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.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni Character Song CD Vol.2 - Beatrice & George

Umineko no Naku Koro ni Character Song CD Vol.2 - Beatrice & George Ushiromiya [Sayaka Ohara & Kenichi Suzumura]

tracklist:

01 Chain / チェイン
02 ai no sengen / 愛の○○宣言
03 Anthology Drama ''Beatrice no koi no magic daisakusen'' /アンソロジードラマ「ベアトリーチェの恋のマジカル大作戦」
04 Chain / チェイン off vocal
05 ai no ○○ sengen / 愛の○○宣言 off vocal

download: [MU]
*credit to sakurahana for the album*
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finally vol 2 is out : D But to be honest I didn't really expect it to combine Beato and George together in this character song single (I would rather see Beato and Battler, but who doesn't). Seriously why Beato-George pairing, it just doesn't feel right D : Well it probably has something to do with the anthology drama I suppose (Geoge being lovey dovey with Shannon, and as usual Beato come to join the party). By the way, I love Beato's song :3



related posts:

RD - Umineko compilation Part 1 (dead links)
RD - Umineko compilation Part 2 - Umineko Motion Graphics
RD - Umineko collection part 3: Nekomaneki Kagekidan/CircleTempo
RD - Shikata Akiko - Katayoku no Tori [Umineko OP]
RD - Umineko Motion Graphic vol.1
RD - Umineko no Naku Koro ni Character Song CD Vol.1 - Jessica & Maria

Magna Carta 2 - the prologue

MagnaCarta II (マグナカルタ 2) is a video game developed by Softmax and published by Banpresto exclusively for Xbox 360. It is a follow-up to the role-playing games Magna Carta: The Phantom of Avalanche released on Windows and Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata released on the PlayStation 2. It was released in Japan on August 6, 2009 and in North America on October 13, 2009. This marks the series' first entry onto a seventh generation console. The game was officially unveiled in the April 2009 edition of Famitsu magazine.

Links:
Magna Carta 2 on wikipedia
Magna Carta 2 official website (japanese)

Waiting for this game to be released could well be one of my worst experience in video gaming, not because of the anticipation like I had for eg. Star Ocean 4, but rather because of constant delaying of release date. First the game was announced to be released in the middle of September (an ideal time, right at the start of my mid-semester break), but then got delayed to early October. So I made my preorder on Play-Asia, but then the game got delayed AGAIN to Oct 23rd. To my demise, by the time this game is ready to be shipped, 2 other games that I preordered went out of stock (they were available when I made my pre-order btw). It's not until I sent them a few messages to separate my order that the game was finally shipped, and arrived at my home last Monday. But then, at the moment I am preparing for my final exam so it is not until yesterday that I was able to touch the game. Tough luck -.-

OK enough rubbish rant. I've managed to play up to 7 hours of the game before putting this game on hold for at least another week and focus on my 2nd exam paper. No need to remind me on how bad Magna Carta:Crimson Stigmata on PS2 is, I am well aware of the crappiness of the first installment (despite still able to finish the game completely). That however does not discourage me from being optimistic on Magna Carta 2, and from my 7 hours gameplay, I could well say that my anticipation paid off, Magna Carta 2 has improved significantly compared to its predecessor.

wait, isn't this place looks familiar?

The graphic and special effects in battle were beautiful as expected, I especially love the way they do the cutscenes (or rather, the dialogue sequences). Anyone who played Magna Carta 1 would be familiar with the character design (keyword: Hyung-Tae Kim). Talk about characters with weird clothes.. well at least this time the clothes are not as weird as those in Magna Carta.


GAMEPLAY

The actual gameplay of Magna Carta 2. The Overdrive, Chain, Chain Drive, Chain Break are demonstrated. Without proper timing, your character can easily go into Overheat state and trust me it's damn annoying. If you're familiar with them, you can recognize Jun Fukuyama and Hirano Aya voice in this video.

I'd probably just jump to the main thing I want to comment about - the gameplay. Since Magna Carta, the gameplay has changed massively, the only similar things remained are probably the interswitching from exploring to battle mode (remember those sphere thingy that you emit when you draw your sword, and you walk slowly in MC1), and the elements. No more of those annoying press-the-button circle upon action, Magna Carta 2 seems to shift into a semi-action rpg game. To be brief, I would say that the basic gameplay is similar to Infinite Undiscovery. Unique features are added to enhance the gameplay, and in this case, it is the Overdrive/ Overheat/ Chain system. Basically attacks consume stamina, and if you yoused up your stamina you enters Overdrive state (limit break/trance/overdrive in ff, sorta). Unfortunately, upon finishing your moves, you'll become exhausted and enters Overheat state, which is very annoying at the beginning. There is of course a way to overcome this, and that is by Chaining skill/transferring overdrive to other party member (Chain Drive/Chain Break). Too complicated to explain I guess.. But so far I enjoy the gameplay in MC2, much better than MC1. The only thing that I don't quite understand so far is the elemental attribute in battle (Element Kan/Alchemy). I thought it was some sort of Fon Circle as in Tales of the Abyss, but I am still not clear about this feature.


by the way, although I am a bit disappointed that the English version does not have the option to use Japanese voice (dammit there's Jun Fukuyama, Hirano Aya, Rie Kugimiya and Ayako Kawasumi!), the English voice acting aren't that bad either. Celestine's english voice is as annoying as Kugimiya, she did a good job in conveying those kinda of voice lawl.
And I love the casual comedies present in the game so far. Celestine always made me laugh with her warm and immature personality (and her weird taste too!) , and sometimes seeing Juto and Crocell's having a go at each other made me crack a laugh too.

Umineko collection part 3: Nekomaneki Kagekidan/CircleTempo

Title: ACTIVE PAIN
circle: Nekomaneki Kagekidan/猫招き歌劇団

tracklist:

1. ACTIVE PAIN
2. CORE BLUE
3. SHELTERING SKY
4. ACTIVE PAIN(alternative ver.)
5. ACTIVE PAIN(piano ver.)
6. ACTIVE PAIN(without vocal)
7. CORE BLUE(without vocal)
8. SHELTERING SKY(without vocal)
9. ACTIVE PAIN(EDsize)

download: [Megaupload]

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

Title: DisCode
circle: Nekomaneki Kagekidan/猫招き歌劇団

tracklist:

01 - Prologue
02 - dai ichi shou Discode
03 - Interval-1
04 - dai ni shou tsukimu yoru ～Mid Night～
05 - Interval-2
06 - dai san shou chinkonka ga kikoe tekitanara ～REQUIEM～
07 - Epilogue
08 - Discode(alternative ver.)
09 - Discode(without vocal)
10 - tsukimu yoru ～Mid Night～(without vocal)
11 -chinkonka ga kikoe tekitanara ～REQUIEM～(without vocal)
12 - Discode(ED size)

download: [Megaupload]

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Title: Senritsu ~Shirabe~
circle: Nekomaneki Kagekidan/猫招き歌劇団

tracklist:

01 - Senritsu ~Shirabe~
02 - hadou ~konokoe~
03 - Senritsu ~Shirabe~(without vocal)
04 - hadou ~konokoe~(without vocal)
05 - Senritsu ~Shirabe~(game original ver.)
06 - Senritsu ~Shirabe~(piano ver.)

download: [Megaupload]

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Title: Sound of Golden Witch
circle: CircleTempo

tracklist:

01. Prologue
02. サソリのノウズイ
03. 胡散の香り
04. ロウソクたちが踊る
05. オトナノノミモノ
06. 魔女の頬杖
07. 白日夢の果て
08. キゲイト
09. HIBUTA
10. 木馬の頃
11. Happy Maria!
12. オルガン小曲第６億番ハ短調
13. オトコマン
14. 金色の嘲笑
15. サソリのハラワタ
16. ヨルーミ
17. あの日にふれたくて
18. 600 million ruins

download: [Megaupload]

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

Title: Ougon Syndrome/黄金シンドローム
circle: CircleTempo

tracklist:

01 - ご来場の皆様へ
02 - Happy Maria!-BAND ARRANGE-
03 - ウサンノカオリ
04 - 大いなる金持ち
05 - 花園の崩壊
06 - Birth of a new witch
07 - 出演者よりお知らせ
08 - Happy Maria!-BAND ARRANGE-(off vocal)
09 - ウサンノカオリ(off vocal)
10 - 大いなる金持ち(off vocal)
11 - Birth of a new witch(off vocal)

download: [Megaupload]

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Active Pain and Sound of Golden Witch are reuploaded because the old link that I posted before in Umineko Compilation Part 1 were dead (in fact all links were dead o.0). Don't missed out 3 of the better Umineko songs from the visual novel - Active Pain, Discode and Senritsu Shirabe from Nekomaneki Kagekidan, while CircleTempo brought us the creepy hallowen song Happy Maria and the Band Arrange version. I've always love Discode and Shirabe from the old Umineko BGM collection (especially Shirabe's soothing melody), good to see that there's some other versions of the songs. Birth of a new Witch is not bad too, the singer's voice remind me to Asriel/Kokomi a lot, although she actually isn't.
btw, pardon the Ougon Syndrome's description, I upload it in a hurry a few days ago due to kiru's request lawl.

related posts:

RD - Umineko compilation Part 1 (dead links)
RD - Umineko compilation Part 2 - Umineko Motion Graphics
RD - Shikata Akiko - Katayoku no Tori [Umineko OP]
RD - Umineko Motion Graphic vol.1
RD - Umineko no Naku Koro ni Character Song CD Vol.1 - Jessica & Maria

DotaProClub Series #1 - summary

DotaClub is a new online tournament that has been announced today. DotaClub's head admin is none other than Yaroslav 'NS' Kuznetsov, famous support player and founder of recently established Kael League.
The first DotaClub tournament features a $5,000 prize-pool, and in addition to the prize-pool, DotaClub has noted that they plan on continuing these tournaments on a regular basis.

The tournament take place from November 7-8.

Participating Teams and brackets:

• Xeo Frenezy
  Unique E-Sports
  MYM
  Fnatic.MSI
  AEON.ru
  dmZ
  DTS.Chatrix
  EnRo-Griffins

Tournament outcome:

1. AEON.ru ($3000)
   
2. dmZ ($1500)
   
3. MYM ($500)
   

Links:
DCS official site
DCS1 bracket and replays
alternate replays@Gosugamers
Coverage@GosuGamers

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As mentioned, the tournament was held last weekend (Nov 7-8). It was unique in a way that despite being an online tournament, the format was made to be like LAN tournament where teams competes in playoff format, all within 2 days. Hence some teams could end up playing up to 6 games in a day, which could be tiresome if you ask me. Overall the tournament was successfull with some very good matches shown by the participated teams, producing some of the best replay I've ever seen in recent months. MYM, Fnatic and AEON.ru were among the favorites to win the tournament. MYM proved that they are still as strong as ever as they march on to take the third place, with their unexpected lose coming from their loser bracket against Germany team DmZ. AEON.ru meanwhile showed their prowess by losing only a single game (against MYM in the winner bracket) in the entire tournament. I have to say the addition of former KS.Int captain, Puppey's to the team adds extra depth to the team in term of stability and strategy, and this was shown with their subtle massive AOE domination strategy in their grand finalg ame against DmZ. Congratulations to AEON.ru for winning their first major tournament. I really hope eryc would consider taking them to this year's SMM.

Recommended replays:

loser bracket semi final, MYM vs Fnatic.
replay page: [download] (6.64, 1.24)
comment: WATCH. THIS. REPLAY. That's all I can say. Easily the best replay I've seen this month. MYM starts strongly, leading in kills 27-7 leaving no hopes for Fnatic to comeback. But I thought wrong. Fnatic then revives what was used to be a formidable strategy back in the old days of 6.1+, getting 5 necronomicon and started a massive push. In an instant, the tide of the game changed and suddenly MYM found themselves cornered and lost their top and middle rax. The teamfight was so chaotic that I couldn't see properly what was happening, with the amount of units involved. It's funny to see how ES blink in and ulti, and died in an instant due to Last Will. But it did not stop at that. MYM replies by massing Blade Mails to counter the blue demon's Last Will and overall Fnatic's massive push. It all thanks to massive performance by Tinker and earthshaker that MYM was able to hold their bottom rax and kill all 5 Fnatic heroes before going straight to throne.
Big credit to Fnatic for reviving such strategy and almost had the game if not because of ES and Tinker's amazing play by Kuroky and Angel. I would have thought that they could easily seal the game by using Pit Lord's portal and teleport straight to the tree to finish the game, but instead thei choose to take down MYM's bottom rax and was unsuccessful. Plus, since they were using 5 necronomicon strat, they could as well ban ES in the first place.


grand final, AEON.ru vs DmZ
replay page: [download] (6.64, 1.24)
comment: What makes this replay interesting is the way AEON.ru approach the game - they aimed for total AOE domination with the pick of Warlock, ES and Lich. I could say that it's hard for DmZ to realize this until the final pick of Lich, considering Mirana, Slardar, Warlock and ES are among the standard ganking/push heroes. DmZ mostly dominate small skirmish and ganks, however they simply cannot cope with AEON in large teamfight - Warlock Ulti and Bond, ES blink in, Ulti to clear creep, followed by Lich's Ulti. The replay itself is amazing to watch.