ESWC Day 3: DotA Grand Final

Here is it. After 2 days of what said to be a very competitive tournament so far, ESWC has finally reach its final day with the Grand Final match for DotA division, between Malaysian team Kingsurf and Singaporean team Zenith. This is definitely the moment awaited by many dota fans, especially the fans of these two team (like myself). Too bad the match started around this morning so I couldn't follow the match update live, considering I have classes started at 9 am.

coverage: ESWC at myMYM

Nevertheless, before that, the consolation match for 3rd and 4th place between MYM and EG took place before the main event.

Teams Meet Your Makers and Evil Geniuses will be squaring off in what promises to be an interesting clash that both teams should be looking forward to. In their last match at ESWC Masters, EG emerged victorious with a 1-0 victory, and this tournament although they eventually lost to KS in the semi-finals, they managed a 4-1 group stage record, including toppling SK-Gaming. MYM shared the same record exiting GS2, showing teams that its lineup had potential and that Merlini and Fear were more than prepared to demonstrate their reborn prowess to the world. With a lot of pride and 3rd place on the line, both teams should give us an excellent match.

Consolation Prize: MYM (Denmark) vs EG (USA)

Meet Your Makers, Sentinel
[terrorblade] MYMFear (Top/Middle)
[spectre] MYMMaNia- (Middle/Top)
[thd] MYMPusHer (Middle/Top)
[chen] MYMMaelk (Jungle)
[qop] MYMMerlini (Bottom)

Evil Geniuses, Scourge
[necrolyte] EG.King (Top)
[lion] EG.HiT0Mi (Middle)
[leoric] EG.Remstar (Middle)
[lich] EG.Whisper (Bottom)
[puck] EG.DOGKaiser (Bottom)

[end game screenshot]

looking at the lineup, one might be impressed with the approach MYM tries to take - 2 heavy carry heroes supported by chen, qop and thd. Or specifically, spectre as late game hero, while terrorblade as backup for late game, but also as a convenient pusher. Anyway, the match is spectacular as usual, with EG seems to have the upper hand at first but somehow MYM manage to keep up with their opponent and eventually win the game. Merlini touch as QoP seems a bit rusty, it seems like he doesn't quite perform at his best standard.
With that, MYM win the 3rd place of the first ever DotA division in ESWC, with EG placed 4th. Next, the Grand Final, just a few hours after EG-MYM match.

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Then, 2 hours that, we will have the long-awaited Asian team clash of Kingsurf and Zenith. Both teams have proved that they belong in the stage of world-class in DotA, and it is likely that many players and fans have been surprised about how successful they can be. The teams have clashed in EVO, ADC and are longtime rivals. It is likely that this match will have enormous viewership and following and should be quite idealistic in both a competitive DotA (for the players and fans) and a commercial sense (for the sponsors). The prize money is impressive, but it likely has become secondary in the eyes of these two teams. Get ready for an impressive and unforgettable finals.

ESWC Grand Final: Kingsurf (Malaysia) vs Zenith (Singapore)

Kingsurf, Sentinel
[warlock] Ks ` xaOmA (Top)
[qop] Ks ` papaxiong (Middle)
[terrorblade] Ks ` xiaogui (Jungle)
[thd] Ks ` SakuRa (Bottom)
[weaver] Ks ` YamateH (Bottom)

Zenith, Scourge
[necrolyte] ZENITH MUJI RSC (Top)
[beastmaster] ZENITH MAG3 RSC (Jungle)
[luna] ZENITH KING RSC (Middle)
[puck] ZENITH HYHY RSC (Bottom)
[lion] ZENITH TOFU RSC (Bottom)

[end game screenshot]

the anticipated final match turned out not to be that spectacular. At least many think so. With the picks of BM and Weaver, we can somehow predict what would be the outcome - map control war. Zenith started the match with massive wards across the map, countered partially by KS wards. It was until around 20 minutes when BM bought a gem and wiped out all KS wards/watchers that the match turned into an unlikely direction - a farmfest. 30 minutes into the game, there's so little kill counts from both side, although KS did a better job, killing more than their opponent. And the match is pretty much even out until at one point when zenith pushed mid to the base, and KS did some crucial mistakes that cost them both mid and top rax. KS however still manage to hold the game for more than 20 minutes, defending the base before they were finally unable to defend the bottom rax. mega creep. gg. With that, Zenith won the match and become the first ever champion of ESWC DotA. That's quite an accomplishment.
Anyway although the final match isn't that interesting with all those ricing fest, there's still some interesting highlights:
-Luna Moonfang, using her dominated creep, did an Ancient pulling at scourge side starting around 25th minute, stacking Ancients after Ancients and around 36th minute, started killing all those MASSIVE stack of Ancients. That easily gave her close to 1500 gold.
-Around 65th minute, Yamateh' Weaver ran away from Necrolyte' Death Pulse with ~150 hp, running half a map before safely reach the base. That Pulse definitely would have killed him if he failed to flee from the chase :3

Overall ESWC has been one of the better tournament, offering manyexciting matches for dota fan. The level of play were indeed top notch with various strategy demosntrated by the participated teams, although some matches did turn into farmfest (*coughfinalcough*).

ESWC Grand Final Day 2 result

So groupstage A of ESWC DotA Grand Final has finished their matches yesterday, continued by series of matches from group B today, as well as the semi final match which proceed several hours after Group B concludes. The overall result of group stage:

Singaporean team Zenith made an immediate impact by beating MYM in their first match. Due to stream crash, it seems like the replay for this game won't be available. But the lineup went as follows:

Zenith, Sentinel
[na] zEn|th`hyhy.rsc (Top)
[lion] zEn|th`ToFu.rsc (Top)
[visage] zEn|th`MaG3.rsc (Middle)
[skeleton king] zEn|th`AKA.rsc (Jungle)
[necrolyte] zEn|th`Kira.rsc (Bottom)

Meet Your Makers, Scourge
[morphling] MYM|Maelk (Top)
[furion] MYM|MaNia- (Jungle)
[tinker] MYM|Merlini (Middle)
[spectre] MYM|Fear (Bottom)
[lich] MYM|PusHer (Bottom)

According to MYM|Merlini and MYM|Pusher interview, they talked about theirteam matches against zenith and mentioned something about being surprised with zenith' first pick, Visage which is of course, not uncommon in Asian scene. Thus MYM proceed with a rather unusual lineup, picking morphling and tinker along the way. I haven't watch the replay so I don't know how much does the game goes, so I can't say much about the game itself.

Zenith continue to dominate further by convincingly beating (or should I say, total rape) their next two oppponents, Hungarian The Elder Gods (TEG) and American Pandemic/JoY. However, they surprisingly were lost in their final match against Brazillian team Fearz, in which we saw a rapier by Mirana in this game. But with three wins and one loss, nothing could stop them from advancing to the playoff, especially since MYM also did the same to the rest of the teams. With three wins each for MYM and Zenith, both team topped Group B and qualify for the semi final.
I didn't manage to watch most of these replay due to my busy schedules, but I was still able to watch a couple of Zenith replay. And I must admit that I was very impressed with their performance. In their match against TEG, I was mesmerized with the jukes by Leoric and Lion at bottom first tower, as well as Leoric animation cancelling his stun later to deceive QoP.

Since some of the matches were pretty much bugged with crashed, therefore some of the replays were not available. For other replays of Group B matches, visit MYM site coverage:
http://www.mymym.com/en/coverage/522/10.html

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And with that, the semi final matches have been set. Kingsurf as group A winner met MYM as Group B runner up, and EG met Zenith. Zenith was impressive as usual, winning their match rather easily while KS need to endure some hard fought battle before a drop cause the game to load (which surprisingly they won just 5 minutes right after the reload. Yamateh played a brilliant QoP as usual, while Papaxiong broodmother really amazed me with the way he utilizes his spiderling.

Semi Final 1: Kingsurf (Malaysia) vs Meet Your Makers (Denmark)

Kingsurf, Sentinel
[zeus] Ks ` SakuRa (Top)
[necrolyte] Ks ` x|aOmA (Top)
[broodmother] Ks ` papaxiong (Middle)
[warlock] Ks ` xiaogui (Bottom)
[qop] Ks ` YamateH (Bottom)

Meet Your Makers, Scourge
[puck] MYM|Maelk (Top)
[earthshaker] MYM|MaNia- (Top)
[lion] MYM|Merlini (Middle)
[leoric] MYM|Fear (Bottom)
[lich] MYM|PusHer (Bottom)


Semi Final 2: Zenith (Singapore) vs Evil Geniuses (USA)

Zenith, Sentinel
[puck] ZENITH HYHY RSC (Top)
[necrolyte] ZENITH MUJI RSC (Top)
[visage] ZENITH MAG3 RSC (Middle)
[leoric] ZENITH KING RSC (Bottom)
[lion] ZENITH TOFU RSC (Bottom)

Evil Geniuses, Scourge
[dazzle] EG.Whisper (Top)
[mercurial] EG.King (Top)
[shadow fiend] EG.Remstar (Middle)
[qop] EG.DOGKaiser (Bottom)
[earthshaker] EG.HiT0Mi (Bottom)

With this, the ESWC has made its history to host an all Asian grand final in their first ever edition of DotA division. The final is expected to be played tomorrow morning (Australian time). Could be an epic match to see an Asian showdown for the crown of the most prestigious competition in e-sports.

p/s: KS-MYM matches ended just 30 minutes before my afternoon classes started at 3pm - luckily I still manage to catch the bus and arrive on time XP

ESWC Grand Final 2008

ESWC Grand Final Day 1 result

so what is ESWC? The Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) is a world-wide video games competition composed of national preliminaries and a grand final event, managed and organized by Games Services each year since 2003.

main site: ESWC 2008 DotA

ESWC Grand Final 2008 which was held on San Jose, USA has finished its first playday, which consist of matches from group A. Only 11 teams manage to successfully went through to the Grand Final, and we're somehow desperately missed some other powerhouse which missed this event due to various problem like visas, passports and qualifiers. These include teams like Mouz, Fnatic (ex-XcN), EHOME, Rush3D and ks.int. These 11 teams were divided into 2 groups as follows:

link: MyMYM: ESWC Group Stage

The top two teams from each group qualify to the playoff. As seen from the table, our own Malaysian team Kingsurf (KS) manage to safely go through the playoff together with American team Evil.Genius (EG), eliminating one of the tournament favorite SK.Gaming. There's little coverage on the event so far, so there is only a few replay available, and thanksfully most of them feature my favorite team Kingsurf.

KS starts their tournament in style with a glorious victory against Canadian team Nafu. Especially since Yamateh is using one of his best hero Obsidian Destroyer, and not to mention Papaxiong as meepo. Ok fair enough, they also got high tier hero zeus and warlock in their lineup =)


Game 1: Kingsurf (Malaysia) vs Nafu (Canada)

Bans: (Ks first) omni/na/beasmaster/qop/leviathan/pitlord/spectre/earthshaker
Picks (Ks first) zeus/davion potm/warlock puck/leoric thd/obsidian meepo/lina

KingSurf, Sentinel
[puck] Ks ` xiaogui (Top)
[zeus] Ks ` SakuRa (Top)
[obsidian] Ks ` YamateH (Middle)
[warlock] Ks ` x|aOmA (Bottom)
[meepo] Ks ` papaxiong (Bottom)


Nafu, Scourge
[davion] [Nafu]DOWNtown (Top)
[thd] [Nafu]Da_Bause. (Top/Jungle)
[potm] [Nafu]Solace (Middle)
[leoric] [Nafu]JD-DoriaN (Bottom)
[lina] [Nafu]DarkSlayr (Bottom)

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

in the 2nd game against EG, things became a little harder since EG is well known for their good performance on LAN event, and of course EG itself is a very good team in the first place. especially if this team have Syllabear on their lineup. A pretty lengthy match with Yamateh got an early Guinsoo on QoP to hold off EG who has a very strong Broodmother to carry them, allowing Xiaogui' Spectre to farm for late game item. Amazing performance by Kingsurf, especially Yamateh who picks off EG heroes one by one at bottom lane. While dazzle did a very good supporting role, dying only 5 times in that whole 70+ minutes game. And the decisive point of this match could be the minute when EG went for Roshan while Yamateh and Spectre went for bottom base tower and rax. Without a single guinsoo on EG side, it's hard for them to stop KS from killing their heroes one by one. Overall this is a well played match by both team.

Game 2: Evil Genius (USA) vs Kingsurf (Malaysia)

Evil Geniuses, Sentinel
[lich] EG.WhispeR (Top)
[potm] EG.King (Top)
[brood] EG.Remstar (Middle)
[zeus] EG.DOGKaiser (Bottom)
[earthshaker] EG.HiT0Mi(Bottom)


KingSurf, Scourge
[spectre] Ks ` xiaogui (Top)
[dazzle] Ks ` SakuRa (Top)
[leshrac] Ks ` papaxiong (Middle)
[leviathan] Ks ` x|aOmA (Bottom)
[Qop] Ks ` YamateH (Bottom)

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Kingsurf kept on winning on the third game against French team Serious Gaming (SRS) who earlier made an upset by beating SK.Gaming. An okay lineup picked by KS but somehow interesting item build. The old 6.48b Centaur is back with Hood, Radiance and Dagger, Shadow Fiend with Guinsoo and Dagger, Puck with Dagon.

replay: SRS (France) vs Kingsurf (Malaysia)

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The fourth game is arguably the decisive match which might determine the outcome of this group - SK vs KS. Both of these team has met several times before in MYM Prime Defending and Prime Defending League, with KS came out with more victories against the other. In this match, KS (potm, luna, dazzle, puck, lich) totally dominate the early and mid game against SK who picks visage, tb, necrolyte, VS and Tide. However SK somehow manage to turn the tide of the game as in their lineup lies the hidden push strat, as well as the ability to tank Lich and Luna ultimate through images and revenant.

replay: SK.Gaming (Sweden) vs Kingsurf (Malaysia)

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the final game for group A, against Pakistan team S3x. There's not much infos about this game because there is no replay available so far, but it is well known that KS beat S3x in this game and therefore advance to the 2nd round with 4 wins and 1 defeat.

Fall 2008 anime series

-Casshern SINS
-CHAOS;HEAD
-CLANNAD ~AFTER STORY~
-Hakushaku to Yousei - [--/09]
-Junjou Romantica 2 - [--/10]
-Kuroshitsuzi - [--/10]
-Kyou no 5 no 2
-Michiko to Hachin - [--/10]
-Shikabane-hime Aka
-Tales of the Abyss - [--/10]
-Tentai Senshi Sunred - [--/09]
-Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka
-Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin - [07/09]
-Bihada Ichizoku
-ef - a tale of melodies
-ga-rei-zero
-Gundam 00 2nd Season - [--/10]
-Hokuto no Ken Raou Gaiden Ten no Haou - [03/10]
-Hyakko
-Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae - [--/10]
-Kemeko Deluxe! - [--/10]
-Kannagi - [--/10]
-Netsusou! Kame 1 Grand Prix - [4/10]
-Kurogane no Linebarrel
-Macademi Wasshoi!
-Nodame Cantabile Paris-hen - [--/10]
-Noramimi 2nd Season - [--/10]
-Rosario to Vampire CAPU2 - [--/10]
-Skip Beat!
-Stitch!- [--/10]
-Toaru Majutsu no Kinsho Mokuroku
-Toradora
-Tytania - [--/10]
-Vampire Knight Guilty - [--/10]
-Yozakura Shijuusou ~Yozakura Quartet~

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so Summer is almost over, and now we're heading for the next anime season. Last year there is so many exciting series came out on fall, and I could say the same for this year. There's must-watch series like Gundam 00 2nd season and Ef a Tale of Melodies, all which are the sequel to their excellent previous series. And there's a fair amout of newcomer show that grab my attention like Toradora, Kannagi, Tales of the Abyss, Chaos;Head, To Aru Majutsu no Index and much more. All in all I'm looking forward to the Fall series, with so many interesting shows offered, albeit I think it's not as much as last year (with Genshiken 2, Ef A Tale of Memories, Clannad, Shana 2, Myself; Yourself, Goshushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, Minami-ke, Moyashimon, Bamboo Blade, Gundam 00 and many more).
Well hopefully my college workload won't hinder me much from watching these XP

PDL: Hero Statistics

While browsing through MYM coverage pages for their Prime Defending League, something grabbed my attention on the pages list; the hero statistics.

main page: http://www.mymym.com/en/coverage/498/3.html

The list consist of the top heroes banned and picked, as well as win/lose ratio in the currently ongoing MYM Prime Defending League from matchday 1 to 7. With 12 teams participating and each matchday consist of 2 games for each team, hence these data was collected from about 77 games played. The map used for this league is DotA Allstars 6.52 onward.


table representation for the rank above:

1. Puck	13. Dazzle	25. Ogre Magi
2. Warlock	14. Terrorblade	26. Witch Doctor
3. Zeus	15. Skeleton King	27. Lion
4. Beastmaster	16. Leshrac	28. Centaur
5. Nerubian Assassin	17. Shadow Fiend	29. Luna Moonfang
6. Queen of Pain	18. Lina Inverse	30. Sven
7. MIrana Nightshade	19. Tidehunter	31. Meepo
8. Earthshaker	20. Broodmother	32. Visage
9. Lich	21. Necrolyte	33. Silencer
10. Omniknight	22. Viper	34. Juggernaut
11. Chen	23. Spectre	35. Pit Lord
12. Dragon Knight	24. Pugna	36. Sand King

Some interesting facts in the list:

-Puck, Warlock, Zeus and Beastmaster dominates the top four. This is pretty much similar to the old age of 6.48b when these heroes (except Puck since he's mostly banned from the tournament) become the top ban/first pick material. And they're banned/picked for a good reason too, despite the fact that dagger was nerfed since 6.50. Puck is an annoying heroes to deal with his spell/attack dodging abilities, semi-blink, silence and good ultimate making him a fairly good package. Warlock is simply a monstrous babysit/soloer and his Infernal is also annoying to deal with, usually forcing the opponent to buy a diffusal blade. Zeus global ultimate enable him to assist even when he was far away, and his static field is among the nice counter to those tankers. Not to mention, he can easily deal over 1000 damages over 7 seconds to a single target enemy (bolt-arc-arc-bolt). As for beastmaster, he was banned more than anyone else due to his invisible hawk which is enourmously useful for scouting and ganking. And of course, the hero himself is very versatile with a slow, a very strong ultimate, a steroid skill, a tree-cutting nuke and of course, his invisible hawk for free scouting.

-Nerubian Assassin and Queen of Pain remains the top pick/bans just as the 6.48bera, so not much to comment here. Same goes for Mirana. While she doesn't really worth to be banned, her value in teamfight is really something due to her spells. A spammable nuke in form of StarFall, a very strong stun (not easy to target though), a semi-blink skill and a global ultimate made her another versatile hero to have in a team. Coupled with the fact that she's a ranged agi hero, she can also bears the responsibility to be the carry or semi carry of the team.

-This version also showed how some heroes which were badly missed during the age of 6.48b become a very viable pick/ban material, notably Lich.

-some heroes were banned/pick only by certain teams. Meepo and Visage for example was mostly seen in XcN (currently Fnatic) matches, while Witch Doctor was seen on MYM matches, and Keeper of The Light on WG matches.

-Magnataur was almost always banned/picked during 6.48b era, yet in the current map, his popularity suddenly drop - only banned once and not even picked. The dagger nerf, coupled with the slight nerf on Reverse Polarity AOE somehow reduce his effectiveness as initiator. Or should I say, some heroes seems to be a much better choice than him, paritcularly dps-tank like Skeleton King and Dragon Knight. The same reason applied for Tiny, who was among the better pick in 6.48b.

DotA Allstars 6.54

Just a few weeks ago Icefrog released 6.53, and while I expect 6.53b to be released soon after, instead they went straight to DotA Allstars 6.54 with various new addition/alteration. As usual the map can be downloaded from getdota.
The changelog to be noted:

-Rebalanced Invoker. He can now use invoke at level two (meaning, take either Quas, Wex or Exort at lvl 1 and made a pure element spell at lvl 2). And there's various manacost/cooldown changes, which I do think made him a little more useful early games (since he don't have to wait till level 5 to gank).

-Reworked Shadow Priest. Same model, but no more fast resurrection+no money lose when dying. His Grave changed completely into a targetable avatar (except that it completely nullify any damage for 5 seconds). Weave become an ultimate, where both allies and enemies within 600 AOE will be affected with armor increase/decrease. And extra bounce for Wave at level 3 and 4. Will he become as useful as he once was? Maybe he's still good at supporting, but now he's not reliable to support carry heroes anymore (in term of grave).

-Phantom Lancer got virtually nerfed. Spirit Lance damage decreased (250 instead of the old 310 damage) but also decreased cooldown, plus progressively higher manacost.
Doppelwalk invis decreased from 12 to 8 seconds, his images now takes 400% damages more, while his maximum images count decreased from 8 to 4. This is just...wow imo the biggest neft PL ever had. The rest of the nerf is okay imo, but decreasing his number of images will reduced his efficiency as late carry.

-Changes to Abaddon' Apothic Shield and Borrowed Time. Borrowed Time cooldown increased to 60 seconds. Apothic Shield is even more interesting, with 15 seconds duration and 9 seconds cooldown at level 4, with less damage tankability (175 instead of 275). While the damage absorbed is decreased, his role as life saver is definitely increased with such short cooldown (plus can Shield two allies at one time).

-Rylai Crestfall ultimate mechanic altered a bit. Instead of the slow coming from the explosion, now it came from the field itself. About the whole mechanic, I'm still nto sure whether it is a randomly triggered explosion or a simultaneous AOE nuke. Need more information on this.
-many visual effect changes, some are interesting, while others are weird. Queen of Pain Sonic Wave turned into a weird circular wave (make sense though, it's "sonic" after all). Freezing Field, Blackhole, Weave, Spirit Lance, Meledict, and even Flask of Sapphire Water is changed.

-mode -mi is added for miniheroes. LOOOOL chibi-heroes ftw :3