SGNDT 2010 - Day 1 and 2 Summary

After a year, Sendi Mutiara Multimedia [SMM] Grand National Dota Tournament [SGNDT] is back with its 2010 edition, offering even much more cash prize than the previous year. As arguably one of the biggest DotA tournament in the world, along with the final big LAN event in DotA calendar, SMM become the benchmark to determine which team stands on top during that particular year. To recap, since the inclusion of international team starting from SMM 2008, EHOME won it in that year, and a year later in SMM 2009, another Chinese team For the Dream [aka the current TYJ.LGD] take the crown in what's best described as the rise of the tri-carry strat.

Coming into this year's SMM, much anticipation and expectation were held for the top teams, especially after so many things happening throughout this year. In July, EHOME march flawlessly to win ESWC 2010 Paris, effectively marked then as "the" best DotA team in the world. Just 3 weeks ago, another big DotA LAN tournament were held in Wuhan, China - the World DotA Cup [WDC], a very happening event which was eventually won by Nirvana.cn. These 2 teams come to SMM as among the favorites to lift the gold medal, along with the improving LGD who recently replaced their support player, Gx with versatile ganker/carry player 830. At first, several European teams like MYM, DTS and NWO were expected to come, however due to the high traveling and accommodation cost involved [largely because SMM organiser was late to announce the exact date of this year's tournament], none of them managed to attend the event, and hence this year's SMM become high-level tournament among the Asians only.

19 international teams, and 50 local teams participated the tournament. Prior to Group Stage, 48 of the qualified local teams [the other 2 are the seeded teams Nirvana.my and Aeon.mufc] went through qualifier in which eventually only 19 teams went through the main group stage. After 2 days of playing, the Group Stage has finished and almost half of the playoff were played, which will be continued on the third and final day, tomorrow.

Tournament info:

Sendi Mutiara Multimedia [SMM] Grand National Dota Tournament [SGNDT]
Venue: e@curve, Damansara
Date: 3rd-5th December 2010
Time: 10am - 10pm (GMT+8) daily

More info:

• Gosugamers - tournament info
• Gosugamers - tournament grid and bracket
• SMM live stream courtesy of TobiWanKenobi
• Gosugamers - Replay list
• Gosugamers - event photos

The final group stage standing:

click to enlarge

The updated Playoff bracket can be viewed on Gosugamers SMM coverage page: HERE

The coverage this year was excellent, and made even more awesome by the fact that everyone's favorite shoutcaster TobiWanKenobi is present in this tournament to add the mood into the games being played on stage. Despite that, there's still some weaknesses that the organiser might need to consider to improve, such as the lack of streamed games on all matches [only a few were streamed on Waaaaaghtv]. But overall it was a fantastic tournament so far, boosted by many high quality games being played.

The first thing that come to my mind upon seeing the group bracket was how stacked Group A and G were, having 3 strong Chinese teams sandwiching the unfortunate local malaysian team. Apparently the group drawing were done randomly without any seeding involved, which by chance grouped Deity, LGD and Dream together in Group A, while Ehome, Nirvana.cn and CCM [Mushi's new team] in Group G. Quite unfortunate, but then you gotta beat what's in front of you if you want to win. In the end of the day, LGD/Deity and Nirvana.cn/Ehome qualified, as much expected.

Not much surprised were thrown out in the tournament so far. Most big and known teams qualified through to the playoff. The exception is Aeon.mufc, the 4th place winner of WDC which failed to qualify from their group which consist of Sigaporean and Indonesian powerhouse, XtC and AlienwareDG. But then their performance in this SMM was overall a disappointment, winning only 1 game in the group stage. Other disappointment come to the Australian team LGD.au who also failed to qualify from their group which consist of Thai and Philippine's champion, Roccat.trust and Mineski. In term of the Clashes of the titans, there's also little to no surprise result produced. LGD, Nirvana.my and Nirvana.cn all won their respective group comfortably, even though they did face tough opponents like Deity/Scythe.sg and of course, EHOME.

The quality and strategy execution of the games so far were also top class. So far I've watched all Nirvana.my and most games streamed by Tobi, and some of them were quite entertaining to watch, especially when it comes to LGD. Their group stage games showcased some of the highest level of dota you've ever seen, and their quarter final game against Ehome was probably "the" game of the tournament, let alone the game of the month. Some surprise yet expected picks were thrown, where the likes of Alchemist, VS, WD, Lion, Doom, Enigma and Windrunner remained the top bans/picks, but the most notable change from WDC is the frequency in which Syllabear was banned and picked. I was quite happy that Syllabear finally got the chance to show himself in the competitive scene, although his winning rate at SMM so far seems to be 50/50. Morphling was also regularly picked, although he was no longer played the same way as he used to be - now often with Ethereal Blade rather than Manta. Fast push strat with 3-1-1 laning remained pretty much the winning formula. Unfortunately, so far I haven't see any game in which a very fast pushing strat or unorthodox picks were used.


Game of the tournament so far: Quarter Final 1, EHOME vs LGD.

No word can describe the astonishment I had while watching the game. Even Tobi who shoutcasted the game almost lost his breath, implying how tense and breathtaking the game was. 60 minutes game, ZSMJ's Alchemist got full inventory and he is facing Burning's fat, fat and FAT Morphling, as well as Dai's epic Tinker. The game was so close that you can't really tell who's going to win even after 50 minutes, although Ehome's victory was imminent considering how well they handle the teamfight - totally ignoring Alchemist while focusing on all other LGD's supporters. And this proves to be super effective as Alchemist can't handle a farmed Tinker+Morphling all by himself. Mind you at one point Burning's Morphling has 11k gold. Amazing game and the crowd at the venue was in total madness while watching this epic encounter. On a side note, this game also broke the live stream view with more than 18,000+ viewers watching the game. Showed how big this Clash of the Titan is. Oh, and Tobi's shoutcast made the game even more AWESOME than it already was.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the tournament in these first 2 days. He quality of games being played remained high, and the live stream and replay weren't disappointing either. Hopefully te last day tomorrow will serve us with another epic games with some unorthodox strategies being used.