ESWC 2010: Day 2 Summary

Friday July 2nd. ESWC 2010 Paris concluded its second day of the tournament. For Defense of the Ancients (DotA), all 2nd Phase of Group stage matches were played, along with the semi finals of the winner bracket. With 8 strong teams remained from previous day, this promised some of the best games in Group Stage 2nd Phase.

The result of Phase 2 of Group Stage:

MYM/Nirvana.int from group 1, and EHOME/DTS from group 2 advance into the playoff, which consist of Winner and Loser Bracket. The semi finals of the winner bracket has been played, and the remaining games will be continued tomorrow, supposedly the final day of the tournament. The Grand Final will be played at 6pm GMT+1.

Links:

• ESWC Official site
• ESWC Live update
• Coverage: Gosugamers
• Coverage: Playdota
• Zeyall's live update on Twitter
• stream on Waaaghtv
• livestream shoutcast by Madmordigan/Tobi
• replays on Gosugamers

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A lot of games have been played today, and I managed to catch a few games live on Waaghtv, while others via replay. I'm still disappointed that not all games were streamed on Waaaghtv, especially EHOME's two games in the Group 2 against DTS and LOST. Hopefully the replays would be released by the time I woke up next morning :) So as usual, my thoughts about day 2:

• There are a bit of tournament surprise today. AEON which has been touted as the team to win the ESWC (after EHOME), failed to win any of their group matches. Their performance never looked that convincing after losing that surprise game against Bulgaria team yesterday. It was a pretty one sided and hopeless game against EHOME. The same is true for Malaysian team Nirvana.my, which also crashed out of the tournament. But then without Mushi, I never placed that much expectation toward this team. They did beat MYM anyway.

• EHOME continued their winning streak, convincingly. The replays against LOST and DTS haven't been released, but just by watching their game against AEON and Nirvana.int in the semi final, it's no surprise that they remained as the team to beat in this tournament. They totally dominated their opponent and strikes fear into anyone who tried to beat them. Seriously, playing 3 carry strat will not work against EHOME because it's their own playstyle, they've mastered the strat for years.

• I've occasionally see some unusual build. For example, yesterday was the first time we saw a Slardar with Urn as FIRST ITEM (even before boot), and today we saw a Sven with Urn too. Thinking back, it was probably that they needed the extra 6 strength and mana regen more than the charges.
  

Some of the highlights of toda's game (those that I watched only):

1. Nirvana.int vs EHOME, playoff Winner bracket semi final
It was a bit of a boring game, but this game literally made me laugh. Why: I like how Ehome's trilane bot strike fear to Azen's Morph that he doesn't even dare to get close to the creep, basically giving free farm to Lion. Then he and Puppey's Dark Seer decided to neutral together. It was really funny if you ask me, leaving the bottom lane all unoccupied because of the fear of getting killed. Thanks to that, Lion managed to get a 10 min dagger and the rest is history. A daggered Lion, a rolling Storm Spirit, Sven's long range stun; it was basically gg for Nirvana.int after 10 minutes. Final scre 26-4, Medusa creep kill 425, outfarming the ENTIRE scourge team. Not bad, but still quite far away from ZSMJ's 720 cs and LONGDD's 1024 cs : D (ironically both came against EHOME)
Even the strongest of the Western Dota couldn't hold a candle against EHOME, I wonder what would happened if LGD participated in ESWC.


2. MYM vs Nirvana.int, Group 1
Probably today's best game. To be honest I didn't expect MYM to steamroll Nirvana in this game. MYM pick and teamplay was perfect that it didn't give Nirvana.int much chance to turtle and bounced back.

3. Nirvana.int vs OK, Group 1

Watch this for some Beastmaster's tutorial. Epic beastmaster play by Demon, flawless throughout the game. 15 minutes Necrobook, ganging all over the map and killing lone heroes in the forest.

p/s: Korok vs Kuroky lol

Final thoughts on day 2: As there are lesser games being played, the day was shorter than Matchday 1 but the quality of teams and games being played improved (somehow). EHOME still proved that they means business in this ESWC. I am a bit disappointed with AEON and Nirvana.my's performance today, but their exit was kinda expected given that they barely had consistency in this tournament. Even the great iceiceice couldn't save AEON from their doom. Meanwhile, the lack of Waaaghtv stream continued to disappoint me. Zetsubou-shita щ(ﾟДﾟщ)