SGNDT 2009 final day: For the Turtle!

SMM Grand Final 2009 finally close its curtain after the grand final match between FTD against cD has ended followed by throphy presentation. First, the final bracket:
Click me to view

*credit to myMYM*

Links:
myMYM: Day3 live coverage & videos
myMYM: Day3 pictures
myMYM: live full brackets
gosugamers: SMM replays

The day continue as Kingsurf takes on sGty.FTD in loser bracket semi final 1, while another malaysian team Inc.xLo takes on CH in loser bracket semi final 2. After an "intense" 80 minutes games, sGty.FTD was finally able to overcome KS and went to loser bracket final against xLo who earlier won against CH. KS then will battle out CH in 5th/6th place match. Both team however decided to use -roll to determine the winner as they did not have motivation to play anymore due to their previous loss. In the other loser bracket semi final, sGty.FTD manage to take down the only Malaysian team survivor, xLo, then EHOME in LB final to march to the grand final, taking on cD who knocked out EHOME earlier in WB final. cD have 1 game advantage due to coming from winner bracket and therefore FTD need to win the remaining 2 games in order to emerge victorious. Long story short, FTD won the first and then second game to overcome the 1 game deficit and crowned SMM 2009 Champions.

SGNDT 2009 Final Standings:

1. sGty.FTD (RM 42,000 + trophy + Sponsors Product)
   
2. cD (RM20,000 + Trophy + Sponsors Product)
   
3. EHOME (RM13,000 + Trophy + Sponsors Product)
4. Inc.xLo (RM8,000 + Sponsors Product)
5. Kingsurf (RM2,000 + Sponsors Product)
6. CH (RM1,500 + Sponsors Product)
7. StarsBoba (RM1,300 + Sponsors Product)
8. AEON.sg (RM1,100 + Sponsors Product)

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comment: I haven't watch any of today's replays so I honestly can't comment much on the games played. Some of their games were quite interesting, but others are fairly boring with passive, defensive, rice farming play all game with little kills and team battle sthroughout. Only after they are confident that their carry can win them the game then they start to push. Ugly play I know, and I really hate this kind of style but since winning takes priority above everything else, I guess they would use the safest method to win, considering the prizepool offered for the winner is very large. Just like how Italy won the 2006 World Cup with such defensive play, FTD is adapting a very similar style in some of their games. Anyway congratulations to FTD for taking the SMM crown from EHOME and become the King of SMM 2009. Next year, other nations need to work hard to stop the Chinese domination and hopefully more European and American team would be able to attend as well. Overall, in term of games excitement, I doubt this year SMM can match the likes of ASUS which produces a lot of interesting games because, well, would you rather watch a turtling game or a full-ganking and pushing game?

Letter bee ED single - Hatenaki Michi [HIMEKA]

Title: Letter Bee ED Single - Hatenaki Michi
Artist: HIMEKA
Street Release Date: November 29, 2009

tracklist:

01 Hatenaki Michi
02 空は教えてくれる/Sora wo Oshietekureru
03 Hatenaki Michi Instrumental
04 空は教えてくれる Instrumental
05 Hatenaki Michi (Anime Edit version)

Download link: [Megaupload]

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Another one of my favorite Fall series song, and the anime itself (Tegami Bachi/Letter Bee) is nice. I'm not all that familiar with Himeka, the first time I got attached to her voice is whens she sang for Valkyria Chronicle's OP Asu he no Kizuna (well that is her first single anyway).

SGNDT 2009 Day 2: It's all about Malaysia and China

Arguably the most awaited dota tournament for 2009, Sendi Mutiara Multimedia (SMM) Grand National Dota Tournament (SGNDT) 2009 finally conclude its second day, with most of the games played leaving only 6 teams to battle for the honors and massive prizes.

More on SMM/SGNDT 2009:

The Sendi Mutiara Multimedia Grand National DotA Tournament 2009 (SGNDT 09’), pretentiously the most prestigious DotA competition in the world is here on its fourth successive year bringing with it an even more impressive army of Dotarians into the fray. The qualifying-round for SGNDT ’09 kicks-off this 30th May 2009 and will consecutively run through 10 states in Malaysia in search for the best DotA teams to represent their country. Only those that earned a place in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th from each state-qualifier can proceed to the Grand Final hosted in the capital city of Malaysia – Kuala Lumpur, where a lucrative total cash prize of RM135, 000 and international contenders await the worthy champions.

* The BIGGEST DotA competition in the world just got a whole lot BETTER.
* The EPITOME for DotA competitions worldwide just got a whole lot GRANDEUR.
* The FINEST-HOUR for DotA competitions worldwide has finally arrived. And you’re invited!

It’s at this time of the year where the temperature for SGNDT 09’ escalates to an all new high – much hotter than before! The monumental march for Fame & Glory starts right here at Sendi Mutiara Multimedia Grand National DotA Tournament 09’ (SGNDT 09’). SGNDT has proven the test of time to be the best. Can you prove your worth? The Gate of the Ancients erupts once more as SGNDT 09’marches to town seeking to crown the next DotA World Champion!

SMM GNDT 2009 Information on UCPro

Grand Final Prizes

• Champion: RM42,000 Cash + Trophy + Sponsors Product
• 1st Runner-up: RM20,000 Cash + Trophy + Sponsors Product
• 2nd Runner-up: RM13,000 Cash + Trophy + Sponsors Product
• 3rd Runner-up: RM8,000 Cash + Sponsors Product
• 5th Place: RM2,000 Cash + Sponsors Product
• 6th Place: RM1,500 Cash + Sponsors Product
• 7th Place: RM1,300 Cash + Sponsors Product
• 8th Place: RM1,100 Cash + Sponsors Product

The bracket so far:
Click me to view

*courtesy of myMYM.com*

coverage, pictures and replays:

myMYM: Day2 live coverage & videos
myMYM: Day2 pictures
myMYM: live full brackets
gosugamers: SMM replays

alternate replay pack, consisting of available groupstage and playoff matches (If I'm not mistaken there are some replays which are not uploaded to gosugamer/ replay.net but was there streamed on garenatv, so I included them in the pack).

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comment: phew, what a hectic day. All this year this is the tournament many dota fans throughout the world have waited for. The tournament was held on A'Famosa Resort, Melaka, Malaysia from 27th-29th November. From the pictures and videos posted on myMYM, the atmosphere looks very lively with a lot of fans coming to give support especially tot he local teams, which is why I wanted to go back to Malaysia so badly to watch this live, unfortunately I still have stuff to do here in Australia and hence can only follow the scene from afar.

The group placing and qualifier matches were held yesterday, and today's schedule includes all groupstage playoff matches up until Winner and loser bracket semi final matches. As an armchair spectator, I still faithfully follow what happened on the scene from the beginning of the groupstage to the playoff late at night, and so far I am quite satisfied with what have been served. Although I have to admit that my head kinda hurts a little from watching too many replays and garena streams.

Some focal points of the tournament:

Probably the biggest surprise - MYM crashing out as early as the group phase.
The debate over Europe vs Asia dota skill never end since KS/Zenith took ESWC 2008 by storm, leaving the Asian the right to brag about Asian dota superiority. SMM 2009 is a chance to prove that the claim is not justified. Being arguably one of the best European team at the moment, MYM however simply failed to show what they are capable of by winning only 2 out of their 4 group matches. They lost their first match against a fairly known malaysian team, Inc.xLo, then almost lost the 2nd game against SINO but for the reload which enable them to regain their composure and win. Their 3rd game is against an all-girl team PMS.asterisk, an obvious win. However in their decisive game against a rather unknown Malaysian team Ftz, they failed very hard. I just don't understand why would Kuroky went for heroes which I think does not suit their style and went for some unorthodox, outpicked lineup as shown in thier first and 4th game. Where is Angel's Storm Spirit? Where is Mania's Sand King? They rape European team with these heroes, so why not just stick with these and go with what they are more comfortable with? Instead they go for a failpick of Kunkka+Obsidian Destroyer when the likes of SK and Storm is still available. I wonder whay Kuroky really think when he made the picks. Given the right lineup, I believe OD can carry MYM as his orb can easily take care of Warlock's Infernal and farmed spectre, but I don't see the point of picking Kunkka here, I hardly believe he is a competitive match-worthy anymore. A total outpick against Ftz and even then they couldn't back it by outplaying the opponent, as apparent in the teamfight where despite so much farm, Kunkka contribute minimally to the fight. With this, the sole European representative went out of SMM in a very disappointing way, and surely disappoint many of the fans who have high hopes for them in this tournament. And on the other side of the coin, this will only provide more opportunity for the Asian fans to brag about Asian dota superiority, and rightly so given the way MYM had performed. The other western hope, the Canadian team PokerIdol manage to go up until WB quarter final before crashing out to AEON, congratulation to them for the great performance and for producing some of the best replays of the tournament.


The fateful recap of ESWC 2008 final: KS vs Zenith (AEON)
Unfortunately this does not happened in this year's grand final as both team lost in the winner bracket (against sGty and cD respectively). Zenith was victorious in their previous encounter in ESWC 2008 Grand Final in San Jose. A few players remains from that age, namely Hyhy and Tofu for Zenith, and Yamateh, Papaxiong, Ice and Sakura for Kingsurf. Both team merged at the end of 2008 under Kingsurf but then split again into KS and Razor.sg (now AEON.sg) after constant disagreement on many things. This game hold great importance for both teams in term of pride and honors, as currently they are probably the only team left capable on stopping China domination in the tournament. Nonetheless, the game itself was very good with a lot of dagger actions from midgame onward. Some people mentioned about KS being outpicked, although I personally didn't see it that way. KS basically just just outplayed AEON by focusing down on specific heroes in teamfights, from ES to Storm to Necro. Sad thing for AEON that even a farmed Spectre cannot carry them to victory. Watch this game for the amazing Viper play by Yamateh. Guinsoo+Orchid on viper is just sexy :D
[Replay (6.64, 1.24b)]


Yet another all-Chinese winner bracket final: CD vs EHOME
4 Chinese teams (CityHunter/CH; CommeDieu/cD; sGty FTD and EHOME) attend this year's SMM, and ALL FOUR of them still remain in the competition at this stage. That does tell something about the strength of Chinese dota teams. EHOME looks set to retain their SMM throphy which they won in SMM 2008, and this time they're accompanied by 3 other teams from their country. At this point, the only team capable of stopping their dominance are Malaysian teams Kingsurf who will face sGty, and xLo who face CH, both loser bracket semi final matches to be played tomorrow.


All the best for Malaysian team KS and Inc.xLo tomorrow (I mean, today according to my watch) in theyr remaining matches, hopefully they will be able to bring home the SMM throphy which was taken away for a year :)


great replays from today's matches to watch:
Click me to view

PokerIdol vs Avava, groupstage A - probably the match of the day, the game was very tight from start to finish. The kill score of 30-60 in favor of PI actually cannot describe what was actually happening in the game, as Avava constantly give pressure to PI with their pushing power of Rhasta and farmed Phantom Lancer.

PokerIdol vs EHOME, WB last16 - I love the early game of this match: PI went for an obvious lvl1 roshan strat, tricking EHOME to rush to Roshan then strikes them from behind, resulting in early 3 kills for PI. They went on to lead 11-0 kills advantage by 10 minutes, however EHOME's teamwork is too much for them to handle as they failed to capitalize their advantage.

others:
AEON vs KS, LB quarter final
EHOME vs sGtyFTD, WB semi final one word: Techies
AEON vs Cybertime, LB first round
EHOME vs Mcity, WB last 16
KS vs Xtc.Nyx average rape game, just showing Yamateh with 3 Divine Rapiers in 35 minutes

11eyes ED Single -Sequentia [Asriel]

Title: 11eyes ED Single -Sequentia
Artist: Asriel
Street Release Date: November 26, 2009

tracklist:

01 Sequentia
02 Kagami no Yami wo Ugachite
03 Sequentia (Off Vocal)
04 Kagami no Yami wo Ugachite (Off Vocal)

Download Link: [Megaupload]

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oh yes it's finally out. Have been really waiting for this one. The intro of Sequentia is slightly different from what I would expect, but overall I still love both songs in this single. Since Quovadis and Unveil, I have been an avid fan of Asriel/Kokomi, really love her voices and songs. Too bad though despite the awesome OP and ED songs, the anime sucks.

Umineko no naku Koro ni Chiru Episode 5 Theme Song Single - Occultic no Majo

Title: Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru Episode 5 Theme Song Single - Occultic no Majo Artist: Ayumu, Doi Hironori
Release Date: November 26, 2009

tracklist:

01 Occultic no Majo
02 Bring The Fate
03 Occultic no Majo miracles mix
04 Occultic no Majo (off vocal)

direct download: [MU]

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yet another umineko post. Although both songs are fairly nice, overall I like the question arc's songs like Shikata Akiko's Umineko no Naku Koro ni and Nekomaneki Kagekidan's Active Pain/Shirabe/Discode.

Magna Carta 2's DLC...NOT!

So I'm currently atDisc 2 of Magna Carta 2. The game's surprisingly pretty linear and despite not following any walkthrough, I was still able to keep track with all sidequests (with reference to xbox360achievements.com). Although, I'm here to rant about something else...

It has been proven that it is impossible to max a character's skill tree by default levelling (plus 1 or 2 Seekers Kamond+Pendant of Skill), so the only possible way to do this is by purchasing the ultimate weapon via DLC (which grant a MASSIVE 18 Kamond slots, allowing up to 18x30%+50% = 590% Skill Points bonus upon leveling up). Seeker Kamond, however is a massively overpriced item which is only available on the 2nd visit to Cota Mare, costing 40,000 SID each. which means, to maximise Skill Point acquisition, I need to farm 17 Seekers (since I already has one obtained from previous quest), which is roughly 680,000 SID... But fear not, for I had endure 6 hours of rigorous money grinding (before going to Ruhalt Basin) and was finally able to accumulate the necessary amount of money. Then I went to xbox.com, buy 1000 Microsoft Points and spend 400 on the DLC which contains the weapons and 3 extra scenes... BUT

when I load the game, there's no sign that I've unlocked the scene, or weapons in my inventory. I was like..what the fawk has happened??? So after a few lurking, although I have yet to find a concrete proof, I come to conclude that the ASIA version of Magna Carta 2 has NO DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT aka DLC. 400 MS Points that I spent had gone to waste, unless Microsoft can do something about it..

No DLC in Asia version has left me in despair! My money grinding has gone to nothing, because even though I can (and has already) buy 17 Seekers, there is no weapon that can hold that much kamond except the DLC weapons D :
oh well, for now I can only hope that near the future the dlc will become available on asia version -.-

so my advise to people playing asia version of MC2: don't aim for dlc contents or maxing both Skill Trees, at the moment this is just impossile.


EDIT: SOLUTIONS FOUND, check this post
http://serph-siden.blogspot.com/2009/12/magna-carta-2-overcoming-dlc-content.html

p/s: apparently some people had trouble farming that much Sid to buy Seekers. I personally haven't found any better way than my method, that is by going through the Leti Cave around Chieftain Hill over and over again. Control Zephie in the process to get as many HP lvl3 kamond as possible (and Attack level 3 from the Beast around the save point). This method allows me to accumulate enough money for 17 seekers after grinding for about 5-6 hours. Enough to max one DLC weapons with Seekers.

Umineko dojin [part 4]

before I sleep, I guess I'll put some more of these:

others:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Click me to view

continued from part 3. Beato really crave something out of Battler :3

can't get full size working, ddl image

ASUS Autumn 2009 - Summary

One of the most well known tournament series in Russia, ASUS Autumn, has been announced and will feature an overall prize money of $5,000.
ASUS Autumn will be featuring DotA this year once again where many of the top and mixed Russian teams will be competing. The tournament will take place on November 22

Participating teams and bracket

Planet-X
Xboardneverdie
60lt
Zaven Pro
n4f
DotersGGNoobs
AEON.ru
Watch your back Wyb.
Panda
Mix1
BDBD
Tom
DTS.Chatrix
–A
PRADO
}|{yPaBJIu team
MYM
Dice
RoX.KIS.DotA
RF
8479
Slavik PRO
RUSxD
RR33

Tournament outcome

1. AEON.ru (60,000 rubies/~$2,071)
   
2. DTS.Chatrix (40,000 rubies/~$1,380)
   
3. Planet-X ($20,000 rubies/~$690)
   

Links
Prodota.ru: tournament infos, brackets and playoffs
Prodota.ru: group stage and playoff replays
Gosugamers: replays

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ASUS LAN tournament returns, featuring some of the finest eastern european teams battling for glory. It was quite fortunate that the event happened right after my final exam so I had the time to watch some of the replays (although even in exam time it still doesn't stop me from watching, like those DPCS replays). Notable teams playing in this tournament includes my ever-favorite AEON.ru (they had different lineup this time, with Puppey and Amsi not coming), Ukrainean powerhouse DTS-Chatrix & Planet-X, and a few other known Russian teams/players like Rox-Kis and Zaven-Pro. AEON.ru and DTS understandably won't be coming to SMM this coming weekend and hence justify their participation in this tournament. And for everyone's surprise, one of the best team in Europe, MYM also attended...NOT. Apparently it has been confirmed that the team is just fakenicking MYM name, and hence was apparent from their lack of skills and teamplay shown notably during their playoff game against Wyb. What the hell?

Nevertheless conratulation to AEON.ru for their 2nd winning title after the DPCS victory last months. Despite their unconvincing performance in recent online tournament F4F2 and EDC, they somehow still able to pull off great teamwork in this tournament, winning most games convincingly.


recommended replays: Since so far I've only watched AEON's replay, I can only recommend the Grand Final match of AEON.ru vs DTS.
replay page: [download] (6.64, 1.24)
comments: In term of innovation,this replay might not offer something new, but the excitement was kept at highest level throughout the game, which made this game worth to watch. Great teamfight and skill execution by both teams. The tense kept until the end when Aeon started to gain advantage due to their superior teamfight combo. Would have been different outcome if one or two DTS player get a BKB against such AOE from AEON, plus a diffusal for Warlock's infernal and Scen. The fact that Tide and VS was pretty underlevelled compared to Lion only in AEON doesn’t help either.