SGNDT 2010 Grand Final - The Same Old Conclusion

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

Following the end of the 2nd day of SMM Grand National Dota Tournament 2010, only 6 teams remained in the tournament to battle for money and pride: 4 Chinese teams LGD, EHOME, Nirvana.cn and Deity; 1 Malaysian team Nirvana.my and 1 Vietnamese team StarBoba. The day started with winner bracket final being played between EHOME and Nirvana.cn. Having previously beaten Starsboba in the WB semi final, Nirvana.cn seek their second grand final appearance, however they failed to emulate their victory against EHOME, as EHOME put off their best performance to beat the WDC champion in the WB final, in what best described as one of the best game of the tournament, and effectively send Nirvana.cn to the lower bracket final.

Winner Bracket - click to enlarge

Full Bracket can be viewed on Gosugamers coverage

In the Lower Bracket, meanwhile 4 teams were battling out in order to gain the privilege of fighting against previously beaten Nirvana.cn. Deity won quite comfortably against Vietnamese powerhouse StarsBoba, and on the other bracket, Nirvana.my met LGD in the same manner as they did in the last SMM. To refresh things up, last year SMM saw LGD knocked out to the loser bracket after losing to cD [the current Nirvana.cn] by picking Techies. In the loser bracket, they met Kingsurf [the current Nirvana.my] in one the most epic game in 2009 - ZSMJ as Phantom Lancer losing his sacred relic after the bird carrying it were killed, only to re-farm the same item within the next 8 minutes. This year both team met again in the same manner, and again produced the same result, although the game itself wasn't that eye-catching compared to the last SMM. With that, it's confirmed that the top 4 of SMM 2010 will be dominated by Chinese teams...

To make things short, LGD beat Deity quite comfortably in the loser bracket final to set up the encounter against Nirvana.cn, where winner will advance to the SMM 2010 grand Final. Unfortunately the game wasn't played on the live stream, and no shoutcast was made either so I have no idea how the game went, but LGD came out on top to meet EHOME once again in the Grand Final. The Grand Final match were played in best-of-3 format with EHOME having 1 game advantage due to winning the Winner Bracket. We expect another epic encounter between these 2 teams as they did in Day 2, unfortunately it didn't really happen. Both teams went for a safe defensive strategy with EHOME went for Alchemist+Sniper as DPS, while LGD relying on Morphling to counter EHOME's tanking ability [basically almost the reverse of their previous meeting]. After much farming, finally EHOME decided to push mid and a big teamfight ensues with EHOME coming out on top while also getting mid and top rax. Having only Morphling as the real DPS hero, LGD were unable to stop EHOME's imminent final push and lost the game, and with that, EHOME won the grand final and become the SMM Champion for the 2nd time in 3 years.

That's not the end though, as there's still a showmatch between the champion EHOME vs Malaysian favorite Nirvana.my. As it was a showmatch, it promised entertaining action throughout, which eventually won by Nirvana.my. Oh how I wish it was actually the real tournament game lol.

That's it for this year's SMM. Although there's quite ups and downs, I do find myself thoroughly enjoying the tournament, though a bit sad because I wasn't able to return to Malaysia on time to watch the event live. Tobi's shoutcasting throughout the tournament was awesome, really really awesome that he made a farming game never looked boring. Too bad the co-commentator, Kelly Milkies kinda ruined the shoutcast because of her excessive usage of Singlish, lack of in-game insight, unnecessarily spoiling team items and location, and always interfering Tobi's speech with repetitive and uninteresting questions/information. I hope the SMM committee would pick a more suitable shoutcaster next year, and hopefully, a Tobi+Synderen combo. These 2, along with the retired MadMordigan were the best DotA shoutcaster I've ever listened to.

Again, congratulation to EHOME for winning the SMM and proved themselves to be arguably THE best DotA team in the world. Hopefully we will see a team that can break the Chinese domination next year...

P/S Interesting fact: No Chinese team had ever lost to a non-Chinese team in this tournament, except Nirvana.my's showmatch game.


Oh, Match of the Tournament: Definitely those that were marked as "RR" in Gosugamers replay page. My personal top 3 favorite games in this tournament:

1. EHOME vs LGD, WB last 8. THAT MORPHLING!!!
2. StarBoba vs Nirvana.my, 5th-6th place placing decider. THAT FURION!!!
3. EHOME vs Nirvana.cn, WB Final. THAT MEDUSA!!!