spoiler

I didn't really feel that either side played to their best.

iG's draft was a bit strange. Zhou Bounty Hunter? Really?
Alliance really weren't warding very well, and I felt AdmiralBulldog overstayed way too long split-pushing. After the first one he should have just stayed long enough to wait for cooldown, then left. Then at least if he was ganked, he'd waste a whole load of iG's time waiting for him to come back to that lane.

 

[Destiny]

They did convincingly pwn iG in a G-League (second biggest tournament) on iG's very own soil (was it Shanghai?).

Alliance is a beast. And I'm surprised why iG has been lackluster since February. Good to see them go 6-0.

Friggin' spent all day doing wedding planning errands. Today I can finally watch the second day prelims from start to finish.

You really didn't miss much... it was more of teams testing out their new hero rosters and seeing if they can beat other players best hero in the line up... Like they didn't ban (Alliance) Admiral Bulldog's Lone Druid, (Fnactic) Era's Lifestealer, and other team's best heroes with high win rates. Basically so they can have playing info/video that they can review for the elimination matches...

Like Dendi using Lone Druid (First time in a pro tournament)?!?! There was at least 2-3 times I see his bear chasing an almost dead hero but he didnt use entangle to stop the other hero that ended up escaping.

 

[Dijeangenie]

You really didn't miss much... it was more of teams testing out their new hero rosters and seeing if they can beat other players best hero in the line up... Like they didn't ban (Alliance) Admiral Bulldog's Lone Druid, (Fnactic) Era's Lifestealer, and other team's best heroes with high win rates. Basically so they can have playing info/video that they can review for the elimination matches...

Like Dendi using Lone Druid (First time in a pro tournament)?!?! There was at least 2-3 times I see his bear chasing an almost dead hero but he didnt use entangle to stop the other hero that ended up escaping.

Ummm you realise entangle is a passive chance right...

 

[Zeze]

 

[KaOTiK]

I swear Visage was picked more then that. Every damn game I saw yesterday he was picked and if he wasn't picked was banned lol

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

You really didn't miss much... it was more of teams testing out their new hero rosters and seeing if they can beat other players best hero in the line up... Like they didn't ban (Alliance) Admiral Bulldog's Lone Druid, (Fnactic) Era's Lifestealer, and other team's best heroes with high win rates. Basically so they can have playing info/video that they can review for the elimination matches...

For a lot of these teams you just can't ban enough heroes for everyone to not get what they want. Take Alliance as an example: say in the first round of bans you ban Lone Druid and Chen (AdmiralBulldog and Akke). They then pick up Nature's Prophet (also one of AdmiralBulldog's signature heroes) and Magnus/Puck (s4's signature heroes). Next time round who do you ban? If you ban out Enchantress, Akke is stuck with his "signature" heroes, but he's a great support player with a huge pool of supports to choose from anyway, and the consequence is that you've given either Loda or EGM their choice of whatever heroes they want. This goes with all the top teams - they're not just one-trick ponies, and they all have strategies and heroes they can play if their "favourite" heroes get banned.

Like Dendi using Lone Druid (First time in a pro tournament)?!?! There was at least 2-3 times I see his bear chasing an almost dead hero but he didnt use entangle to stop the other hero that ended up escaping.

Dendi playing Lone Druid makes sense. Syllabear is an awesome solo mid hero, and Dendi is an awesome solo mid player...

Also, Entangle is a passive ability. The stuff the casters say about AdmiralBulldog's skillshot entangles are jokes. Having said that, there are ways to sometimes increase the chance of it happening.

 

[Zeze]

Finally LOVE seeing frequent picks of Timbersaw.

He's been given a kitchen sink set of buffs. Way too overbuffed. I knew it was a matter of time before pros abuse him.

200 PURE (same as 267 magic) & AOE damage with 75 mana, LOL (before it was 125mana). Oh, 8 sec cooldown.

Now I can't wait for Spirit Breaker picks- ridiculously strong with over 5+ buffs in last 12 months.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Finally LOVE seeing frequent picks of Timbersaw.

He's been given a kitchen sink set of buffs. Way too overbuffed. I knew it was a matter of time before pros abuse him.

200 PURE (same as 267 magic) & AOE damage with 75 mana, LOL (before it was 125mana). Oh, 8 sec cooldown.

Now I can't wait for Spirit Breaker picks- ridiculously strong with over 5+ buffs in last 12 months.

I know right? Play safe and don't die until level 6, then when you get there nobody can ever lane against you because you just harass them to kingdom come.

 

[Zeze]

I mean who the hell deals 267 damage AOE with 75 mana at 900 range every 8 seconds?

Heroes are melting. LD just commented that no one should deal that much damage... with no items and at level 6.

It's refreshing.

 

[KaOTiK]

This Team Liquid vs RSnake match is sloppy as fuck lol

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I mean who the hell deals 267 damage AOE with 75 mana at *1200* range every 8 seconds?

Heroes are melting. LD just commented that no one should deal that much damage... with no items and at level 6.

It's refreshing.

FTFY :whiste:

 

[{bad}]

Alliance vs. TongFu game was great

 

[Clinkster]

Alliance vs. TongFu game was great

TongFu threw a lot the last 20 min. Alliance shows their great discipline.

 

[KaOTiK]

The second TL vs RSnake game was freaking fun. Something like 42 kills in 21 mins and Rsnake calls GG. Ursa cleaned house, team bear lol

 

[Destiny]

The Chinese teams are scared of Alliance, they are watching Alliance games whenever they can now (I see other teams login DotaTV to watch Alliance matches).

Spoiler

the first game TongFu made a mistake when Loda's weaver was down for over 80 seconds with no buyback - they sat around and did nothing instead of going for racks... it would've been 5 vs 3 because Crystal Maiden is not dangerous after 60 minute mark when most players are five to six slotted - Alliance would have lost that game. The second game they didn't ban Lone Druid and Loda's javilen arrow skill shots were just insane! Tongfu Called GG before any of the Tier 2 towers went down. TongFu was playing not to lose while Alliance is playing to win the $1.6 million.

 

[Zeze]

I wish this thread had big fun traffic like those in Teamliquid forums covering TI3.

 

[Chiropteran]

Spirit breaker actually being played as a main carry spot instead of support!

Bringing the pain for liquid vs alliance. 10-5 now, spirit breaker leading the kills with 4-1-4.

Especially impressive considering how alliance totally trashed liquid in game one. Not sure if liquid will pull out a win, alliance has been pulling some amazing wins, but it sure looks like spirit breaker is working in this match.

edit: nevermind! minutes after my post, alliance turned things around bigtime. 23-13 alliance favor now and mid rax broken. Spirit Breaker kept charging alch, the tankiest player on alliance team, and failing to kill him every time. Should have been charging and killing the softer supports first imo.