WDC concluded - and Chinese domination continued

After 5 days running, the World Dota Cup [WDC] entered its final stage on Sunday with the 3rd/4th place decider, and the Grand Final game being played. Following the end of group stage on Thursday, the eight remaining teams battling out in best-of-three playoff format for the glory and pride of dota. After much anticipated games being played, Nirvana.cn managed to overcome all obstacle to emerge victorious in the Grand Final against the newly reformed Deity.

The final grid:



Having watched virtually most of the playoff games, my thoughts on some of the games, and the tournament as a whole:

• Thailand's Roccat.trust who managed to win all their group stage matches fell short in the quarter final against Deity. They actually played quite well in both game but eventually failed to take advantage of their momentum and lost the game 2:0. Regardless, a big applause to Roccat.trust for their participation in WDC, especially considering they're the only team that beat the champion Nirvana.cn during the group stage.

• The Malaysian Derby of Aeon.MUFC vs Nirvana.my didn't end with good note...for Nirvana.my fan like myself. Nv.my's performance in the Knockout phase was quite disappointing. The first game was pretty tight, but Yamateh's decision to go for BKB+Guinsoo+Refresher build on Shadow Fiend left many wondering about that decision, as it virtually left nv.my with no real DPS heroes while Aeon had a farmed Obsidian Destroyer to deal with. While in the 2nd game, Nv.my was totally outpicked by Aeon's clever push strategy featuring Necrolyte, Pugna and Rhasta. Apparently Nirvana.my was not fully prepared for WDC because one of the player fell sick a few days prior to the start of the tournament, that might explain why they still picks the bread n butter heroes in WDC, without any specific strategy being played.

• Nirvana.cn cruised to the final comfortably. Well, not quite. Dream put a very strong performance against them in the quarter final and almost take that game away from Nv.cn, but Zhou's amazing Morphling seal the deal for Nv.cn. In the semi-final, they met DTS, an opponent they once beat comfortably in RGC. Having beat the likes of LGD and EHOME, DTS would love to do the imposible - beating the three Chinese powerhouse in WDC by beating Nirvana.cn, but that never looked like happening. Nv.cn showed why they're the best team at the moment by beating DTS using their own strength - mass ganking/pusing- the same situation where EHOME beat DTS back then in ESWC 2010.

• The grand final game, especially game 1 truly show the real class of Nirvana.cn. It was a tense game with Deity also showed a strong resistance from Chuan's SF and Longdd's Medusa. But DGC's Enigma and Banana's Earthshaker showed their own class with gamebreaking stuns and ultimate that won them the game. Amazing teamwork, perfect positioning and execution. Knowing how deadly Enigma is at the hand of DGC, Deity replied by first picking Enigma in the second game, but Nv.cn was clever enough to outwit Deity by fast picking Silencer, a pick that totally counters Enigma and rendered his Black Hole totally useless in most teamfight throughout game 2.

• The strength of Alchemist, as a hard carry. These past few month Alchemist had been regularly picked, both as heavy carry and ganker/supporter. WDC however showed hy Alchemist SHOULD be played as heavy carry, demonstrated in LGD vs DTS and Aeon vs Deity [game2]. Goblin Greed easily made Alchemist 1000x rich faster than any other carry, and with enough farm, he is virtually unkillable. I smell nerfstick in next dota version.
  

• Cons 1: No immediate replay released. I don't mind this but many people actually rage that WDC committee decides not to release the replay from day 2 onward. I personally much enjoyed watching the Chinese stream because there's commentators involved, as well as the entertainment [albeit unrelated to dota] they put in between matches. Nevertheless, most games's VOD can be viewed here.

• Cons 2: Controversial tie-breaker rule. As I understand on Day 1, 2009 and EHOME was informed that tie-breaker games will be played if three teams were tied with the same point in the group stage. This apparently was changed on the 2nd day into a time-rating system, where teams with least amount of time taken to finish the game will advance. Due to this rule, EHOME and DK fell victim as they were eliminated from the group stage. he WDC committee definitely need to provide some explanation to clear this controversy.

• Cons 3 - lack of variation in executed strategies by all teams. Basically in this tournament there was little to no difference of picked heroes between 6.69 and 6.68. The bread n butter heroes - shadow fiend, necrolyte, VS, WD, Lion etc are still regularly picked, although there's a marked decrease of Morphling and Storm Spirit being picked. The only game were teams remotely utilize unorthodox picks was the DTS vs EHOME in groupstage game. I guess given the fact that 6.69 was just recently released, teams still haven't fully prepared to try unorthodox and risky picks.
  

Overall, I have to say that WDC organization did a great job in managing this tournament. Clear stream was provided at the cost of immediate replay, but I personally quite enjoyed the stream, even though I understand jack about what the Chinese commentators said. In between games, some entertainments were provided featuring girls dancing on stage - although I find their taste in music rather...weird. There's even showmatch of 1v1 Shadow Fiend solo mid contest featuring two of the best SF user, Yamateh and Yaphets [aka PIS]. Yaphets won the game, partly because he was on sentinel and had the right choice of item [starting with 2 slippers and some branch, while Ymt opted for more regen items and magic stick. Great showmatch though.

Again, congratulation to Nirvana.cn for winning World Dota Cup, proving themselves to be one of the best team in the world. Hopefully the upcoming SMM 2010 will provide even more entertainment to the dota communities.

Recommended games from the playoff:
-Nirvana.cn vs Deity, quarter final [game 1] - very tense games
-Nirvana.cn vs DTS, semi-final [game 1]/[game 2]- perfect execution of strategy
-Nirvana.cn vs Deity, grand final [game 1] - epic enigma and earthshaker.

The rest of the games can be viewed HERE.