Emerald Sword - Rhapsody

Emerald Sword
Artist(Band):Rhapsody

I crossed the valleys the dust of midlands
to search for the third key to open the gates
Now I'm near the altar the secret inside
As legend told my beloved sun light the dragons eyes
On the way to the glory I'll honour my sword
to serve right ideals and justice for all

Finally happened the sun hit their eyes
the spell was creating strange games of light
Thanks to hidden mirrors I found my lost way
over the stones I reached the place it was a secret cave
In a long bloody battle that prophecies told
the light will prevail hence wisdom is gold

For the king for the land for the mountains
for the green valleys where dragons fly
for the glory the power to win the black lord
I will search for the emerald sword

Only a warrior with a clear heart
could have the honour to be kissed by the sun
Yes, I am that warrior I followed my way
led by the force of cosmic soul I can reach the sword
On the way to the glory I'll honour my sword
to serve right ideals and justice for all

For the king for the land for the mountains
for the green valleys where dragons fly
for the glory the power to win the black lord
I will search for the emerald sword

For the king for the land for the mountains
for the green valleys where dragons fly
for the glory the power to win the black lord
I will search for the emerald sword


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The Art of Mind Games vol. 5 introduced me to this song, and easily become one of my current favorite =)

MYM Pride 8: Playoff

After several days of break from the group stage matches, the online tournament finally moves to the playoff stage, single elimination in best of 1 match until the semi-final, where the match takes double elimination format.

In previous group stage, the teams qualified:

Qualified Teams For Playoffs

Group A
Virtus.Pro, OKHO

Group B
MYM.DotA, tN

Group C
BTB, eMg

Group D
SK.Gaming, Ks

Group E
Jam, Excello

Group F
Hard Team, hi2u

Group G
TPD, mKvL

Group H
redBear, TRP

And the scheduled playoff matches:

All the best for the teams involved. I'm proud of Malaysian team Kingsurf (KS) who won all their 6 group matches, and I hope they can advance as far as they could, much better if they reach the semi-finals =)
On a side note, there is still some remorse over the disband of sP[Palit] of Russia due to internal problem, and thus their place is taken by the third place team in Group G, Malaysian team Surfnet mKvL. Too bad for them, meeting Virtus.Pro in the very first round. Well I'm not saying that they can't beat VP, but chances are almost impossible for a them to beat VP.

DreamHack Winter: Summary

Map Version: DotA Allstars v6.48b
Mode: -AP

while MYM Pride Defending #8 takes a break before the knockout phase, DreamHack Winter, a famous LAN DotA tournament was held in europe, consisting many famous european team (notably SK.Gaming and MYM as Pack4Dreamhack), as well as an Asian team Zen|th from Singapore. For most part of the tournament, 3 teams become the center of attraction, that is Zenith, SK.Gaming and P4DH.

DHW07: Zoom in on MYM, SK and Zenith

Zenith, being the only Asian team to participate in such tournament, shows some entertaining performance throughout, but eventually lost to SK.Gaming 1:2 in the final of the loser bracket. With this win, SK.Gaming make yet another meeting against MYM, this time in the grand finals with Best of 3 format.
Zenith vs SK-Gaming Game 2
Zenith vs SK-Gaming Game 3

Earlier, SK.Gaming lost to MYM/P4DH in the final of winner bracket, thus advancing to the loser bracket final with 1 win advantage over Zenith, who lost to SK in the semi final.
Pack4DreamHack (MYM) vs SK-Gaming Game 1
SK-Gaming vs Pack4DreamHack Game 2
Pack4DreamHack vs SK-Gaming Game 3

with this win, MYM advance to the Grand Final with 1 win advantage over the winner of the loser bracket final (that is, SK. Gaming).

The grand finals are another interesting match to watch. With 1 game advantage for MYM, SK need to win the 2nd game in order to attain hopes of winning this tournament, and they prove that they can by beating MYM in the 2nd match. However, MYM turn the tide in the 3rd match, and thus winning the Grand Final to become the champion of DreamHack Winter for 2 consecutive years.

#post will be edited upon the availability of the replay.

[DotA] KS vs SK.Gaming

Malaysian team Kingsurf made a huge upset in bracket D of qualifying group of MYM Pride Defending #8, beating the famous SK.Gaming with in a fairly comfortable match.

SK.Gaming, Sentinel

SK.Loda (Top)
SK.Tompa (Top)
SK.Drayich (Middle)
SK.Bogdan (Bottom)
SK.Akke (Bottom)

.....................................................

Kingsurf (KS), Scourge

Ks-Xiaogui (Top)
Ks-Ice (Top)
Ks-Yamateh (Middle)
Ks-X|aoMa (Bottom)
Ks-Papaxiong (Bottom)

To everyone surprise, they beat SK.Gaming who use one of their best strategy, the "global strategy" which wins them the MYM Pride #5 as Team Team (T_T). I watch the replay, and for most of portion of the match, SK never really give much trouble for KS. This is inherent when Yamateh' Shadow Fiend was laned in the middle against Drayich' Magnataur, who can really do nothing to harrasss SF, and thus providing a free farm for SF, resulting a 9, 10 minutes Blink Dagger (thus effectively lower the efficiency of Drayich and Tompa' Sand King+Magnataur ultimate combo).

However, the real cause of the loss for the team is the bottom lane, when Bogdan' Furion and Akke' Spectre was raped by Leoric+Lina combo. SK.Gaming has no real end game carry heroes except Furion and Spectre, but both of them screw up their early and mid game. Furion went like 0-13 and unable to farm anything worth for carrying. Even Spectre wasn't able to farm Radiance. With Furion teleporting, Spectre and Zeus ultimate instant help from afar, this kind of strategy even beat MeetYourMakers (MYM) and MagE (now known as Virtus.Pro) back then in MYM Pride#5. Yet SK seems unable to repeat their glorious achievement in this match.
And secondly, Yamateh was allowed to freefarm to get his complete carry item (BoT, Assault Cuirass, Stygian, Blink Dagger, Hood of Defiance). Yes he has no HP build, but he still rape with this items, as well as most KS allies with their superior item than those of SK.Gaming.

Nevertheless, SK.Gaming has won 5 out of 6 of their match, and pretty much has qualify for the playoff. KS has won 2 out of 2 (the 2nd win is against MCC, where we seen Yamateh, yet again played as Shadow Fiend, get a Divine Rapier in the end of the game), and I hope they can continue their good performance to qualify from this group as well. The playoff won't be an easy task for them, especially if they were scheduled to face MYM or Virtus.Pro, because both of this team will definitely stop KS from free farming and attain map control as soon as possible.


the replay can be downloaded here:
[mym12583]_MYM_PriDe_8_SK_vs_Ks.w3g

[DotA] MYM Prime Defending #8

SENNHEISER Prime Defending #8

The highly famous and biggest online DotA-Tournament in the world is back and ready to take it to the next - 8th - round.



And the prediction from SK Gaming source:

Group A: This group contains the Prime Defender Virtus.Pro. This is the second PriDe they won in a row and I have no doubt that they will be taking the first place. Notable teams are FF and maybe OKHO which has Zydu former sP[Palit]Kow3 player. Still the second place will belong to the now reborn Team Q with many new players from TPD and BTB.

1. Virtus.Pro
2. Team Q

Group B: Here we have one of the top teams in the world MYM.DotA and the newly but heavily trained Xero Skill. MYM.DotA hasn't been performing at their best lately. They lost to ieS in ClanBase EuroCup XV and also got a red card for not signing their players to their roster. Xero Skill was formed for the previous PriDe and since then they haven't stopped training. You can find XsK members spamming "Searching 5v5 xl ggc SKILLED" at any hour of the day as they have members from all over the world with no time problems. The only other team worth mentioning is RusMafia (RM). They have former sP[Palit]Kow3 player Astra, former DoTa[] (PriDe #4 winners) player DOTA[LUCKER] and some known russian players from the elite league of the world IHCS. Xero Skill might pull an upset beating MYM.DotA but I still predict MYM.DotA taking the first place and Xero Skill taking the second place.

1. MYM.DotA
2. Xero Skill

Group C: No one really knows if eMazing Gaming is at their top shape as they don't scrim so much but last PriDe they surprised everyone by being the first american based team ending in third place after beating SK Gaming. Next seeded team is the most famous team at the moment in the DotA scene BTB. They recently added KANGA former TeG player who got caught maphacking in TFL DotA and got banned from PriDe tournaments and IHCS aswell. Despite their shady addition they're still a great team however this group won't be easy for them. FD, Traffic and BGs (with some of the old members of Dancing Ponies) might steal the second place from the seed BTB. I predict eMazing Gaming coming on top of the group with maybe one loss and BTB taking the second place as they seem very motivated despite the bad comments from the community.

1. eMazing Gaming
2. BTB

Group D: No matter what biased this sounds the top team SK Gaming will be taking the first place (maybe they'll fall to Ks as they lost to W4s| last PriDe :P). Ks is the team that created a huge upset last PriDe taking down sP[Palit]Kow3 however I don't think it was too much merit of them but more mistakes on the sP[Palit]Kow3 side. TeG (winners of Prime Defending Extreme) will be making their comeback taking the second place.

1. SK Gaming
2. TeG

Group E: As I mentioned in group B ieS defeated MYM a few weeks ago. They recently added KuroKy ex-WE player and are surely the #1 team from Germany after WE's disbandment and will be taking the first place. Excello pulled some upsets like defeating eMazing Gaming in the first round of the HTGL Playoffs but at the same time they lost to w4sp in ClanBase EuroCup XV. I can't say they are a stable team but the rest of the teams won't be a problem for them.

1. ieS
2. Excello

Group F: This group will be one of the hardest groups ever. We have four very good teams that will be battling it out to qualify for the playoffs. Hard Team recently lost ArtStyle to BTB. Despite that they always had a 6-man-roster so they might be the same as before. hi2u is considered one of the best american teams but recently they lost to a Pandemic "B" team in the HTGL playoffs with a quite shocking lineup. zEn|†h is now no longer Mizencrononith. They are the best of the best from Singapore and I predict them taking the first place in the group. The fourth team I haven't mentioned is Ben. As many of you don't know them because they don't participate in the bigger leagues they are a pretty good team that could create an upset and maybe take the second place. However my prediction for the second place goes to hi2u.

1. zEn|†h
2. hi2u

Group G: sP[Palit]Kow3 has gone through many roster changes but in the end they are the #2 Russian team. ff with the leader of the old team Dancing Ponies and some of the members and Dn are good teams but they can't really defeat sP[Palit]Kow3 or the new TPD. defective Gaming is seeded but they aren't getting out of the group. TPD with their new leader DijonGenie has made some questionable additions making their roster look promising or just decent sometimes. That's why I predict sP[Palit]Kow3 taking the first place and TPD taking the second place.

1. sP[Palit]Kow3
2. TPD

Group H: RedBeaR previously known as D4 will be taking the first place in this group with ease. TRP is somehow similar to Team Sloth (they have Soth the best host in the world and BuM-SPaNKeR). Everyone had high hopes on Team Sloth but in the end they didn't make it out of their group. StarsVD is seeded but I don't know if they're really a top team, some of their performances have really let me down (such as the old solo Visage top by nc.dude in the last PriDe playoffs). If Paulyan is playing for RoA then they may take the second place. My prediction for the second place goes to them.

1. RedBeaR
2. RoA

source: SK Gaming

All the best for all teams participated. My highest hope lies in Virtus Pro as the Prime defender, but also want to see more from MYM and SK, and also those teams from Malaysia.