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We're entering our last chance qualify day now that all of our group stage best of ones
have wrapped up.
We get to look towards the best of threes and really put our teams to the test.
It's been a lot of fun over the last four days.
Enter date number five with tea and Quinn respectively. How are you doing? I'm good at a I had a me so cookie this morning
Oh, how did you rate it because I was highly rated from a lot of different members of staff?
It was it was not okay, so I felt like you need to mine was not that warm
I felt like I would need to like go into a place and heated it
Okay, but it was good for sure not my favorite like the almond croissant still still I had that one this morning
I have a separate time though, but I did have an almost myself
It was magical and I would highly recommend would you also put that one at number one?
Oh, yeah easily is like all because what is number one?
It's kind of unreal but not only the texture the layers the croissant inside
But you also got this like woman cutting through in different styles with like the nut
But they also have the cream. It's just everything you'd ask for how you guys more passion about
Don't eat them so I've never gonna know either
Yeah, I don't know. Okay, that's that's a little off and now it would be she ate it
So yeah, I'd probably be dead right and I would probably end but either way
We're gonna talk about how you results of yesterday that final group stage day where we had some best of ones again
We followed Falcons all the way down there a trajectory of their last three best of ones
But they ended up losing all of them power vision. Well, they had a decent day for themselves
They did lose against spirit
but they did get that win down there.
More importantly, whilst we're not seeing all of LGD's games here,
we are seeing two of the three that they won, one against Extreme Gaming,
and of course, having to do that Tundra best of one right off the back,
cover up 25 minutes, of their 111 minute game earlier.
Yeah, it's impressive resilience. It's a good trait to have.
I think this team has looked better than they ever have.
I think even whenever they were heroic and they did pretty well,
a couple of prior blasts, it was not as convincing as they have been at this,
so I'm optimistic for their future.
I'm just happy for LGD going into a double limb bracket
because of course, in slams, it's always been,
you get a decent group stage,
you go to a single limb of gauntlet,
you make one mistake, you're up,
and now it's like, there is that breathing room,
so if the best of three's are a little harder for them,
they have that cushioning,
so I'm expecting a good run for them.
Yeah, well it's been a bit of a marathon
over the last few days for all of our watches
having a cover boat, the A stream and the B stream,
and so many best of ones,
so we've wrapped up all of that action
into a nice little recap for you.
This is not to use the over burn for Yotara.
Ten towards nine plus, nine plus, and get out with the invict.
Double lasso.
Seeing them out together, Zip TP.
The lasso de-locking down the other two big calls as Yotara cleans them up.
Perhaps they can try to beat an 5-man camp hero for it.
Ooh, they're gonna get a big set up here.
Bursting in pretty learning shot.
He's getting a kill with Yotara.
They're gonna get the BKBR.
Spock sparkles in, it's not enough to kill Boxy.
A Mars gone.
The cave lets his hands his ground they'll clean them up all in thunder as well
Those come on security the nightmare we make him out of it give them the chance to put the BKB in action
Let's turn getting to the center of the fight with the other heels up the stones on Susukina skin against them
But it ends miserably for them as curatish. He survives
Oh, my God!
If one's boss looks up this time, it's gonna be off the mark.
Don't get the moment of wanton line.
Get his ball with the focus behind it.
Might secure the kill.
Now again, we need to get on top of the draw range
with WS5.
But there's gonna be no follow-up knife.
Follow up with the other direction.
Now it comes back.
But that's Jimi's ever against him.
Separation one move, right click.
Nice and quick.
Get to kill last moment.
They're really defensive place manor here, the call at 5-9, there's an A on disc and the cold embrace, the winters curse comes down, he's trying to keep himself alive but he can't, KJ's A on disc gets popped as well on the tier 2, the BKBs are at the war, he's gonna catch you and he's got this, but the little shit in there, oh my god, Whisper does it again behind the tier 4s, they finally did it!
That was so much that we got to see yesterday was on the A and B. What's more important
though is our group standings. What was the implications of, what was it, three man stolen
techies explosion?
Nothing was the implications.
Unfortunately, they still ended up losing that one. But it almost had some good implications.
We do have LGD and Parivision Toppin, the group standings. They make themselves all the
way to semi-finals. They know that they're coming to Copenhagen. Bedboom and Falcons are similar,
but they know that they'll be here. However, it's only to the quarterfinals for themselves.
We had eliminated as well, Glyph and Extreme Gaming, but this is what the playoff's bracket is
looking like. Of course, it's not completely filled out, and it is a bit different this time around
T for those who missed on day one. We're going to a double elimination playoff's bracket.
No, yeah. It's going to just be refreshing for the teams. Like I said before, we went to the video
package, like knowing that you can make a mistake on your first day and recover, I think it's going to
help a lot of teams like in mentality because beforehand the last six slams, it is just grueling,
like you fly out here, you're like a best of five or best of three, like all the pressure on it,
and sometimes team crumbled, like normally the top teams would do well, but now it's kind of
back to the normal way of a Dota kind of bracket. Yeah, it's one of my favorite things about Dota as
an esport, I think compared to a lot of other games, is that there are way more double elimination
tournaments and it's just much higher competitive integrity and oftentimes you'll see these awesome
lower bracket runs and they're so incredibly memorable like they're so hype and they become
epic storylines for like all of Dota history and so I really really like that and I'm happy
that we get to see it here because I just think it's just cool. Unless it's best of fives.
Best of fives? Best of fives? Best of fives in the entire single limb bracket? I'm there for you.
Yeah that corrupts all areas. Yeah it's double limb or best of fives but there's just single limb it's like
like, unless it's like a major, it can be a little bit funky sometimes.
Well, like I said, it wasn't completely filled out, right?
Because we only had four out of our six teams that are making it to Copenhagen.
And that's because there is the last chance qualifiers for six teams to play.
At the end of the day, there's only two slots left, but Aurora, Tundra,
that's going to be happening over on the B stream.
They'll later today go up against Liquid if they win.
But for us around the A stream, we're going to cover that top side.
We're looking at who potentially could be coming up against Yandex later today.
And that's going to be either OG or Spirit.
Yeah, this is a little bit of a David vs. Goliath, I think,
especially if you think historically.
Spirit definitely should be the favorites here.
That being said, Spirit has been shaky recently,
and they've also been shaky in this tournament.
And OG has been on the slight upward trajectory, I'd say.
So it may not be as bleak as you would think
coming into the tournament,
but still a Spirit-favorite matchup, I'd say.
Yeah, that's the joy of what has happened
over the last four days,
it's just how much almost information gathering team we're able to do.
No, yeah, for sure. I think the best of ones, it really just makes, like, it makes it so much easier to understand, like, what the players will look like,
because you get to play what 66 best of ones, all the heroes getting paid, seeing what team they're looking for.
And I think with OG, like, they are in this rut, but it only takes one conversation or one player to realize something,
and then they'll be able to find some form to be competitive again.
Like, I'm hoping that is the case, because I agree with Quinn, this is kind of an uphill battle for them,
but it's always possible, especially when you've played so many games in a group stage,
there'll be so many reference points to go, if we improve this factor,
we can become a team that can get to Copenhagen.
Yeah, it's a shame to see either great picks in draft, kind of not work out to a win,
but it's even more disappointing when you see an incredibly awesome play,
unfortunately not work out in a win for a team.
Oh, it's, it doesn't have, oh, they're going through the twin game.
Oh
All I wanted was to see that again, but also be a win for this
Yeah, I mean we talked about OG just now we talked about glyph both teams if they were able to find wins last night
Would have shaped tundra's position in the group stage
They could have been eliminated if either of those three teams were able to win. I thought that was going to be tilt worthy
to Dundra. I feel like if you... I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised Dundra, like, persevered through it.
I mean, if you get three insta kills and you still lose the game, to me that's a sign you probably should have been eliminated.
That's what I'm gonna forget, like, Lyft in the next game after Yo-Kam then played Tekkis.
So the dopamine... Oh, he had so much fun then, huh? The dopamine of being moving into Tekkis was like,
make just give me the actual tech is I want to be the techies and he was placing mines in the same sport in the
next game and like you can see on the play cam like he had that kind of like
kind of moment it didn't happen though, but you know he was trying yeah and see trying a lot of different things
I wanted to look at what heroes aren't really working out for some people though because what we have noted is the
Win rate of these heroes that's the tide under right now is sitting
the game. I mean, it's not
just about getting 0% 0% out of
five games that has been
picked up Storm hoodwink and
windranger with his other three
years for me that are getting
such high priority in a draft
and also coming out on the
worst tail end of it. Before we
jump on the tight hunter, I
will just say, I think emo has
helped Storm Spirits when
they kind of tank a little bit
not because of him being a bad
Storm Spirit player. They are
first phasing it and they were
the two and 19 in the group
stage with a lot of stories
Now going back to him, the range carry is dominating the save flame.
It is hard to pick Tidehunter, other than, you know, seeing everything in the draft before,
used to kind of just only ban Ursa, pick Tide, your game's fine.
Now it's like, is Tidehunter in the pool? Is Effort in the pool?
Could they maybe still Ursa? Can I pick Tide? And it's just not really working out.
Especially if 33 yesterday was struggling a little bit on the Tidehunter.
And that was a lost pick Tide, right? They were like, this is it.
This is going to solve all of our issues, and we're going to be able to do what we want in this game with the Tide.
And it's still lost.
Yeah, I mean they still just get drought immediately after, and you just need to shoot them in the head.
I mean the one for me that is the least maybe indicative of a hero's quality as Hoodwink, I think that hero is still quite good.
And sometimes a hero that is a first pick hero, or a hero that you just pick in any context,
oftentimes will have slightly lower win rate, even though the hero is successful.
You think about like Pangolier traditionally, in turn it will have like 40% win rate, but it still picked every single game.
And I think Hoodwink is another case of that.
Yeah, I mean, hoodwinks are so easy to pick in a draft that it doesn't feel bad, but like, you see a team trying to pick Wyvern in a draft, it goes really quickly punished, even though hoodwink has a low win rate, it's not the hoodwink's fault, it's not, she's not breaking the draft integrity, it's like, many other factors in play, so honestly, I would still personally, if I was drafting in the solo, I still would be picking hoodwink, like, I would ignore the win rates entirely, because like, the hero is very stable.
Well, the Windranger one, I think, is somewhat important here because that is, again, the default coming in, looking at what was happening in the previous tournament, that people wanted to have their carries.
And we've talked about the fact that we're more on a ranged hero, carry meta as well, get Windrangers down on that bottom half compared to a draw or an SF now.
Yeah, but I feel like Windranger, you put it on your carry when your carry doesn't want or isn't ready to play the draws on SF.
In this tournament, we are seeing the rise of those heroes, but with Nightfall or Skidder, they're not suddenly jumping on these heroes, they're staying true to, I want to pick my Tiny, I want to pick my Windranger.
I think this is the default carry option in the ranged position, and maybe in a tournament's time, or maybe two tournaments' time, other people would have realized where I shouldn't be picking Windranger.
So I think this is just kind of like the clinging on to the past meta, and it's just somehow still existing in our Sam.
Yeah, I think another big aspect of why Winnerger is worse than some of the other turrets is her item build.
This Mjolnir item is just not very good right now. Almost nobody buys it. Winnerger needs the item to work though
because she can't farm otherwise. Compared to Drowen Shadowing, they're just buying stats.
They're buying items that make them chat up and let them get into the game a little faster.
Whereas Winnerger is still like, she's just spending $5,000 gold on a farming item that makes you stronger in fights, sure.
But it's just not the same.
Well, I took this conversation right outside of just the three of us.
I know I'm sorry about that one, but it's because I spoke to Adam, the coach of OG, to take his fill-ups on some of the carries and what exactly the meta is shaping up for them as well.
So that we've seen, you know, a lot of different heroes coming out from you guys in OG, and I want to know, is there an idea around trying to utilize the best of ones to explore more, or are you just struggling a little bit having a grasp on the current meta?
I think we understand the current meta, but we are not able to play the current meta to a level where everything we can win.
I mean, I can just say it, I guess our tournament is like two plus two days. We're trying to like carry Slick because not so many hero pulls are very big.
It feels like we don't have enough like cheesy heroes or like carry power heroes on the off-lane and mid-fights.
That's how I feel drafting. But I think right now because we are, I mean, I'm not going to say that we are a new team, but we are new to each other.
I think we have less than 15 games total with Toronto and there's a lot of misalignment
with the way we want to play right now.
I think the four of them are a bit more active on the map and Sanya's Toronto's playstyle
is a bit more stable and far me.
So it feels a bit like the interactions are not clean between us yet and our ideas of
the game.
a lot of us are moving forward and he's moving backwards sometimes. So we're trying to integrate
and teach each other and learn. And lastly, it's been a real pleasure to work with so far. It's just
that I think the misalignments are annoying because he's not here. I think the biggest factor in
all this is that he's not here. I hate having these conversations. They are not easy. I think
the parents, maybe naturally, were a bit avoidant. I think these conversations are so difficult.
over attacks is even worse.
And we don't have these daily interactions
where we're with each other and they play pounce
and they're like, hey, come here, watch this.
It's like everything is through Discord and attacks.
And it feels like there's so...
There's a lot of emotion that is being pulled away
from the interaction.
A lot of what Adam is talking about is very predominant
when you look at the numbers of unique heroes
that they're picking in this tournament too.
They're at the highest, with 40 different heroes
being picked up over these best of ones.
and it really does illustrate what he's talking about.
There's different ideas about how they want to play the map,
where they feel that they can fit themselves in a draft,
what's left when it comes down to bands and picks.
Yeah, the cultural divide, I think, does quite a bit there.
You're introducing multiple styles of drafting,
multiple styles of opinions about the heroes,
and this is kind of the result.
I think if anything, this number is probably a little bit too big,
and it's probably hurting OG more than it's helping them.
I mean, it normally is a result of teams, as you heard in the interview,
that when you're trying to find yourself, it's like every game,
it's like, do you want to try this, do you want to try that?
Like you're using the officials as scrims. That's what I in scrims
You're meant to have this white hero pool you want to go what's gonna stick and eventually you take all the little things
And then you kind of whittle it down you get your 30 heroes you go with a tournament
But the fact you're on 40. It's like kind of extreme but even that sumi
He's the only player in this tournament to played a unique hero in every single gameplay so far in the group stage
He's at 11 different heroes played in 11. Yeah 11 best of 11 11 best of ones. That's the better wording for it
And it's like, I know in some tournaments, you want to praise players because of this.
Like, we've had, you know, collapse in previous tournaments where you had different offlanings in every single game.
We've had your Toro as well doing the same thing.
I think even that Sumion previous slams has had a record like this,
but when your team is faltering, having that instability of not knowing what is your rock, what is your success,
I think is hurting OG a lot because every game, it is something new.
I think you can get away with your carry having 11 different heroes and best of ones.
If the rest of the draft is a little bit more solid if they're doing, you know what they're saying
They're leaving that to me to the end. Okay, a lot of bands are targeted towards him
He needs to start looking at different heroes that are good for the for the game
But instead it's like a everyone is doing something different and now that you're also throwing in a new carry
There's too many too many parts of the equation that are adding up
Yeah, I think only so many people get to be creative and sort of hipster and cool
A lot of people need to be rocks the team
I'd say probably at a minimum or at a maximum only two people can be hipsters
I think the other three have kind of be like we've got a small pool
We're playing our small pool and I can tell you whenever you have like a really solid pool
It feels really good going into a tournament you feel very confident because it's like we're going to pick these heroes
Okay, they're banned or I could pick between this and that and then you have you understand the matchups really well and intensely because you focus
So much of your information on deeply understanding these heroes
It's a very it feels very confident and very good going into a tournament that way
And what about when you shift towards looking at at best of threes right because the best of one we can give them that benefit of the
that of, oh, they want to keep changing it up,
because maybe there's niche things against certain opponents.
But now that you're looking at best of three,
how specific do you have to be?
I feel like if anything, you do more specific
and best of ones, because you want
to have a good stratagem that you're just running back
over and over and over again, and you're adapting less.
I feel like in a best of three, you need to be more adaptable.
And more thinking of the series as a bigger picture,
and not just each isolated game, how the trends are,
what this team likes, are they choking,
What is the vibe like all these things play into it? Well, we've coined this team many times as a best of three team
But I wanted to ask you to write his viewpoint on if they really are better in best of threes
Now that we're out of the group stage where we've we're leaving the best of ones behind and we're moving towards the best of threes
How much more do you think that fits you and spirits sort of competitive style?
We never had a success about the best of one so
So we really like to play best of three series, but you can change something, you can try
to play against something, you can try to counter something and don't put all cards
on the table in the first match.
So I like best of three just much way better.
And so then how are you feeling coming up against OG today?
OG is a good team.
They made roster changes.
They're playing my past teammate on Tokyo.
So it's going to be fun match.
I hope they prepared well.
Do you feel like you have more insight into them that they have Toronto or they've got
more information on you with Toronto knowing so many of you guys?
I think they knew more information about us, to be honest, but we'll see how our game goes.
I like your listening to your Toro talk when you put pubs of that guy when he speaks you
listens kind of guy is it is that way and he was talking about yeah there is a little
bit of familiarity on both sides of the coin there as to how well they know Toronto Toronto
obviously knows them quite well but it feels like there is a little bit of a shift in the
side of spirit here too because right now they're only garnering success with the ranged
carries.
Yeah, I mean, draw ranger is the most obvious one of course, but when you look at the stats
here right, not yet to win on a melee carry for your Toro, but to be fair when he's playing
Nekafush from draw ranger, it's like he is an absolute medicine on these heroes.
There's a clear reason why you want him on these heroes, but it is shocking that he hasn't
yet won a simple melee game yet.
He was saying, we didn't get to show this property.
He was saying that you can't even in pubs play like a casual melee carry outside of
like Jug and Kez.
Maybe Tiny is what he said.
Jug, interesting.
Yeah I know, he loves Jug and he even played it and they ended up losing within this tournament.
Sotanik likes it as well.
Clearly there's like a, there's a clear like a WhatsApp group or other, you know, messaging
platform available.
I think I fucked it.
A lot sponsored, but again, if a messaging app wants to sponsor us, you can.
But yeah, like, there's clearly like a little group of all the carries because Jug is running
trued between like army to satanic to your tour like all three of them in like a
DM group together I mean there's a clear like you have to prove yourself to get
into the club yeah but I had all the requirements off this any sort of drug
memes you can spin like this oh my god I'm just saying it's interesting that
there's a little bit extra information and so now you do wonder who's gonna be
able to act hard at each other when we come down to the ranged carries or if
that's even gonna be left in the pool but let's get our best of three started
it between his spirit and OG.
said themselves that they're on the upward trajectory. They've learned a lot more in terms of synergy over the best of ones, but Spirit, well,
they know they're not a best of one team.
And so it feels like they're gonna be thriving in our first best of three here for the last chance qualifiers.
Our first draft has now taken out that Drow Ranger and Slardar to really be comforts for the side of Spirit,
so OG are aware of it and Spirit themselves inversely take out Lone Druid and Snapfire. Primal is now also added to the ban list.
First day is interesting. They have done pretty well with it in recent games and it is one of the few flexes that Spirit have.
But first day's ban is, to me that sort of goes back to the read thing. Sometimes you feel like we're going to prioritize certain heroes down the pipeline.
This may be good for them so we'll just get it out of the way so we don't have to think about it.
OG is the first Pango team. I was thinking maybe OG would consider the Pango as a ban rather than the Primal.
than the primal then you take away a lot of these like big statement spirit heroes that
have been neutralizing the group stage but taking away the primal hoping spirit was banning out the
panga themselves kind of makes sense but there needs to be there'll be one picking oji's draft
which will ah that's what you've gone for it also probably one picking oji's draft that we're like
why did they pick that i think it has both of those we're gonna like the oji draft there needs to be
be some level of confusion for OG to thrive. Just no random Winter Wyverns please. This
is the best day for you now. Yes, the Wyvern I really want everyone to just not look at
her right now. First pick Wyvern. Well it's the other hero we talked about. The other
one that did make the list of atrocious win rates in Glosslem 7. Yeah, I think the nice
part of this for OG is that they're just very comfortable playing with it. They played a
ton of games so that even before it was cool they kind of started the whole energy
trend back when this thing started becoming a more popular carry. So they have the, they sort of,
they know how to make a good draft around around a manager because they picked it so much. And that
is definitely a boon. And you have to respect, you know, OG and the fact that in their first game
of the tournament, they played it against P version. Sure, they lost, but then every other team
respect back in the first phase. It was a really close game that when you look at the result,
you might just be like, Oh, I'm higher vision one. Yeah, that makes sense. But it was actually a
pretty competitive game for the early 15 to 20 minutes. OG did well in being able to snuff out
a lot of Paris map. Yeah, there are many other draft problems in that one, rather than the
Windranger. Of course. The Windranger was fine. The other four heroes, we can debate. But the point
is, after that one game, it's always been banned out against them until now. So it is very much
OG going, oh my god, we have access to our Windranger. If every single team in the tournament,
Bar-P, vision respects it, there clearly is like, you know, a team to look at for the hero-play
combination outside of the stats that we were showing you before this draft started.
I'm curious to see if Ochi gives them the Shadowfiend. When you've got first pick
clock like this, you're already looking at a range carry, presuming you want to put clock safe lane.
So with draw a band, when you're taken, Shadowfiend is the next one you'd look at most likely.
I feel like you've got a banner here.
But also, acts is a really important consideration, right? With the rise of blade melt acts becoming
a thing because prior to the tournaments maybe even last one it was like Helm of Dorm into Aura's
and now people have gone back to blink blade mail axe so it's like Shadowfiend with a clock
makes a lot of sense but you don't have that many bands they've respected Lyon instead so I do
feel like Spirit Argon be able to still get some pretty good heroes against the Twin Ranger.
I mean one of two things that happened here either Spirit themselves been an axle maybe they
opened this bear the second phase with it because OG I feel like they are trying to limit
Tronk-Turk is pulled to some degree just to have stability in his playstyle.
And this is a pretty cool puck ban, right? Because OG promoted Lyon to these two bans,
it's like the only hex, like hero that's actually playable right now, I'd say.
So because of that ban, they have full spirit to ban the puck, but yeah,
no matter what, I have a team I think is considering the axe hero.
Yeah, I wonder if that puck ban is, like, if it is forced or if it's a read thing,
because I also wonder if that's why O.G. Bands lie in, because banning a lion there is very strange.
It's not like it's super good against Winnerger or something. If anything, I think those heroes
don't really interact. So it is possible that was sort of a pre-ban for Puck. It's also possible
it's just like a completely random ban. I don't think there are that many other turrets right now,
really. So they're just going to take a support, which is not what we see super often. It can be
tricky to pick cores back-to-back on the 1617 slot, you can realize, oh, we want this hero,
but then if we pick that hero, then these other heroes become weird. You haven't thought about all
the possibilities until you get there, oftentimes, so when you're picking them next to each other,
it can be tricky to have pick heroes that all have nice cohesion.
I mean, this about OG, ideally, they want to find a really strong five-position support,
and another hero that has flexed between multiple roles. And in spirits, we have to pick two cores,
Whilst we don't really know exactly where OGs here are going on the map,
and that's when OG can utilize this draft pattern from Spirit,
again, Windranger can be flexed between 4 and carry, so again, 5 plus another.
I feel like you do an off lane here, 5 and off lane for OGs, what you do?
Sure, yeah. Again, the Pango's to Slardar's to here, that flex can off-lane to mid are quite nice,
again, all will be banned out, so that would have been an interesting way for OG to progress their draft.
I also wonder if Toronto and Uplash have much of an overlapping hero pool?
No, I wouldn't say so.
Yeah, I don't know if you guys, this Frosty, can get away with that.
Yeah, I sort of like, the one hero I mentioned is like, nothing else after 3D.
Yeah.
I do think Ojiro will probably be looking at Timbersaw.
I think that's one of the better looking heroes they have, one of the more powerful heroes.
Yep.
Um, especially with Shadowfiend Pre-Band, you're not going to have to worry about that.
Oh no, guys, it hit two out of the four heroes in the 5-0 race.
Stop it.
This also...
They're going to play you last role. That's a lot matters.
That's it, that's it.
I don't dislike Storm, but I do dislike this blind storm because we've talked about it before, you just walk straight into Ember Spirit and they have nothing that's good against Ember Spirit.
Yeah, I wanted OG's draft here to create just some complication for Spirit, like consider the heroes you're picking, but yeah, as Quinn mentioned it's like, there's no, nothing hidden with Storm, like you know it's going to mid lane, you know exactly what it's gonna do.
Right now I'm going to go for the Largo, again nice lane matchup into the tree.
Of course your lick gets rid of living armor, you just naturally don't really feel pressure
against the tree and protector, so you're going to go stand your ground.
And with OG already kind of showing that Windranger probably is the carry, you don't really care
about him at all.
So, very nice there from Spirit, also the burst against Storm, Storm is a hero that's
like you want to zip in get a kill but one glimmer cape a couple heels and now
you're wasting even more mana to try to get that yeah I mean this clop is not
like on paper is not as good again storm as ember is I do think clop has a bit
better synergy with clockwork and hoodwink than ember does if you have ember
then your first four heroes might be a bit low damage compared to clop you
don't care about overgrowth so you can buy aggressive items you don't need to
to mind that spell, so you can get it licked off.
And then your two supports are much more set up,
so you can just sort of go with this ag,
Bloodstone, Kaisange, all the damage items,
and you will, like this hero is Unreal, Giga scaling.
And if OG doesn't have scaling,
I don't know if this team is clean enough
to execute early, so I can see the ration off for it.
It's just a fight that you bring as well,
like Croco Genius, you throw it onto Hoodwind Clock,
or Snorespirit, there's so much life to be had.
This isn't a lago that I'm envisioning,
full just farming the lane into jungle.
Like you can easily join your team for fight,
Yeah, just OG's lack of damage with the first two heroes. It is something to be really concerned about
It was like identical kind of feeling in the OG spirit game yesterday where it's like puck Wyvern
Axe Venge for OG. You look at these heroes on paper. Sure, you could close your eyes for 30 minutes
They can play a game, but to get there is quite difficult
Okay, Toronto Tokyo, we're slightly gonna be playing the Doom
With Largo, Qop, a lot of spell-casting heroes that want to kind of like kite in and out of the fight just be really annoying
It's fine, it still doesn't answer like spirits,
really scary kind of post-laning map movement timing.
It just feels more like we'll stay on our side of the river,
we'll be economic, we'll hit our creeps,
and then when we're ready together, we'll go fight.
It makes me wonder what these bands are gonna be
and what spirit looks to pick,
because we talked about it before, they have clockwork,
they're still looking at a turret,
but all the popular ones are out or taken.
So what does that leave you?
Because if you've got double melee against Doom,
he's gonna do pretty well in lane.
TB is a somewhat sensible band because he's sort of a pseudo-ranged hero for chunks of the lane.
But off the top of my head, I don't know what else they would really want,
because you want something that synergizes with clockwork in the lane specifically.
Because if you give Duma a free lane, then the hero becomes a problem.
Where if Duma is shut down, the hero is quite a burden,
because he just doesn't fight very well from behind.
He needs to run in and hit you with scorched earth and infernal blade,
and then you kind of just kill him when he runs in.
I mean there is also an argument that
Nexus is preferring to Doom, Camphill, kind of where they should chase you down
but it is the ranged hero that gives you that play
Oh, I think Periyan's okay, Periyan's okay, yeah
But if you want a melee option
I mean, can you not just bring back the Alchemist?
Okay, frame perfect, they banned it the same second
I'm just like looking at, you already have Largo in the off-lane with the croak
Then you put it onto the Qwap
Yeah, you put Aghs on the Qwap as well and it's like, all Qwap, all Go, all Lao, so
She gives you so much space for the Qwap
Well, it's not every day. They die in the same second, he's like,
I'm OG.
I just still feel like they're going to be looking more towards a range
than anything else when it comes to Spirit.
But they're going to see OG's pick before they get that overall last pick.
And for OG right now, they're looking for another support
unless they're willing to flex that.
Win, Ranger.
Yeah, I
Mean they they could I suppose pick a different carry. I don't know what that would be
You also same similar bow where you've got a tree and protect you've got this blob someone that's enabling some guy to keep hitting
So if you're picking something new, I don't know what it is that has that much oomph
Like it's not a particularly amazing you should profit game for OG
So I kind of would not like it if this one's when you're just support
And then OG also need to be mindful of the spirit like we mentioned it's a profit
There's still a TA potentially as an option just to try and play the lane against a doom that be a bit more threatening utilizing the clock
like there's
There's options for for your Toro and as much as you do want the range to the clock there are
That's when there's like monkeying as well. If you want to go a bit more fighty from the carry roll
But I don't know how much it goes in lane against
I'm doing this usually doesn't really like to play against it
be fine.
What does fine, I think?
Yeah, fine isn't good though.
Of all the options I mentioned, all of them just seem fine.
It's just more like what type of timings you want to play on.
I didn't even consider Tiny to be honest, but I'll be wrong.
And I don't think it's like some, I mean, Tiny's the kind of hero that is never going
to be an incredible Tiny game.
It will always be solid.
I think what Tiny does do is it makes Quap a better game.
three cores that none of them have inherent kill threat so if your Toro was a turret you'd have
you know a lot of that burden be put on your support so having one core that gives you kill
threat so quap can be more the star of the show i think is is it is not a bad route to go down
yes i'm just intrigued to know if your Toro is going to go for the silvered style of tiny or if
you're going to go for blink because if you go for the blink build where you have like echo blink
like hop and bkb like you did do that build recently it was yuma that's it like you're doing that
that because you know your mid lane is going to have a good game and because you have the
Largo with the aggression that supports like I can envision a world by spirit all want to
align for like this 15 minute everybody's going at full speed. Windrangers like still
struggling with only a Mausoleum like please stop fighting us I don't want to fight you.
Like there is a wall they do that and then for OG they need to be ready for the fact
that their tricorps is just really greedy like doom when you're in a storm. Sure if
you put like 15k gold and all of them they can take over any game it's just how efficient
can you really be when you're having to react to spirit
for so many minutes?
That is true, but to be honest, I kind of expected,
like when I go into the series,
I expect OG to feel more down in the draft.
And when I look at this game,
it doesn't feel that bad to me.
I look at these heroes, I think they have chances.
I off draft alone, I don't see a clear favorite.
To me, it's which team woke up with the right side of the bed
and is actually gonna play good though
to make good moves early game.
Cause I think it's very much an execution game to me.
I love that, you know, GR team that kind of just
skate by into this last chance, qualifies,
and put themselves in a position
where they have to have a best of three up against Spirit.
The fact we have even drops means
we're gonna have an even game one, right?
100%, Matt.
100%.
O.G. vs. Spirit.
In the last chance qualifier here for Blast Lance, Dunstan with Cinderan.
O.G. coming into this 3-8 in the group stage.
Yeah, five and six spirit won the best of one between them
Do you think spirit have the actual advantage or is this more? I mean, this is the best of three now
So we're out of the best of ones
I definitely think spirit looked better overall
And what the score line is one thing, but I also think in the games that they lost
I think they were more competitive on average and obviously they won their head-to-head
So I think it's it's hard to go into this expecting OG to be a favorite in any sense, but
But it's a BO3, and that could make a pretty big difference here, obviously now you have
more experience, you've played each other once, you've seen other teams, you've got
new ideas, and you get to recognize after a potential game 1 loss regardless of which
team you are, what the problem was and actually fix it.
I would probably give Spirit a significant edge still, I am expecting them to 2-0 this
series just based on what we've seen, but like the panel said, it's in these BO3 series
when you if you get off to a hot start that upsets happen and things can definitely change and
To OG's credit
In some of the games they won
I think they largely won because of interesting picks and other stuff that then other teams are running and they get their one
Ranger this time. It's just one of their best
Did you see that?
Yeah, just gated in front of their faces
Yeah, Toro
He was just taunting him. He didn't actually attack for some reason. I guess he wants the he wants the axe
little suit. Yeah, okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. It took me a while. It's just 5 AM here, so no,
it's going to take a bit of a wake up. It's not 5 AM here, that's why I knew why he did this.
It's the only reason, of course. Yeah. But yeah, he's going to be playing Tiny. That was the last
pick of the draft. It feels like it is, as Quinn described, kind of a stable carry of this overall
patch, the last couple patches in fact. It's never really going to blow you away, but it's always,
seems like it's good like are there bad I mean there's probably bad matchups or
are there bad tiny games overall these days?
I definitely think we've seen in the last couple months a couple of tiny picks that I very much
disagreed with I think there was one team that picked it into carry lifestealer for example
and a secondary counter I think there's limits to how you can get away with this but in this game
it looks fine it's really great to have a carry that can stun storm I think that's a big part of
of why Spirit picked this was that they want more lockdown and with Yatoro having this they have
a chance of killing not only Okrash but also Natsumi and Avalanche. Toss combo with a Silver Edge
eventually. So I think it was a decent choice. I don't know what the best carry this patch is
against Windrange if you wanted to specifically target that hero from a carry to carry position.
Tiny's good though. One of the better ones.
Collapse is playing the frog man, which has seen seems to have somewhat of a resurgence
Yeah, that's really the first thing we cast where it actually did well and they didn't go agg into very late
The collapse has always been pretty solid on this hero overall
So I am interested to see if he's gonna go cookie cutter of old or if yesterday's game
inspired him at all
That was serious one off maybe so in that game. It was whisper playing the
Largo and he went Shiva's second which made a ton of sense in that game because there was so much physical damage
I think that's the less obvious build this game
Against doom storm windranger cores. It's gonna be a lot of mixed damage storm is
Primarily magical so is windranger or she's a mix rather. She's not primarily magical, but she's gonna go
Generally speaking Yolnir, so
Doesn't make the she was that great
It'll be interesting to see picture collapse
And that's a scan. You can take a ton of battery assault damage for once we're seeing battery assault do something.
It's a one for one, but first we're going to collapse the big deal.
Now the fight over the Lotus continues. The Frogman wants it a little bit more than that, Sumi, I feel.
You won't be able to...
Not a fair fight, really.
Um, yeah, this is a really interesting lane to play Largo in, by the way.
This catcher lich has two uses. You can dispel Living Armor and you can dispel Windrun.
run, so you're trying to use it as late as possible, but you don't necessarily have the
luxury of doing that.
This time he did use the lick to keep Trand in the frog stomp, and then of course, Armor
comes out after that.
But just that deterrent in the hero's design is actually very useful for this lane.
And they get the first one.
I'm seeing a lot of tree.
His book pretty solid overall as well.
you mentioned, and his signature win-runner hero, we're not seeing a ton as position one, but
he always seems to pop off, not every time, but when he does, sometimes it is the win-runner.
And that's what's been funny about OG this tournament, is that I believe we've cast one,
if not two of their games, and the game that we cast that they won was with Kari Abaddon,
which no other team had played I believe at that point so yeah they have their
heroes that they've had for months and they're making it is in trouble and he
is dead that one though alrea's face boots on lago my god he's farmed holy
two kills including the first blood now for collapse
so this top lane is owned by spirit currently the mid lane between Laurel
on the queen of fame and yopaj storm very well relatively even more than I
It's coming off tomorrow, so he's going to have a slight level advantage at the moment.
That's top lane.
I was wondering if we were going to see NotMe go 2-1-0.
It's a pretty uncommon build nowadays on Clock, but I actually think this is the kind of lane where you could get away with it.
Since you're playing into Trant, who's a melee support, and into Windranger that you have a Dispel for,
it could actually be really powerful for Clock to get a second plant battery.
It more than doubles the damage of this ability. It has ridiculous scaling from 1 to 2,
to, but people just love bowling so much that I guess it wasn't really much of a consideration.
Speaking of, he's going mid.
Yo, Pudge.
Yep.
Oh, that is.
Well, maybe he should...
Oh, why did that not hit?
That...
Yeah, that second one should have hit, sure.
That hit right through.
What?
That was like one of those Pudge hooks that looks like it should miss, but the server
was apparently relegated to be sub-tick, so this happens from time to time.
We got a lot of supports now for this 6 minute power rune.
Bushwack from Rue going to try to slow down Yopaj, 6 minute rune, will be bought Yopaj
damage.
Not too shabby but one to pick up.
And that leaves Collapsing on 1v1 vs. Natsumi which he will be more than happy to take advantage
of.
About to hit level 6 here.
And the thing about, I mean, a lot of times you have a hero that hits level 6 as a big power speck and a 1v1 and you can get a kill, is that really a thing for Frogman?
I think there's a chance it goes 4-4-0 this lane. So, not really.
It's just the lick is so good here and you don't, okay, you just skill to ult instantly. So, never mind that, we've seen both.
What time is it over there?
Good one.
I did a little trouble before, that makes this fun.
But, yeah, we've seen both.
Sometimes players don't skill the ulti until later,
but collapse seemingly has a plan for it.
Perhaps it's because he's getting it before minute seven
and he wants to protect the wisdom.
Perhaps it's because he feels like it's very useful for clockwork
if they're playing in tandem, that he can give him move speed
to reach cogs.
He just wants to chase down the wind.
It's I would like it if it's mindset it comes from an aggressive place where he just wants to run her down
I really like it. Oh, look at that. It's not me can't get him inside the cogs though
But they're gonna burn a lot of man now. This is trouble laps gonna chase potentially. No, oh
They don't know I thought that I thought they were gonna glyph and dive him actually with hoodwink
But they didn't have glyph so they couldn't keep that creep
I'm falling you far out taking some heat
taking a lot of heat now and I'm coming in for a little casual right click as well as
Aura will kill off Yopaj in the mid lane.
A level 6 storm.
Usually when clock kills in this lane it's because she hit 6 before storm does and kills
him then but now he's a level and a half ahead of Yopaj and I noticed this has been some
of Quinn's criticism of Yopaj is that his laning just isn't up to the level that it
has been in the past and I mean add this to the pile of evidence right this lane I know
it's called favored but I don't think you're a level and a half behind on storm at this
point under normal circumstances and it's not like fuck got a ton of health you even
got the damage rune right this is yeah that's true unexpected yeah Laurel did have a slight
advantage in terms of the experience but they're both level six at that point tough
a tough kill, tough death rather for OG.
So now the mid and top lane kind of go in the way of spirit overall.
What about the bottom lane?
I think that's fair.
I mean, it's basically a draw.
I think that's kind of standard too.
Tiny and Stoom is a little bit of a nothing burger.
Both heroes are really tanky and can't really kill each other that easily.
And then you look at the supports, Goodwing versus Rubik.
Don't necessarily shift the match up enough.
Focus fire from that too, they want to try to get the kill on collapse, it's gonna be turned around completely.
Oh my, that is a miscalculation from OG.
Yikes.
I don't know if you can call that a miscalculation, I think he didn't show up for math class in the beginning.
Are you sure those don't skip school kids doon?
Yeah, we have a doon bottom, first one on the game from Tokyo, through very much so.
Well perhaps they can try to pressure this bot lane because top lane is a disaster now.
I'm assuming the very least will not miss a huge wave here from that death he just had.
I think Atalra was probably happy that his heroine got doomed because now he can lane
for two minutes.
Um, I don't really care about being doomed or some other carries
If you're less than other carries, but in this point of the game if you're getting rotated on it just means the play doesn't exist
Right, you don't have to worry. Oh collapse. This is very aggressive
Speaking of miscalculation. Oh, he's got the heels though. Is it enough?
You know posh links in to finish the job
So big they killed a hundred that's really needed
As that's in me getting blocked by not me as the cogs Sonic wave only hitting the one
maybe the tree got clipped as well but either way it's an off lane for Carrie but the Carrie has
not been doing too hot she's bottom net worth of the core so far for OG. I have to kill the Largo
alone he is pretty rich and slowing down his curve is definitely welcome for OG. I think Collapsus
got caught off guard by how many OG heroes were there it didn't look like he was you know he showed
up to mid lane with half HP and then all of a sudden Windranger is there matching the movement.
And what's the pace supposed to look like here for OG? Like how fast is Winner gonna come online
to be able to participate? Or is it more doom? Should be trying to make things work with Storm
as a tandem. Another line-up is relatively slow. Rubik, Trant as your support duo.
you need some time and doom and storm need to generally speaking they don't
make all that many moves in the first 15 to 20 minutes so I don't think it's
alarming that you have three kills and that you haven't taken a tower I don't
think that's necessarily a problem but you would have liked to see 500 additional
net worth on the mid and safe lane I think then you're in a very healthy spot
this is still definitely passable especially again if you consider this
team to underdog and this is definitely not the worst start they could have.
Last has Kayak, working on the Stange to complete, not to be a casual one,
he brings the first hook shot again from not me, and about the tree left and right.
Does have Overgrowth, but it would be a waste here as he just gets completely owned.
Jan, am I out of touch with the meta, or why is Tiny rushing Dispersor first item?
Holy shit balls. I
I'm I'm wondering if I've missed a game or two where this has happened or if this is generally the first time ever in
The game. I don't think I've ever seen this build a single time
So well, let's talk about upsides. So this is obviously a targeted item against Windranger gives you the spell
It's good against living armor and you can use it on yourself to escape doom
You're obviously gonna be doing but you can run fast
I think it's off overgrowth. Not really that interesting.
Gatoro? Okay, he's gonna have to cancel.
He's got some modifier in his console.
A lot of damage, and now there's TP support from not me.
Gonna bounce the Doom around.
So we're looking for the Doom target.
Would love to get the Tiny.
Might have to settle for Rue or none.
Because Colossus is not coming with the lick.
And now for Rompus, Phothio, the one in peril.
And it's not me gonna be blocking.
an attempt from OG pretty much thwarted immediately.
Two kills to the Spirit side instead.
So the way that I'm looking at this, yeah, there's obviously these spells that you talked about.
The Overgrowth, when you get the Spurser, you and a teammate
get the Spell, which I think is a big deal. It's still really weird though.
Like, you would think that would be like a luxury item that you'd get a little bit later on, but
very interesting. Yeah, not for us.
I think Yatoro is just looking at it from the perspective of I would never buy this item unless I had three or four good reasons to
And as it turns out he does
Like I understand that he's going to buy a Lotus, I guess, because I'm a carry
I mean, that's why this item is just better than Lotus is because it's offensively viable against Windranger
That is a very big part of why he likes it
I love Yatoro doing this stuff because I think he's one of the best in the world at recognizing this
He has some
Oddball games where he goes for items that you're like nobody else would do this and we'll see if it pays off
I just I love the theory behind it
What would you usually do like echo saber or something right?
Yeah, I usually go harpoon and silver edge
That's a big thing to give up. That's
The arm a lot he could still get it after if you want he could go this into harpoon, but he is queuing up silver edge BKB
So, I might be playing around the hard point entirely.
I mean, my only...it's not criticism because it is Yatoro.
My only question is, why not do this later in the game?
Is this trying to align with something that they're planning?
Well, they are going to have an insanely powerful 20-minute timing between that and Largo and
Claw.
So, it's an excellent match.
He exists from EO5, not me.
He's just fine.
The OP is the one taking heavy punishments, seems.
So annoying for Storm to play in some max level cogs.
If Clockwork is fast and clutch enough, you can actually hit back-to-back cogs before Storm can zip between them at the right angle.
That's really annoying to lose all that mana.
Now Toronto, Tokyo is working on Radiance and only 800 away from finishing that.
Yeah, he's having a game at least.
Yeah, but the other cores, Natsumi hasn't finished Maelstrom yet.
Actually, he might just be on the way now, but still very, very late.
And the opage on Storm has Ikaya along with Sol Ring, so nothing too huge to write home about yet.
He's going actually longer by the way.
He'll keep the doom.
And he's off.
And his Roo will be killed off, and yeah, Tiny just gonna walk it off.
OG, needing to find some bigger kills here to try to...
I don't know.
Need to prevent this snowball from occurring, because 3k leads...
Not the hugest, but it can get a lot worse with this momentum.
This momentum is 10s going to bounce around.
Seals the cause that gets licked from a really long range from Black as Yohajima will pick up Nami.
So it's a one for one for supports.
I'm going to break things up.
Yohajima with the Arcane Room though.
Can be licked off and it is.
Oh dear.
So much value with this lake.
It's a, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better game for Lardo offensively.
The lane itself was good.
You have some good matchups to, you know, chase down.
I think this hero is actually quite good against Trance in the laning stage.
And yeah, the offensive to Spell against Living Armor plus Windrun is just really, really
nice.
And I think this time around, now that we do see Collapse, we'll be going for the stock
standard aggs.
Um, you'll get a good timing on it
Okay, but let's talk about this center
We have
skim come out with an overgrowth on four heroes. That's
Ambitious, right? Okay. Yeah, it's not me. He's gonna die here
You have never mind. Not me's fine. I think you want to talk about Largo with Lotus and shard. No
Not even it's just lick
shard lick with
The disperser from your tour that's for all four people will not be overgrown things. That's kind of crazy
I'm not sure the sh just the shard lick spread if you target an ally why wouldn't it
Is it doesn't apply above?
To the ally it only applies above to you. I don't think you double the spell with lick
Hmm, I could be mistaken on that
But I'm pretty positive it doesn't work that way.
Okay, I'll think about it.
Like, regardless whether that's true or not, you still have all the other Dispelers.
You have the Disperser, you have a Potential Lotus Shard, which definitely is a double Dispel, right?
You plus Ally.
So, it's gonna be a tough one for Scam to find meaningful late game impact, for sure.
Still, you know, OG is staying afloat here, they keep finding kicks, they're only 2k down,
it's a little bit misleading because they've doomed with Devour and Radiance,
so he should be having very high net worth, but...
But definitely not getting...
The situation is quite stable for now.
So I say that, time to burst her off to Tokyo immediately.
That's unfortunate, that's not so favorable.
Yeah, Tokyo has the Radiance, but it helped a bit in the Miss Chance, but he's still dead.
So you don't think a Dispel is considered a buff for your allies?
No, it's a buff if it places an icon on their status bar, right?
They're gonna jump collapse or they'd have HP, have to be a bit careful, Yotaro's still
here though against the toss up, Yopaj is living armor pretty tanky, with the electric
vortex onto the tiny instead though.
Scam in with the overgrowth of instant dispell, Yotaro, he looks very dead to right here,
Scam is gonna shoot off the heals coming out from collapse, keeping him alive, they've
lost their dune, they've lost their win-runner, Yopaj, with very little mana to speak of,
Yotaro still alive somehow gets the toss up gets the kill and Yopaj dies as well. Oh
Disaster's fight. It was so close to being good
Instead they get literally nothing. Oh
Unfortunately, that does seem like the punchline for
OG this tournament so close to being good
In a lot of situations, but just missing. I mean, it is true though
If you look across their games is like
They're just missing that little bit here and there and that was another example of just flawed judgment
Right that this fight should not be a four zero fight for spirit. I think clockwork wasn't even involved, right?
effectively
You took that fight after doom was already dead
It didn't really work out and now a game that you had just stabilized
You've thrown into more peril than it was in five minutes ago and things were already starting to look kind of bad
Unfortunately
OG in a world of hurt right now
And your lineup now you need now I think you just have to farm
I think you have to play time here
You need BKB on doom you BKB on storm any BKB on one raider
Then the game starts looking a lot more interesting again if you can get to that point with a let's say sub 10k deficit
I think you have a solid fighting champs
That spirit aren't gonna give them all that much space clockwork on that all here with Rue
That's who me in the tree line already used wind right now you have it
I'm gonna try for the hook shot blinks in first with the cobs hook shots away
I hit and run as it were and I'm a zippin from Yopah gonna try to focus down the clockwork looks to be a
kill going the way of OG is Toronto Tokyo really wanting a boom target collapse would be very juicy
But you can actually get tossed back from him so nice steal for him, but unfortunately cannot close the gap enough
All of OG showing up in force there. They got one kill on the clock and they lose their mid tower
So I don't think you should be all that happy about this
But as you said kind of a hit and run if you alternative with Windranger dying
I think this is a better outcome and obviously you have to help your carry here under those circumstances
Tronsters up. Anybody fancy that?
Me all nerf
I guess I can try for it. I'm gonna try it now
Any time you got the Frogman, it should be fine.
Dispersed or online for the Toro.
And like you said, probably the first that we've ever seen on this hero.
Maybe there's been some like really late game scenarios, I don't know. It's still probably not.
I don't think this is the first time I've seen the item on the hero.
I think it's the first time I've seen it bought first. That's exceptionally rare, at least.
and not me will be rewarded with jet pack
and some power spikes coming for spirit
collapse his agg not too far away just
how they found him
he did yes he is
give him the tongue
it's our own dispercer and shadow blade
now and for Laurel have the agonim scepter
veil of discord and the shard incoming. It's a very good shard game. You're against storm,
you're against wind ranger, you're even against rubig, it's also super nice. You can blink on
top of him and actually confidently get your spells off before he lifts you. So really like
the choice of buying it here. I think sometimes quaps undervalue this item, but this is a good
game to do it in this slot. The other side, OG do have some things coming going for them.
I'm throwing out to Tokyo, let's finish a BKB. He'll be in decent fighting shape, Natsumi also working a BKB
But he's a little bit farther away, so they're gonna need to delay just a bit and you'll pot
So it's gonna go triple BKB on all their cores. It's expected and it's the right play
I think you just once again you have to slow the game down and get to that timing and then that fight will start off in a big way
Push whack into the silence
Gonna try to go to the Sonic wave. No can't find the angle or the damage for that matter
survive and with that information oh gee you're gonna make a smoke move their
own but immediately broken by a jet pack into blink from not me I don't find
anything with this now Largo has the eggs seems like a necessary doom target
which is obviously great news for the Queen of Pain
Oh
He's done, so is that enough to just go for rush or do they need a little bit more?
I don't exactly have the best rush lineup, but I don't know if the dire can even contest them the pit I
Think realistically you don't win the fight unless you do Largo and it is so hard to get through
This is why clock art is so crazy good in situations like this
jetpack, rocket flare, and blink. You see anything you break smokes, you can just get out, you get tons of flying vision.
This hero's zone control is like almost none other. It's like from a support perspective, I think protecting areas like this, it's clock and binoc that are the kings.
So, they'll grab it, Aegis for Laurel, for the Tiny, so maybe Spirit not thinking about
a high ground angle in the next 5 minutes.
Generally put it on the Siege hero and that's your overall goal.
Collapse, not opting for BKB next by the way, his third item will be Lincoln instead because
of the Doom obviously.
And the fact to be a shard means you get double the value.
But the BKB is pretty close for OG.
You would think once those are purchased on all three cores that they are going to try
to put something together because they need something going their way.
8k deficit.
It is against an Aegis though.
You can find him isolated.
I'm gonna get you here.
Oh, actually he's trying to do him a zoom there.
Okay, well, he'll die.
The big power spike, by the way, right now for your Toro.
He just got Silverage level 18.
He is big.
Look how far he's come.
Orton in charge.
He will be going for the golden item as well.
Funny how this item has had so many changes over the years, and it is still the item to
get this time.
Yeah.
I mean, I'd rather have it this way than the patch where carries were going, Sandin Yasha
satanic for 50% status resist.
Why?
I think that was miserable.
Half the heroes just didn't work.
I think Stas resists is a necessary evil, so yeah, maybe none's that extent.
Itharo brought back in, Laurel's gonna jump in, get the Sonic wave off, clipping two, Tim's is certainly dead, but Itharo in a lot of trouble.
Remember, he does not have the Aegis, dead to rights, OG get a huge kill going their way.
No.
And Laurel sticking around, we'll be able to get off the tree so they get the two supports
but at a pretty heavy cost, OG will certainly be happy with this.
I'm gonna try to turn this on to the Footwink as well, Laurel jumping in not too afraid
because of that Aegis and collapsing the Compete Heal, they're gonna get life number one from
across the Tokyo with no low-loan or a good headshot off the mat to me.
And that's a big kill going away at Spirit.
Yeah.
We've been flying a lot on the tiny, but let's keep in mind there's a queen of pain with Krog of genius in this game as well
So true you have multiple heroes that can truly hard carry the game. This is a game that yatoro doesn't need to
Be the strongest hero even in late game. I think there's a case to be made that quap can actually
be the primary carry of the game given that buff from Largo and
They don't get the best value out of their ages
Call that one a tie and so I think all day. Oh gee. That's pretty good given them is up in sense six seconds
That's just bad luck really man alive
It feels like a lot of people are really toxic you would tip Toronto to give you like wow you didn't cast doom and time
And then he would check the reef and be like oh my god the reason the animation cancels like he literally
Caught it in the very last moment
Like that's been what OG's had to put up with this game. There's some bad luck
That's when you have to create your own luck syndrome as they say
this tiny also looked like this for you where he's constantly shifting
talking about the the VFX yeah that's one of the items he has right cosmetics
there's a tiny cosmetic that makes you constantly have like a ghost or around you
I'm not talking about the ring or something.
Yeah, it's not specifically the uh for tiny, but yeah, oh so it's a it's not a it's not a part of the
Ring under that right?
separate
Of course it does. Damn this guy's good. First of all, these players are rich as fuck. Let's not beat around the bush here plus
People that are rich get things gifted to them as well that are very rare for so many young people like donating
Kind of weird.
He was at 9 millions of dollars a year for some reason.
Uh, yeah.
Yopaj is found from the portal.
Gonna go for the avatar into the Bushwack.
He's in the air.
Not quite enough for the kill.
The layering, I don't think was correct there.
That was, yeah.
The Bushwack can toss at the same time.
He never took the toss damage because he didn't land.
Oh really?
I think so.
I think if you get caught mid-air by Bushwack,
You'll leave tosses, so the damage is dealt when you collide with the ground?
I think so?
I actually don't know if it works if you stay in the air like that during the tossing.
At the least for OG, finally something going their way in a 50-50 type of exchange.
Yeah, if you think that's being generous, I just think sometimes a spade is a spade
and they didn't like to say that they didn't layer their spells correctly.
You know, I'm saying they're lucky.
They've been unlucky in a lot of situations.
So here's the difference, the doom situation, they couldn't have played it better.
That's not this one.
They could have not shown until a second later.
I thought they showed a little too early.
So then that wasn't lucky either.
Shadow is just bad, man, he's just bad.
He's dead.
Quick.
Assassination of the squirrel.
Let's take a dismay of Huckshot on Pregune.
Off that Tokyo, we'll have to BKB in retreat.
Doesn't have mana for Doom, actually, as his ball comes in with a sonic wave and just
kills him off very casually, and they get the lick on the Tim, should be the death of
the Rubik as well.
Laurel is popping off, 9-0-3.
If that one was not unlucky, they'd just stay.
There's enough gold for BKB now on the Queen and this is when this hero is gonna ramp up in a big way.
He hits level 20, this talent is huge. The scream of pain damage with Ag's and the Largo, Krog of Genius.
yeah spirit hitting pretty big power spec now they're gonna force an axe
eventually out of Toronto Tokyo but he is yeah not thinking about it yet still
working on a she was which that's kind of interesting actually is it just for
the minus heel wait does they even have minus it doesn't do that anymore no it's
I mean, it's it's a feels-good item on doom you're running heroes down with scorched earth and radiance
You want to slow them in an aoe as well. You want the armor because you have high health. It's really good e HP to get armor
Why it doesn't face a we have your scorched earth
Yeah, and radiance, but it doesn't protect you from quack, which I think is the bigger problem like I
Don't I don't really think this is the best she was game, but it's also not bad
It's uh, I think you're ultimately you're kind of just in this position where nothing feels great
because you're behind too much, so I don't think there's an item you just like would accept.
Turn on the opage, have a toss, they do it again, actually, but they have the damage.
This time they were three heroes, so...
Down bottom, Laurel's doomed, but he's fine!
Oh my god, if Toronto Tokyo dies after casting Doom, oh my goodness, that is not great.
And that Sumi has the DKB in retreat.
They are not letting it go.
Nothing, Lara with the Sonic Wave.
That's Umi, my people are gonna get thrown along though, I'm not gonna happen instead, he's licked to death.
That's 3-4 death for OG, that is gonna be a lot of building damage now.
This is at least one lane. You can buy back Windranger, but I don't think OG care, they have Largo, they can just keep sustaining.
Of course, as we mentioned, the Largo with all the discolors and stuff, but with Shard, Lincoln's already a very strong layer of protection, you know you don't have to worry about Doom.
And he's going to go load us next unsurprisingly the whole package
Protection first team
This is getting out of hand
Living armor to try to dissuade them. It's not enough shockingly enough
They know that is not up for six I mean the spell itself I wouldn't be mind them going mid to I genuinely think they can just force it
in this tournament teams haven't been all that eager to really press the
advantage that much seems that there's a little bit more caution they're gonna
keep a roche he's not experience with overplaying their hand but genuinely with
doom on cooldown I just don't think they can lose a fight I think the Largo is
way too powerful in this game but they'll pay the respect to OG that they can
pull off the defense there and just play the map 20k up and with the next ages
they will absolutely force high ground if they get that oh gee can't let them
have it
who do you think they should put the edges on if they get it again I'm
actually a little bit torn here because I think part of me wants to put on
tiny so you can see each but the other one is if you put on co-op she can
probably just dive the base with Largo yeah I think both of them fine
Rue's gonna get a nice boomerang.
Uh, yeah, I don't-
A rumorang, if you will.
Lol.
I think if you-
I wonder if he has a room, but can I come at home?
Good one.
Thank you.
I think with Tiny, it just depends on if you get a pick.
You're not gonna get three core kills into a push, I don't think, I think that was one
time.
And nothing. They forced the piece though.
And not me with the trifecta of support items. The blink force glimmer and the glance.
It's actually very rich on this clockwork.
So you can just keep poking and prodding and then disengaging.
This hero is super annoying when it has this many items. You hook shut in, you can cog, blink out,
you can force out glimmer and just jet pack.
A lot of resources you're going to need to catch this pesky little bowling fella.
He's going to break the smoke here. He does get it listed.
Still the lowest supply. They cannot do much with it.
BKB now from Laurel. He's more than fine.
It's a big sonic wave onto Bushwack.
Onto the O5. He's super healthy.
Has that pipe still activated.
Throw him up a cookie. He's going to get run down now.
Lick to death. Two dead for OG.
And it's almost going to approach.
Oh, there's a tree in the pit.
Would you look at that?
Yeah.
And practically he threw a tree at him with your Toro to find him in the pit.
What does that mean?
It's like throwing the leg at someone at your face.
It's like throwing glasses.
No, throwing glass while you live in a glass house.
Jesus.
That's the best you could come up with?
Yeah, that was the best one.
I'm gonna move on here.
Yeah, that's a little...
What's that, idiom in English again?
Yeah, what?
Is that similar?
The glass house thing? Yeah, I've heard it.
So what's the saying in English?
Don't throw rocks when you live in a glass house?
Because that's what you say in Danish.
That sounds familiar, actually.
Okay.
Yeah.
I can't say I've ever heard it.
Well, now that I spelled it out, you know, you understand the reference.
You need a little bit of help, of course, as usual.
Still bad.
Yep, fair enough.
There's better than before.
And Yatoro was the one to take the Aegis, so he will be the C-Jurt.
yeah it's gonna funk away at his brother the tower of course playing with the
castle set
I'm sure now he's killing buildings so what is that another glass house
yeah hold the two lanes fill a tier two top so Garrett will just reposition go
for that they have plenty of time. The ages. Oh they might even find them in the jungle
on the way there. Perhaps while there is the vision placed by OG.
Oh yeah it's not the Tokyo spot. The big Tokyo fermiola pods. They want to get somebody.
They do find not me. The question is the spirit care. We might just stick around. We're
But not gonna be any follow-up, so we're not slowing Blink this game as we established.
Yeah, they bleed out a clock, but they flush OG back into their base, and now they're gonna push top wave and get that tier 2.
And then this one should just be a formality at this point.
Yeah, all the talk about the Dispels on Overgrowth, and I haven't personally even seen it yet.
Has he even Overgrowth in the last 15 minutes?
has really been relevant unfortunately it was cool in theory you know yeah
oh we got massive on the outpost you'll find we'll have to get the hell out
will they spot on we looking for an opening
and well at the very least they forced some TPs but they're gonna need a lot
more of that because there's still two and a half minutes on the ages what do
What do you think about the stiller now that we've got to cast it some more because we talked about it in the last tournament?
Yeah, I
Yeah, I like the fact that one has a separate build path
Why you don't like it no, I'm okay with it. I was just curious
I think I generally when valve makes new items that aren't named neutral items. They're good except for
We've stopped creating the wrap.
Oh, we don't want it.
The siege is upon us. It's a good soil.
Avalanche, the best steal in the game, probably, for Thames.
Very potent spawn, Rubik.
See if they can put it to use.
Now's the time.
Well, it was probably better 20 minutes ago, but...
Now, if you get blinked on, which means he's silenced.
Laurel, ask you to BKB.
going to get Doom, no it's reflected, but they'll take that at this point in the game.
Many four stacks with a focus fight, not enough.
He's going to Doom out eventually as Yutaro wants to use his Aegis now.
He gets shackled to his teammate, collapse.
I'm going to force out the Bitter from the Rubik as Frog Stomp used on Natsumi and again
the Dispel on the win run, he gets 8 Toes now, Avalanche to follow.
Another shackle though is going to hold Yutaro in his place and Natsumi going to get tossed
on, going to get completely destroyed.
Just front line heal everybody. You're not touching this line up for spirit
Despite getting the queen of pain. They're gonna lose several numbers themselves and your Toro can just continue to do massive damage to the building
We need more music facts for we need like a heavy metal back for frog man
Yeah. That's the Arkana. Here's Ronto. Okay, not gonna work.
Yeah, blinks in and dies. Yopah's trying to focus on his support. Can't quite do that yet.
As the BKB runs out, we'll zip away and it's gonna be mega creeps. Four spirits.
One more hookshot for the road on Seronto Tokyo.
Not calling GG yet as Roo will likely be the final death for spirits.
And Toronto Tokyo former member of spirit will fall one more time
And surely that should do it talking about all game. This is the best of three. It's not the best of ones anymore. Yeah
I think this one maybe a little draft related
Maybe a little collapse related. This was such a good log okay. Yeah, he is same value
I
Got some pretty crazy score lines in this one. Oh jumps into the avalanche
Yeah, playing it stuns and now they call it. It just required about one more depth. It just felt like it was needed
And yeah, we'll take game one in pretty damn good fashion. That's to me one more depth for the road it seems
Tiny 7-1 11 up 10-1 9 and Largo 11-1
17 so three core deaths against doom in a 42 minute game the supports with 11 out
of 14 deaths on the radian that was a very nice and very easy game for spirit
just concerning if you're an OG fan heading into the next one Largo wins
Largo wins spirit wins it's the best of three though so there's still time for
OG to ramp up, but it does mean that in a lost chance qualifies
It is only a difference of one game as to if you get eliminated or if you're able to continue on here
For blah slam 7 we could talk about just how easy and simple it really felt the spirit
You thought clean at the start that you couldn't see a clear winner when it came to the drop
But in lanes it felt like there's definitely a clear divide. Yeah, they they definitely got up late this game
pretty significantly. I think whenever you're watching the game you'll tend to
feel one way or another about the draft compared to just seeing it on paper but
I think this game to me is a clear example of Spirit just outclassing them
and not so much a matter of like just heroes being the problem. I mean you can
also just look at how Spirit just they knew so early on that the lanes didn't
matter anymore. You saw collapse moves to mid, you had tiny go through gate talk,
you had the supports running around everywhere like Spirit was just playing
very free on the map, going for kill after kill, poking OG where they knew that a storm
you need a bit of time, win range you need a bit of time, doom, you need a lot of time
in that often, often even winning the lane to take the tower to try and at least for
like you can farm. And Spirit said no, you are not farming and unfortunately for OG their
draft really just was way too slow, especially when Yatora is coming into the game going
for like disperses and brand new tech that we haven't seen on Tiny before, like Spirit
one to the winners game very efficiently and very quickly.
Yeah, I think, I don't know, to me, stand out as Laurel,
I think he just played a very, very solid game.
Their lineup is built around him,
and I think it's not often that Laurel is the star of the show,
that he's the one that, because they last picked Tiny, right,
which is not some ultra carry in this game.
They've got the Croco Genius for Qwap,
and it's just a really good Qwap game.
He only had one death, and it's kind of just,
he's just doing Qwap things that almost looked like last patch
before they hear it was nerfed,
pressing a million daggers and everyone just dies.
the hero. If it's uncontested, kind of just takes over, especially when you don't have
like true counters.
And that's what we've, you know, said multiple times is the issue when it comes to a storm
spirit in that mid game. You need a lot more supporting you. Everyone else needs to do well
in their sidelines. If you get a little bit done. But I want to focus on the tiny, even
though you didn't say the tiny was the MVP, I feel like maybe there's more to be talked
about, especially around his build, his itemization, because that one caught a lot of people off
guard.
He bought Disperser first.
That is an unusual one.
I mean, I think there's decent reason for it.
He's playing against a lot of stuff he can dispel.
He can dispel Infernal Blade.
He can dispel Windrun.
So if you go in Winter, you can purge that.
You can purge Overgrowth off yourself and someone else.
So there's a lot of cute reasons for it.
And its item, Yatoro, really likes a lot.
I think especially in games like this,
where he feels like he can't burst people
or the fights are going to be longer.
Disperser conceptually is an item that you keep going
because you can just run around really fast
and run away and reset.
Like there's more, it's more, I was more nuanced
the way you fight.
I still can't get rid of the fact that it's like
first in Dota history that we see Dispersa on Tiny.
I can't fathom the fact that this item hasn't been built
on the hero before.
Like we saw what the Fuser wants,
when Arbett, where he bought it, like,
fought him in the center game.
Is it this year?
No, in general.
In general.
Like Dota.
Cause I feel like we went through a patch where like
mid Tiny was just so big.
Yeah, but like.
And even in that.
And like, so I literally went onto that Dota
and I went Tiny, the Fuser blade.
I look, I see one Arbett game.
I go tiny, disperser, I'm like, huh?
I'm just lost at the fact that it didn't exist.
And of course, he did rush it, right?
He goes for the diffuser blade at the 11-min mark,
that then eventually became disperser
due to the points that Fulmer's making.
The disbo is insane, but yeah, just,
we were talking about maybe blinks,
you know, the classic Silver Edges.
In this specific game, disperser,
it felt really, really good,
but you can't just buy this item in any other game.
Like this had multiple reasons why.
It's not just like the default item for the hero.
It's just because your tour had a very good read.
Yeah, I think it's part of what makes him very special as a player is I think he's willing to itemize in ways that
Most other players are not and he will buy items that he feels are good for this very specific game
Even if they're on orthodox like this. I think that is it's chat energy
I think the only other player I can think of that does stuff like that is Thompson who will buy like random crap
That will be he thinks is good for this specific game
It's also in random heroes as well. Yeah, the random the random heroes doesn't help
But his builds are very calculated the heroes may be a little a little hipstery, but the builds he's doing for a reason you tore to me
Is some similar just without the hipster flare
I'll say it just also means that the layering of spirits lab allows your character to do this because there's not a hole in your drop
Right when you have hoodwink and clock supports killing for you
Like the tiny can go through disperser to help out the queen of pain where she gets caught you can put it on her
Like it's not as if it's like tiny you have to be the carry cop
You have to be the playmaker like their entire draft is built in this harmony of off the lanes
every single hero has a combination move to make so that you continue fighting.
So it's like it makes sense. In other drafts when you have different heroes
this build won't make sense but I think it is just testament to like this style
of play from spirit is really good against OGN. I'm curious to see if we
will see a little bit more diffuser. I know you're saying there's a lot of
reasons why you need to but maybe it's one of those things that it's like
re-entered people's forefronts now where they're just like oh actually I'm a bit
more handful that maybe this has more of a purpose than what we had to let on
beforehand, but we saw the drafts really briefly pop off there and I was intrigued, not intrigued,
sorry. I was pleasantly surprised by Lago, right? Collapses Lago because when we see a tree ant
protector come out and we know it's going to be paired with a wind ranger, you're thinking this is
going to be somewhat of a stable lane for the side of OG, but Lago and Collapse, they just kind of
rip through that laning phase completely. Yeah, I mean Lago is just very good against both those
heroes. There's, I mean, you lick off living armor, you lick off the leaf seed, you lick off everything,
You look a windrun and the hero is that's what I'm the klaxis tongue is all over the place
And I'm the hero is just very very solid and very strong in lane
So if you don't have specific counters this year or you don't have something incredibly robust
And he'll always have a pretty good time
I just see more of it because it was like it was so damning to OG like even that sumi
He even tried to go for a kill on the logo and the logo is like what are you doing?
I am logo and then he just died and at that point I I unfortunately I kind of I went from like leaning into the TV to
taking kind of a little bit of a sip that because it was kind of doom and gloom so early on and we are going to obviously see that move here when that
soon move with the ultimate thinking he can focus fire down collapse and
Claps just turns around and just kills him. It's rough for OG so so much into into the draft that Spirit had
Yeah, I mean that kill is not a brew ganking win or injury. It's not a it's not a bushwag thing
It's just a straight up run in and feed and to me that's like OG feeling uncomfortable
I see that and if this hardens me quite good for the series because it's not just a mechanical mistake
It's a vibes mistake the same thing with winterdrew. She's just running on to the rune and just like what is she doing there?
But I feel like you you think you have the numbers advantage or something
You're like, oh the logo has gone down. Therefore. They don't have the sustain anymore in the fight like surely now
We can take it to them and it may be part of OG isn't on that same
Pace and then you just have a winter ranger that's front-lining. Yeah, I mean
It's the difference of like you finally kill the logo because he retakes mid for some reason
But I think that's even a scary thing because in spirit's mind if lago is leaving his lane that early
That's a sign that this draft has been played before by spirit and scrims or something because they want to be this aggressive
They don't want to just sit back and farm like a lago could like they have this mentality that these heroes should be playing into the map
So going into game two oji have to respect that spirit will play into you
And they're not just gonna sit back hit creeps and just afk like I don't want to see win ranger
I'll be honest like even though it's been banned against oji for like every game bar this one in p vision
Like it's just too slow for me. I want Natsumi to fight into the lane rather than just play this like I don't know
It's just feel like I'm not seeing him in the game when he's on this hero
I think this goes back to a little bit of what Adam was talking about when he's saying like trying to mesh the ideas of
Toronto Tokyo who likes to play a little bit slower who likes to pull back a bit on the map
I think then Natsumi in his mind is I need to compensate and I need to now be a court
That is more aggressive and more active because if you look at that mid skirmish
There wasn't really a need for him to go there, right?
Toronto's having fun farming on the doom and you're like,
that's the hero we're making space for.
I think you still need to put a lot in.
We need Natsumi to get space.
Yeah, I also hate tree and protector.
I'll be honest, I think between the tree and the wind ranger,
both are equally on the chopping block for me,
where like one's got to be axe going into game two.
The wind ranger, bro, look at the wind ranger
across all of the best of ones.
Are you joking? This here is dog.
Yeah, but also kind of, not scam,
but like the tree that was played by a scam
is also kind of showcasing like,
it just doesn't feel like it's in the game.
If you're tiny can suddenly buy disperser, if Largo is able to lick it off, like, what is the tree doing?
He's just kind of there, just a big blob of vision, like, I just, like, OG just didn't inspire me,
where, like, Spirit are no point in that draft, they couldn't, I go, oh my god, Spirit, what could they pick?
Like, they're lost, it's just like, oh, okay, that makes sense, like, OG didn't ever, like, complicate things.
And both Tree and Windranger are, like, the top two reasons why that felt so easy, I think, for Spirit to play this game.
Yeah, I mean, my biggest takeaway from OG, if you're going in an X-game, or you just have, because I totally agree with what you're saying.
I think Natsumi is making these decisions not because he thinks they're right.
He's doing them because he feels external pressure.
And that is the easiest way to lose any series is doing stuff not because you're thinking about it.
To me that says you're not actually playing your hero.
You're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling pressure from your teammates or from other ideas.
Even pressure from your own subconscious.
There's something going on there.
And I think you have to take a step back and realize, hey, we're not really playing Dota.
We're just sort of autopiloting based off of stress.
And you've got to be able to focus and actually play the game because they're just making unforced arrows constantly.
The whole reason they're behind in this game is because they've run into the meat grinder.
No one pushed them, no one tripped them, there was no block on the floor,
they just willingly walked headfirst into it and you can't be doing that.
Hopefully then it's a little bit of a reset.
Some of those conversations are being had because for the side of OG,
it's one game between them being eliminated and then being able to force it to a game number three.
We're going to go to a break on the other side, we'll see what they come back to the table with.
I lost chance to qualify a best of three continues for it did take game number one
But it's not all over for OG
I feel like there is more to be learned in a loss than there is in a win and for OG
Some big learning lessons here Quinn whether it's in the draft or in gameplay. What would you be sitting down and go?
All right, boys. This is what you need to know
I mean, I touched on it slightly before but I think the biggest thing you like if you're giving a talk in between games
It's you know, don't worry about this game. I think you take a little bit of ownership
you say I didn't play super great this game I think it's a tough game to play
whatever and you say hey everyone just focus on your own gameplay don't don't
worry about all this other stuff don't worry about we're playing in spirit of
the stress like clearly they've been playing bad for the entirety of the
tournament and they can feel that everyone feels a little bit bad and I
think you need to I think you have to humanize the whole situation a little
bit understand that this is not easy we're not in an easy spot it's it's
tough and it's okay that it's tough that's the life that's the job and I if
you do that then I think you have better chances and we also heard in the
interview right from the coach of OG, how difficult it is for them right now because
Toronto, Tokyo isn't at the bootcamp. When you compare that to Spirit who are all on
bootcamp, like the amount of value in the little mini discussions in between games whilst you're
going to make a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, have some lunch, those little conversations,
they make you such a better team. Because online, like when you are just talking through Discord,
like you have to be present in that minute, like when you like there's so many moments that
OG is missing out on in their improvements, and it feels like they have a disconnect in game,
And it clearly is because their team just isn't together right now in the most important part of the season.
Being able to win here at Slam, get that confidence moving towards TI qualifiers.
It's probably just the worst position they could be in, not having everyone here.
And again, it really is showing because it's in both draft and play, like... yeah.
Yeah, I think it goes to another level as well because, you know, Adam, when I spoke to him, he talked about the fact that
They've done so many different carry heroes on Natsumi because he has such a big hero pool, right?
And that, I think, is something you can't really argue with. He does.
He does play comfortably on a large number of heroes.
But then we're getting to this best of three, and they want to just open up with his carry pick.
And so now I'm wondering, where is that sort of mindset coming from?
Because not even an hour ago, I'm talking to him and he's saying,
yeah, we like actually leaving Natsumi's pick until lost.
I think they do. And I don't think when they pick win or injury, it's a lot of thought.
It's I think a lot of it. It's just when you're just been banned a lot
So we're gonna pick it now because it's bad so it has to be good, right?
You'll be we almost beat perish with it
So it must be good and you just pick it without even really thinking I think
You want to you want to be present and everyone wants to think about their own heroes because you're that I don't I agree
I don't think that that pick is makes much sense
It doesn't fit with the theming of them as a team
It's very much they just do it because they feel like they should well
Hopefully they're not doing things because they should anymore and they're doing things because they're wanting to win
We'll see how a draw for game number two plays out.
A
number two spirit is first pick so they're going to be opening up our draft a couple of bands already
underway snap alone drew it the windranger and the cuddle so it's interesting that's in a game one
spirit were willing to let windranger through now in a game number two it's promoted to a first
phase bet there is a major difference between first picking a hero and then second picking a hero
Right? Like, responding. The same argument is with like, Pangelae.
Like, Pangelae on first pick doesn't have the same punch as like, Pangelae on second pick.
So certain teams will favor it in that regard.
But still, Spirit, they are respecting it due to the, the kind of that second pick value.
They're also not forced to ban things like Snapfire or Laundry,
which the other teams are going to ban because they're first pick priority.
So you can ban more team flavor stuff, uh, compared to bans that are forced.
It's the advantage of being first pick.
I'm of a hero pool so wide as OG what like it was 40 heroes and 11 different in 11 games
they clearly don't have a
Solid foundation of things you need to ban so it can't just be how you respect this hero. Sure. Let's just ban it out
All right, there it is I
Mean I think OG needs to respond to this on a scaling level
I don't know if I trust them to run over this hero
And so I think this is where you open up door to off and you're like yo or you ask people what it was good against drawing
And sure people say what's good? How do you how do we counter the zero in the game?
Let's pick some stuff that makes sense against this on a scaling level not just
Trying to run the game over fast or picking shadowfiend to draw and losing like it
I was gonna say a lot of people thinking that the shadowfiend might be that late games can outscale
But we've seen that showdown twice now with four different teams and its favorite draw both from what I can remember
Yeah, it's like three or three and zero against us. Maybe more.
I just want carries that can gap close, be it like a Natsumi kez or something, where you have like strong lane.
You don't mind going through twin gate.
I want off laners that aren't just mealy blobs and will get hit by frost arrows out of the lane.
Like show me, like, I mean, Beastmaster is banned, like an enigma or something different in the off lane that can fight.
The issue is Toronto Tokus, here at pool so far has been like dawn breakers and dooms and this stuff.
Add all the options. Dawnbreak is probably the better one fighting into the drought because you can't just hammer on top of them
But yeah, the other options he's played are very static mealy blobs. I actually do like the dawnbreak
I should I retract that from the ones I don't have yet is dawn
Every and everything you said exactly
Does he play like it?
Does he though I don't think he does friends of my I don't
To win with it you can play anyone
But it means to play lichens as summon wolves last hit the creeps by hum of the overlord by ac and end the game
All right, what do you think his win rate is on the hero if he is to play it?
54 percent 30 percent who 80 percent
Last played eight months ago and he was an eight-second win rate. Yeah, that's all right. How long ago sorry?
8, 8.
8.
8.
When he was on Aurora.
8.
Yeah, he went 1 6 and 1 against...
Oh, ooh.
That's actually kind of cool.
He went 1 6 and 1, and he lost to this stack
that he's now playing.
No, why?
Lost to Team Orangus, pre OG naming.
Then he stopped playing it, so, you know, he got scared.
Yeah, I mean, that is a classic response to Drawranger.
With Bayon on your side, you're going to want some people who get in there because Bayon
needs some frontliners who can actually be up in their business.
You can definitely see like, and probably not now though, you don't want to, you picked
that hero too early, it can be responded to, so it's something I think you want to wait
slightly longer to I'd say.
It's also kind of looking towards like, if you are going to, you see the first redraw,
like you need to fight her.
If you want to go for the axes or the dawn breakers, the more aggressive 5s, the earth, or flames, sorry, they even ban up the axe.
You need your 4th position to also bring them to the fight.
So going for a tusk, it's kind of okay, I don't mind it, just because early on you shards the Drow when she's running away, you have tag team, you can kind of create opportunities of kill threat.
Sure, front later portion of the game, it feels a little kind of, it can feel weird, Drow just kills you in like 3 hits, you blink in, you get gusted, you're like, okay well, my initiation was kind of poor, but...
It is something to play on. Tim's can conduct a lot of pressure in the early game.
And this to me is a much more sensible tree compared to the last time.
You've got, I think, a hero that counters the heroes that counter tree a lot better.
If they were to pick Largo here, you wouldn't care as much about it.
And on top of that, it's already got a purpose in that it's cool against Tusk,
because you press the tag team, you press armor, and it kind of negates a lot of that oomph.
Yep.
We saw how Spirit played right before. It's literally just...
You make space for Drow and let her just position nicely.
And all the other elements of the draft will find ways to hold down the fight.
So be it with Overgrowth for the tree, the Ringmaster as well now with the escape act to keep the Drow alive
so then she can like pike back a little further to then turn around the fight.
Like both of these supports give you that kind of clutch potential in fights
and often why we say Spirit has that aura around them in winning any game
is because of the support, Joe, and it will very clearly come into play here.
Like Ring and Triant both counter the Bane.
Okay.
So they do go for the Lycan.
And the chaos.
Oh, nice.
Easy, cool.
Double-cool, actually.
Yeah, you've got this as well.
I think this makes sense.
It is good.
Ringmaster and Tree are also not heroes that are particularly good against cores, in a way.
I think oftentimes these, especially not...
These kinds that farm a lot or scale very well, I think they're better against...
Like, these are catered for the supports.
Bane and Tusk, they're killed for heroes they want to play aggressive and set up on you.
Ringmaster and Tree are good at negating that,
getting that, but neither one of them are particularly good against you.
Congratulations, IGN winning. Spirit picked Tide.
I'm also going to rank in that for the new viewers.
Zero percent out of five games.
And which player most notably lost on it?
I don't remember that.
It's 33. The Tide player. If he can't move a bit, no one can. I mean, collapse is probably
as good. And it makes a lot of sense here, right? Into Keds for the Kraken to get rid
of the Keds buffs, or debuffs, sorry, and also just to stand your ground against Lycan.
Probably will go like consecrated wraps ads. There's an old lads ads and you just keep the game alive
Just throw out gosh for some stuff. You are a beautiful front line to enable draw once again
Like every single pick post trial you can see how it kind of turns back around ago. No worries
We will let you get the right kicks off
Yeah, their spirits so good at enabling their first pick heroes like this
Tied it's an amazing response here, and I think all spirits responses have been very pointed
There's been no picks that have no purpose.
Tree is great against Bane, great against Toss.
Ring Master saves from Grip.
And then Tide responds to both these heroes.
It's very pointed, and I think that's
what's so cool about the way Spirit drafts is
everything is picked for a specific purpose
and a specific reason.
It's not just really nearly we like this hero.
It's picked because it functions in a certain way
in this draft or does a certain purpose.
And with this type of lane setup,
where your side lanes are very kind of independent,
you are giving Lyle a bit more freedom.
What do you want to play?
Do you want to play a hero that forces out a response? Do you want to play your Embers or Storms or whatever to be playmakers?
Again, Storm is already banned out, but you are kind of giving freedom to him to do anything like it's also a really good mid-kunk again
Again, we don't see this here too often, but if he really wants to go, drought is our carry
You just put a mid laner that doesn't really need help and then everybody just farms and you can never fight them
And this is about Kunko as he hates mid-kunker. I mean, I don't like mid-kunker
Yeah, I knew it was kind of hate. He said he just doesn't like it. That's fair. I do
Could it be much more aggressive with it?
Well when they pick it, I saw that's all the proof I need
It's a risky hero to blind
Because he does have some nasty counter picks. I mean for OG I
Don't think you need a whole lot
Like you're you're not gonna match them in terms of team fight from a mick here
some of the heroes generally give. And so I think what you do want is you want something that does well
in lane and you can flow and you can make moves and and take fights open towers. Like if they were
to pick Kunkka for instance, I think Oji can respond with mecher foes. And even though it's
not great against draw ranger, it's cool against the other heroes. It pairs with your supports and
you can win mid and you can you can play fast and and take towers and close at the map because
that's what's good against draw rangers. You take her map away and you make it to where she's farming
triangle alone or with her whole team around her rather and she's the one taking all the gold.
Everyone else is getting poor and you let her sit there and farm her items and then eventually her old team is useless
And she's not a problem anymore
That's why I do kind of want to see a mid laner that is
At least a better pushing out the waves by yourself and then you're not calling teams to help you
The question is like does it would you have that counter pick available from the mid lane?
Once they start seeing what's her it's gonna go for
For two bands for the side of spirit that they don't want to be seeing in the mid lane is monkey king and Zeus
I mean, it's just, it's just
always been that one where we
don't really like him as a
hero, but you've noted time
time again, just how good it
is against something like a
drought in the later portions
of the game and not
necessarily what it's for in
the lane. Yeah, it doesn't
really buy. Want to buy BKB
in like the first two to three
items and then Zeus at that
point will have like tire,
maybe even Yasha kind of
eggs and you're going to put
child to half HP. It's just a
on paper combination that
allows everyone else to kind
about her positioning, i.e. DP the base.
I think you could see QWOP from OG2.
So QWOP's a little worse.
Ember is very solid here.
It's just nice against OGC heroes.
They don't have super clear ways to kill him
and you've got multiple saves.
So someone who gets in there and abuses heals,
some heroes use heals and help more than others.
Something like Zeus couldn't care less
about having Tree or Ring Master because he's not actually
getting in there. He doesn't want to get gone on, so he doesn't use the defensive spells.
Whereas Ember is running in there and can be a psycho, so you can actually use the tree
armor and box.
But from what we've described with OG's lineup, they need to now pick a mid laner that stops
the Ember. You need to shut him down in lane, and then use that tempo to go elsewhere. Like
the Nekra Force that was previously mentioned is the type of hero that you kind of need to
see. You need to see that big lane counter, and they opt in for the, is that?
It's mid timber, I think.
Yeah, you want to pass mid timber?
I don't think this is good enough. I think Viper or Necro or something that truly makes this Ember have no game would have been a better choice.
You had to shut down this Ember. It's like you shut him down, it gives you so much more life in the game, that Tide is a bit more static, but very scary once he gets his farm and it's like...
Yeah, I don't see the Timber fool crushing out the Ember in a way that you get to play through it.
Yeah, I don't think Timber even beats Ember. I think that lane is roughly draw-ish and I think if Ember outplays Timber he can win the lane too.
I hope OG plays better than their draft looks, because I think there is credit to give to
OG, where even if Timber, Ember goes a 50-50 matchup, as long as the Lycan can find a way
to get his home of dumb, and you have, let's say, makesay on the Kev, you are looking towards
three cores that with like 2-3 thousand gold in their first bigger item, they want to play
into the game.
That was very different in the last game, where they only sat on their side of the river,
they were just like awkwardly throwing bodies in going let's react to spirit let's react to spirit
so this is very much a different kind of pacing from OG even though it feels like it's on this like
insane timer of like you lose two teamfights how'd you ever fight again if they don't lose the fights
I am also noting that Rue is on the tree and not me is on the ring so then is that just a lane swap
we know that ring is I think ring is laying with tide and trees laying with drought okay it's just
Because we know that not me is coming in as used to be a position for now position five
So we get to see potentially a little bit of a lane swap from the support
See how they're gonna able to aid a different course for themselves
But a win here for spirit means that they continue on blast slam if it's a loss for OG then unfortunately
They're eliminated, but let's see exactly how our best to do it continues
OG vs Spirit, elimination game for OG, Spirit if they win this they face off against Yandex
in this last chance qualifier. Thoughts on draft, we got the chicken man for OG, last
pick Timbersaw for the mid, and OG bring this back to a game 3.
I mean they definitely have some interesting hero to hero counters right you've got timbersaw against trend and tide
You've got lichen against the drow
I think kez into drow is a little bit. Yeah, this is an awkward situation
They're talking about the text. Yeah, well, it's also a nice hero addition to that
You're gonna chase the mid getting good shards should be fine
not really he's still the high ground got the wolves to help block okay maybe
fine yeah I think Yatora ended up firing an attack into a wolf there because
he went attack move of the high ground blind and then the wolf wasn't in his
target oh man they're still chasing yeah I'm taking a beating now so I think this
top lane is gonna be extremely hard for Lycan that's my biggest concern in this
that I think like easy to say now hey even just on paper right you're playing
into drow Trant I think Trant is really really good against this lane two melee
heroes yes there's tag team to worry about but you have living armor and
drow is obviously gonna offer a hell of a lot of just long-range artillery if
they go on the tree you're just gonna see this happen over and over look at
Toronto here you actually has to Tiki out cool that's rough and Quinn talked
about the mid lane being a draw, if that's true on paper then I would expect
Laurel to win, even though Laurel is not the strongest of laners in the elite
level of Prodota, I think Yolpash just hasn't shown us that laning prowess that
he has had in the past in this tournament, just not really informed. I think that
would be a great start for OG here, shocker, if they do well in mid. Also just for
Yolpash's confidence, if you want to get into a game three here, get something
going. The top lane is split into two different waves now, apparently.
Trontotusky is going to be happy with this, even though he is missing some XP top.
You have to pull the knight creep. There's no choice.
This is the only play you have as Tuskviken, but this inherently always favors the safe
laners if they counter pull correctly, and obviously Spirit, they are very familiar with
this. They'll know what to do. Now the lanes are about to meet.
Does anybody ever play Lycan as a one?
No.
Because of the last minute switch up?
Not really.
You don't think that's a thing or it's just nobody's really doing it?
I think it was potentially theoretically good this game, but...
Did I say potentially?
He started saying that.
Oh, it was potentially and theoretically at the same time, that's funny.
If it wasn't against Tide Offlane, I think it could have been a more interesting idea
And then you could have put Tez mid and picked a different Offlane for yourself to avoid this situation where Toronto Tokyo is now about to die to solo Yatoro with...
Not quite.
...ash.
Not quite, Syndra.
Barely lives. He's still losing his Wolves, though.
Yeah.
He's gonna have to get... He's just gonna have to walk back, I think, at this point.
A wave being pulled again from Tim's level one on this Cusk.
This one they're gonna contend back and test.
He's got the salve going now and he's obviously going for his helmet iron well he's halfway
there I suppose but it's a pretty big purchase to be able to be somewhat secure in lane even
then at that point you're going to be so disadvantaged in the levels.
We'll see and in the middle lane you'll podge.
He's not pulling the drone at the expense of Tim's getting borderline nothing on the
tusk of course and also they have a triple wave which is really interesting
it's quite rare you see this this early on look at the top lane they're gonna try
to leverage this against Rue unfortunately they can't do damage
very true a bit of a rough start here for OG in this lane mid lane in the
meantime Yopaj 15 and 5 versus the 19 and 2 of Laurel so Laurel with a slight
edge. I would ask you how good of a Kez game this is, but I assume it's always good.
It's worse than average, playing into Tide. I think against Drow, that matchup is actually
very double edged, because yes, you are one of the heroes I can just assassinate here you get
on top of, but Drow with Pike and Gust can actually distance herself quite well, and she eats you
alive if she gets to hit you a couple of times from range so I don't think it's that clear cut
of a Kaz matchup I was like Kaz into ember can be tricky hyper mobile heroes that also have
disabled are generally good against Kaz because they both offensively offensively and defensively
have counters to him. Tim's gonna be first blood here. Yes. Will be first blood here.
I believe that we will pick it.
It was a matter of time, I honest to think,
given the theory, they've done quite well in this top lane,
but the problem is, if the theory is you're gonna get
owned maybe you're off in the wrong foot to begin with.
Right.
Sometimes you can sacrifice a lane
if the trade off is really good.
Like let's say you've got a last pick Huskar mid
against Ember and you're like, all right,
we're gonna obliterate this guy
and get a huge advantage that we can play off of, fine.
But you're sacrificing a lane to not win any of the others.
It's not really...
I don't want to call bottom a win.
Yes, Kez is slightly ahead of Tide,
but it's by such a small margin that it's not a big deal.
Do you think that OG have done enough?
I mean, I already know the answer to this question,
considering how down you are on OG so far, but...
With this first pick, Drow...
Like, in theory, Lycan is good against her.
Yeah. You just run up.
Kez should be good as you throw.
We'll finally be taking a little bit of damage, not too much though, much at all, cross at
Tokyo, we'll just get these little kills and once Ruse shows up there's not much you can
do with the struggle at the time.
The lapse is just boss mode down bottom, three points in Kraken Shell, okay, walks into
Kez and Bane with a quarter of his HP and they can't kill him.
Do I think they've done enough to counter drown?
No, I think they have one counter which is like him.
I don't think any of the other heroes are favored against Grel in my opinion.
Nice kill, that's a nice one.
I mean, that one's big.
He's not expecting to die from that on collapse, so that's a big help.
Should always expect to die to Kess.
True.
That one.
He's got a lot of weight on his shoulders already, I think that's what I mean.
Not me getting chased.
He's chockin' with the block of the shards.
So Yopaj getting a machine to kill.
How's the Amp-Damager?
I can't believe I actually called it the correct name for once.
Good job.
Really sorry about that.
The Damage Runes.
with the siege creep and the damage runes so they can actually
if there's no response here from spirit they could take the tower so they have
to bring in heroes and Laurel will be first point of contact still they got
three quarters of the tower that's really good at minute seven successful move
you are playing against Triant you can heal it up but it takes very very long
these levels time for the wisdom collapses level six can skill ravage
But this is gonna be eight heroes in this area pretty shortly collapse holding on to the point of that ravage and they get both
It's the anchor smash Tim's in a bit of trouble not sure if class wants to waste
Okay, I speak spoke too soon. He will he'll kill off that very low list Tim's if that's waste
Could have said to me with a raptor dance through in the vicinity does you'll punch doing a lot of damage to collapse right now?
They are gonna kill off skim to start this so both supports dead to right
That's not me attempting to get out, but your thoughts with that burst damage a little bit too much to handle at the moment. Oh
Collapse
Yes, that's ours are quite low at this point, but while this was happening you told us solos Toronto Tokyo, which I guess we're just a matter of time I
I don't know if I would agree that was a matter of time. I think that's avoidable for a level 5 like and you can jungle
You can pull waves with wolves. You don't need to interact with draw at all at this point. So I would say that's a game fake but
Collapse I should cover for an even trade with that tied up
Yo, Pasha with a regen running. Does he fancied us? He does. He's gonna start diving
I don't think he's going to get a kill here though, we'll back away.
Kind of forced some sort of rotation, Toronto Tokyo now.
In the jungle as you so boldly predicted.
And if you look at the...
I'm going to meet friends.
Oh, he lost the invis there, Rue.
Oh man, Toronto Tokyo just wants that level 6.
Even then he...
I'm not sure...
Hey Rue!
Enough for me to get away from these situations, Rue.
We'll be cut down as well.
It's all has 23 denies right away. Just want to throw that out there. Yeah
Beasting it up how it goes when you have a completely free lane like this
Could argue he has played like one be a half
Half man half like him. Yeah
Yeah, I can is a pretty bad laner and then you on top of that you ruin his first five
minutes and lane kind of plays itself at that point.
And looks like collapse here is going to be working on aggs as the first item, seeing
some variation with the tide hunters, but like the panel talked about, the hero has
a 0% win rate in this tournament.
I feel like that's too small of a sample size to really matter.
But it is the traditional quote-unquote counter to kez if such a thing exists
Mm-hmm
Because it's off to a pretty good start the net to me will be the mage slayer choice, which is great against ember
Some degree side
If he was gonna rush axe he should probably starts going gush soon
Flaps that is a good point
What the hell?
Yeah
Usually you're lined this up so that when you get the eggs you have at least level three gush
But if he's gonna keep putting another point into anchors my church you will he needs another five levels to max out
Considering he wants to skill ravage on level 12
very
So I mean how bad is level one?
Ags gush
It's like three my lesson a hundred eighty damage
Oh, it's more the is the slow the same the slow is the same at all up. Yeah, that is that part of the utility is
That is a bit weird
It's not that this is an uncharacteristic build by the way
It's pretty standard to not skill gosh at level eight
But then you don't necessarily rush the eggs then you go flat first and then it lines up nicely with your levels
So, yeah, he might switch it up. We'll see I
I wouldn't mind the flat but it gets fine right you're playing against like the ae armor is kind of nice against Kaz and like and you
Get some Monterey Jen life skills
Always a good item to have team with drow for sure. Yeah
Toronto Tokyo has the helmet of dominator and asks takes over a sater now he can actually start farming a bit
He is so close on his job.
Yeah, he is.
He is.
The hero dumb is this hero.
I don't know what word describes that.
Well, it's not good.
So you have a lot of adjectives.
Oh yeah, bad was the word I was looking for you.
Yeah, that's tough one.
That's tough.
Right.
Yeah, just like not me, it is not good.
Connecting with smoke today.
Send it around.
Thank you so much.
I don't know what that means, I think.
Yeah, you do. I use it all the time. Yeah, I don't listen, though.
Brown?
Oh, good guy.
He's still gonna get snowballed.
Really in the area has the overgrowth, so level 6 online for him, that puts this to an end.
It's always more than fine.
And look at this rotation from OG. This is everybody.
I dropped the Tokyo in his shapeshift form.
It's like Tim's will take a tumble though.
It's the first step from the OG side.
This require rotations from every hero in the game apparently and why am I here
back to the gate I go to get my axe with my level of protection.
It's a nice defensive line for Drow to play with Trance right? You have a guy
scouting for you you have a guy that can give you living armor and if they do get
on top of you with Lycan you can just press overgrowth on all of his garbage.
Yep. It's super super nice and like someone was talking about I think this has always been one of the things.
All that thought, Wheel of Wonder, not gonna fully hit here as the snowball goes in, they want to get a really aggressive.
They can pick out a support, but Yopaj's now getting run down by Laurel.
Now they're steering chains in two seconds, but it looks like Yopaj timber chains away, so the supports dying this time around are on the Spirit side.
Couple good kills there for OG.
But yeah, I'm very much with Quinn on the whole. Spirit pick heroes for a very good reason, generally.
They're a team that, I would say, much less so than the other average top team, defines their draft by some sort of set pre-planning of these are the heroes that we think are good in the patch and a lot more of what are the problems we are trying to solve.
And that can be both good and bad because I think sometimes spirit actually overcook and
maybe over complicate things with how they draft
but other times they
Just have really clever solutions
But the thing that makes it difficult even if you're an elite team when you draft that with that much variety
You might not necessarily have a completely shared understanding of what's the game stayed right now
What are we trying to do? When are we strong?
They have like this abstract idea of we're picking this lineup for these reasons, but if you haven't run it in scrims or something similar
obviously
Things can feel a bit different. Scam will be vessel and killed by collapse
This three point gush now. She's gonna line up quite nicely as a matter of fact. It doesn't scale ravaged on level 12. It might be fine
I don't think you have to I think it's okay to go just one point in ravage
It doesn't scale that well that ability five seconds off to cool down
Point me a duration stun 100 damage probably better. It's just next gosh
TV's you'll pause wants to get aggressive another guts coming out for new Toro keeping the timber at bay at the time being
Under the tier one power now dodges the chalk and get blocked inside of the shard overgrowth
Not the best timing, but they get a lot of damage for your posh and he gets wheel of wonder that we'll off Tim's next on the list for spirit
But let's get shut down again as OG just can't get anything going yet again.
To me that is, this is what Quinn was talking about after game one, that there's just moments
where OG just seem like, how to say, the vibes are off, like they don't have the good feel
for what they can and can't do.
I think that kill is impossible.
Like there's no point in even trying to go and draw.
She has poor staff and obviously a trant there.
They kind of just
Like that's just feeding a timber away who's three oh and three and having a pretty good game
Pretty costly mistake there. I'm hearing a bike. Oh
Well, it's ready. Oh, actually just gonna get grip hearing a fiend's grip and that's a good counter to bike
How's it now gonna try fly?
Successfully finally a unicycle evading death. I don't think we've seen one before
Absolutely guarded. Love to see it.
Get one tower top taken out as mid lane some action.
And now abated.
Laurel has a spirit vessel, we'll be going for the mage layer next.
Yeah, not often we see ember go both items, but I think this game is fine for it.
the vessel is very good against timber and the mage flare is equally amazing against that hero
really targeting his mid opponent with this build neither item is particularly good against the best
of oji's lineup yeah super good against timber collapse did uh-huh not fake level two ravage
she's got his axe on the way is another wheel of wonders these are the best wheel of wonders i've
seen in quite a while two out of three hitting is seems like it's a really good percentage for what
we've seen at least in the past that Tim's gonna get run down under the tier 2 and Spirit now just
overwhelming OG 7k lead to their name. I mean this is just falling apart. I don't know, you ask
me what I think now I think this is like a 90-10 win or something for Spirit? Because I just,
I don't think the counters on the, I don't think the Radiant line-up counters with the Aya line-up
and you lost the early game quite significantly now. So what's, what's your plan here as Radiant?
You kind of have to get this deso on kez and then go for smoke I think and the overall goal is
That's the problem with drought in a game like this if you don't have get on top of our heroes
Reliably you can go for her teammates and try to get ahead in the fight
But drought is just gonna do so much damage and have so much output here that I don't know if that's a good strategy
so
Maybe you have to find a smoke and wrap around fully and get a little pick here on to Rue
maybe yeah
It's a little something something. So from OG's perspective, obviously this deficit is quite large.
I like the smoke. You gotta do something with this.
What's the plan? They're gonna smoke up.
Toronto Tokyo about to get his helmet the Overlord. Obviously later than he would have liked.
The plan is fine drown and next after if possible.
Well, she is playing with a lot of save though. We haven't really talked about the box yet, which is also great against Bane and Kez.
She's gonna show herself and they were actually just scanned out by spirits, so they know exactly where they are, Rue.
Uh oh, looking for the potential overdrive, he'll start it out.
As the gust comes in, Bane is dead, Matsumi does get to the low ground, TP though.
Oh, is there another Wheel of Wonder waiting for him?
It's a really long TP this time.
And unfortunately, no Unicycle to be able to catch up.
But he's still getting slow, this might not be over.
grappling clock, another gush for the road, but that's gonna be eventually we'll survive.
He should consider himself lucky. I think Spirit kind of just watched that a little bit
with their spellcasting. Definitely could have caught the kids too. They missed the slight
chains first, they missed the gush. As a result, they only killed the bane, but fortunately
for Spirit, flawless execution is not required in this game as it stands. And you've put
Find yourself in a spot where you can make a couple of mistakes here and there and be
A-OK, OG.
You can imagine, you're just going to feel the pressure of having to do something, but
feeling like the moves they have to make are almost impossible.
This is about as tough as it gets in Prodota 20 minutes, is you know why you picture heroes
and what you're trying to do, but because of the conditions you've already unfortunately
got to yourself with the way the laning stage in the early game went.
idea feels so difficult to execute but you still feel like you have to. I think sometimes
in these high level games if the gold is behind 5k you can be like alright guys mission failed
we're gonna farm and we'll get a timing later that we can use. I don't see that timing that's the
issue. Do you see a plan B here? Aside from kez just check it up. I don't know. I mean that's a
good card to pull out though. Yeah, it's done that from time to time. He can
kez it up. I mean really I think the main issue is they don't have particularly
great high ground defense. A lot of times you can try to delay as long as possible.
They have a prototypical stuff needed for that as Toronto Tokyo spotted even a
ravage. Okay, that was very... We have vision there. That was about sending a message.
Yeah, that's what you get for leaving us so many years ago. Wow.
I didn't think it would kick you for a reason, but...
Oh.
Did he actually kick him?
No, I thought you know, he left.
I don't remember.
As Kez dies on the other side of the map...
That is the bigger kill.
...he'll ruin Yatoro.
Yes.
You can take Tarment over here.
I think they're gonna bring Tide down as a little bit of a sponge and then...
...free man this bad boy.
Left the squad, Syndra.
At least that's the story.
No, there's Tim.
Gonna open things up on the Lore.
A lot of burst damage coming up from the Timber side as well.
Although has the remnant they just don't have the lockdown needed
That's for me like you said spotlight now for not me
There's a replay on your total other had the Trent one
Yeah, apparently it was just a solo kill I didn't see an overkill there at all
That's skimp
spotted
shortest grip in history
He's had a couple of grips, not the best, and it's Collapsing Company.
Reinforcements arise to take out Tim's Laurel living on a sliver.
Here he comes!
Oh, he bumped into him.
Anchor in an early shard there for Collapsing.
Look at the damage coming after him, Yatoro.
Timbersaw dead again, just still applied to Trump at Tokyo.
Has his ult in one second, because he didn't bother.
No.
Triple kill for Yatoro, and they are owning yet again.
I just, I don't think this is, I don't think it makes any sense to make moves without Kez.
I think you have to recognize that everyone in your team is having a pretty bad game,
but Kez is the one hero that has enough explosive damage that you can maybe get a surprise kill and build a fight around it.
If you're making moves with Kez not part of it, I think it's just always a losing move, so then it's better to do nothing.
But if you were to make a list of priorities here, I think for OG, fight around Kez.
If you can't do that farm, and if you can't do that, then you fight without him, but that should be your last resort.
It's like, either Kez is dead, or they catch you off guard or something, and you can't connect, and you have no choice but to play.
But I just think they're taking way too much initiative without their strongest hero, generally not the rest of the people's success.
There goes the Roche. Aegis will be likely in the hands of your Toro. You could put it on the Ember here, so you can play super aggressive, but...
Another layer of protection for the drill. Not the worst.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Spirit go high ground with this one.
I think they must be feeling like they're really far ahead, and that would be right.
Yep, and they have a perfect hero to go high ground.
I mean, do you agree with the assessment that the high ground defense for OG is not particularly good?
Yeah, I agree for some delay type tactics. You don't have
I don't know. There's no Magnus. There's no invoker. There's no hero that can really take full advantage of this
The main play you have is shards and nightmare where you pull a hero in and then block them off, but Yatora is like so
You have to grip him too, but then there's the box
Like spirit have a solution for every problem you're presenting
Oh, Toronto Tokyo has to use Shapeshift.
Searing chains applied to him gets whipped as well as, meanwhile, Yatoro just blows up Timbs.
And Toronto Tokyo dies to the hands of Laurel.
Where is he? Hello?
Nowhere to be found is the chicken man.
There he is. He gets gusted.
Little bit late. Do what you want.
And this is such a disaster.
He was feeding relentlessly at this point.
Triple kill for Yatoro.
And yeah, I think they go hide around here.
As is out with a whimper, man, it's a bit disappointing to see.
I knew OG were unfavorite today, but this is just not, it's just not good.
Like you're initiating this fire, rather you get caught on the lichen, the fight breaks
out and Kez is way too late to the party.
Again, your strong hero who just started to aggs shows up when three teammates are dead,
gets gusted and killed by just Yatoro more or less.
I could tell exactly what kind of death that was, Cinder.
was my teammates are going to be mad at me if I don't show up and he technically did show up.
Yeah, so it didn't work out regardless. Can't be blamed.
Is it going to get another support? Yopaj broken with that silver edge, even the ravage being used
as Trontha Perk is dying in his own base. Go buy back as Keds trying to do Keds things can't do
anything yet though he's a headless chicken at this point of the game so
many fish that's so many the only questions will you die before the
game and here yes you will triple kill for Laurel and spirit too very easily
against og they're gonna face off against the index og eliminated the
The tougher challenge definitely I had for Spirit, this was, this felt like warm up,
which is sad to say.
But it hasn't been OG's tournament, just things haven't really been clicking.
You heard the interview with Adam that they're trying to figure it out and obviously have
some limitations.
Spirit though, they look quite hot today, so I think this next series could be quite
competitive.
Very sexy indeed.
2-0 spirit. Back to you.
It's Thompson.
So yeah, spirit getting the 2-0 for themselves.
Are you trying to find the camera?
Oh my god, what's this? It's a magical camera from.
I don't see it. Oh, there it is.
Oh, it's T.S.
T.S. looking about as lost as OG did in that best of a day.
Whoa, that lost, please.
I don't know man. That game too felt really rough.
really Rob. I was really hoping that a game one was one of those things that
they take a little learning lessons. They really work and build towards what
could be a bit more of a competitive game too, but it didn't feel that way by
any means Quinn. Yeah, I think there was pretty clearly a gap between the two
teams. It was not a very close series and I think one day between the group
stage and this last chance qualifier was not enough time for OG to fix the
kinds of problems that they have. I think that's the kind of thing that takes
weeks or months. It's the kind of thing you work on over a long time. It's not
something you can fix in one day and spirits show that they just they're just better.
Yeah, I just hope that OG has like the maturity to kind of deal with a tournament like this,
right? Like where you haven't really had many good results, you can kind of find your way to
make those improvements. Again, TI is on the horizon, the qualifiers like there's a clear path
in how they can improve. But yeah, Spirit, they were just once again so dominant. Sure, the last
game like 40 minutes, but still you could feel Spirit kind of hold the entire game. This time
around a 25 minute swift victory by them it was just yeah honestly like a masterclass and kind of
draft and play right i'm surprised that we didn't see the spirit the entire group stage maybe it
was just best of ones being the nemesis but this is the spirit that i'm expecting to see in tournaments
i think you could take the best of one factor into it but also like now we really are seeing the full
impact of this draw it was like you're seeing the previous tournament mostly extreme gaming that
wanted it and whether it was a first phase or still an earlier draw pick. Spirit are the only
ones that are opening drafts with draw. They're willing to have the confidence in her that it's
if you leave it in the pool we will pick it up immediately as soon as we can and now that's
happened twice and they've won with that twice. So it just feels like Spirit themselves have
carved out a new groove in the metal. Yeah this hero might just be imbalanced to be honest and I
think part of his spirit is also incredibly good at playing this hero. This hero might be imbalanced
was that good? Yeah, I think they're just incredibly good at playing around this hero.
I mean they shine when Yutaro is the star of the draft and they get to all play around him and
Drow is like the quintessential hero that plays that way so it just fits into their wheelhouse
perfectly. It's also a matter of like I think teams are still shocked by it being a first-phase hero.
Like we're seeing teams try to play the Lycan to beat it, an old-school counter. It clearly did
nothing in this game and then like no one's trying to explore for the even more like they're
they're kind of like holding back and going,
we'll try and beat it in other ways,
rather than like, we'll shut it down in name,
we'll twin gate and kill it.
It's like, team, I think there's still shock value
that drow is getting fur-faced.
I think people want to try and fraud check it, right?
That's what we keep talking about when a team prioritizes
a hero so highly that they're willing to open a draft with it.
And no one else is looking towards it as favorably.
Normally you do start thinking this,
I don't actually place as much as high priority as Spirit do.
And so then yeah, you dig deep into the pocket team,
you go, let's bring out the like,
Let's show them that the drought can't be opening pick of a draft and that the lichen is going to shut down
But the lichen did not not do what it needed to do
No, the terms of Tokyo had a bit of a bit of a rough start to the game right like he runs up to the
What's called the steps here with his here on the walls
He gets baited by a kind of beautiful rude position
You want to see on the tree like expecting maybe there's some scouting to be had because he scouts them out
Then the Drow Ranger gets invited over then you kind of bully the Toronto Tokyo
He's already used I think what two or three tangos at this point
Tim's even stepped up as well in the laning phase to kind of help out and at that point because of that first move
You can never enter lane like you have to be so mindful against Rao
What resources are you bringing to that first wave and there was a little bit old chap between collapse into Tokyo?
Now Sumi also was all chatting a little bit. So maybe they were just very relaxed very comfortable
But they got hit by just a pre
Pre-wave setup and they just got absolutely annihilated because of it
Yeah, that's just tough. I mean, TPing to your tier one tower at like 40 seconds into the lane is a...
That's a tough one. I mean, some games, that's the thing about Dota. It's such a snowbally game.
And if you look at a lot of real sports, there's natural reset functions within the game. You score a goal.
Okay, now you're back to sort of square zero.
I mean, just even in other esports stuff.
Yeah. But in Dota, there's none of that. You mess up on the runes. You mess up into the 30 seconds before the runes.
Right.
And that can totally torch your lane phase, which can torch the rest of the game.
And which is part of what makes Dota such a punishing and difficult esports that
Every little mistake you make can just ruin everything else you had planned for the rest of the game
And it's not like it's gonna be over in like 10 minutes
That's potentially anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes that you really have to slog it out
You have to be able to push through that marathon mentally. Yeah, there's only so many times you can tell your team
Don't worry guys, it's okay because when they click on the draw and go it's not okay
Like look at the level what you throw out like 30 denies
I think in the laning phase at some point
There was just no fight in that lane at all.
Like if you're picking like to build Helm of Dorm to take the fight and again, I think the Spirit,
they understand all the little mechanics that they need.
Like they're picking first pick Drow.
They're going to know the weaknesses, the strengths, the potential to take the fight.
And if Rue wasn't positioned there, maybe the game's a little different, a little different.
Not different, but it's like a smidge and yeah, props to Rue.
I mean, that's also the big clear difference between game one where OG are willing to start the draft with a Windranger
for that carry compared to Spirit going for a draw,
a draw feels significantly more oppressive in lane.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And I think Yatora was also an expert
at squeezing up the small things.
We talked about the itemization from last game
and how the disperser was really interesting.
And I think he had some really cool itemization
in this game too, on a much smaller level,
and I think it's quite as crazy.
But I think we might have something for it.
But I think he's just, he's so good at this.
And I think it really shows an awareness and a focus
on the particular game.
I think that's part of what makes spirits so special if you look at his inventory now
This is kind of small, but the fact that he has no he didn't have his wand completed
He just skipped out on buying a wand and he's rushing the pike just straight up
He has two rape bands for armor against the wolves like this is this is like just just no want the fact that he doesn't want
He's just got his branches in his backpack
He's on strength tracks he buys fluffy hat before other items like it's very small decisions on the order that he buys
Pike that have a really big impact and they look collapse
He's rushing eggs in a game where most people buy like lads or consecrated wraps or something beforehand
But he's buying it because he's playing against Timbersaw.
He's playing against something that's hard to actually run in
and beat a frontline tank against.
And so he's buying ag, so he can play sort of this artillery role
behind Ember Spirit, let him run in and do the shenanigans.
And they have this anti-Lycan tech,
which I just think is very, in the moment,
it's very conscious, it's very present thinking,
and I think that's part of what makes Spirit so cool.
I want to ask about the not going the one.
I think that's more important than anything,
because so often you get baited into, you buy stick,
that's something that you want to be able to have
for yourself in lane,
and it just feels like natural progression to complete it.
but to not have stick to not go one to there.
Like, what is it?
Is it because the laning phase went a certain way for him?
The fact that there almost just wasn't even anyone
in his lane?
Like, could you have done this
if we didn't have that re-rotation early?
No, it's a very specific thing for the game, right?
He's playing against Lycan,
who doesn't really cast many spells.
And the other support is kind of just left the lane
because the lane is going so badly.
So what's the point, right?
You're not getting any charges.
And the fact that he's not just auto-piling
and just buys it because you always buy one,
he's thinking, oh, the no-ling casting spells here,
okay, I'm gonna buy Fluffy Hat instead,
more effective HP if they gank me. Those are small things that are very smart.
He's literally playing PvE in the same phase. There's no player to go against.
They conceded the lane quite early, so it makes a lot of sense.
I like the fact that when you look across the three cores, even the embers for it going for the vessel
to mage slayer, you've got the axe on the tidehunter, the hurricane pike on the draw,
everything aligns to we will break our opponent at this one time. Other teams sometimes you look
at the cores and even supports, and it's like the items awkwardly aligned but not perfectly.
In both of these games, they felt like Spirit had clearly identified, like, at this minute mark, we won a good average game.
All, everyone's gonna be online, and it was twice in a row, it's why they looked to break OG.
Like, they just really understood both their draft, itemization, and play, like, on another level.
I thought this timber mid, like, this is the hard thing about mid-matchups, is sometimes you will see it, and they're even in CS.
And that's just not even good enough, because I looked at it, and I turned to you Quinn, and I was just like,
Timber is not doing off bad in CS and you're like, yeah, that's still bad for Timber going up against Ember in mid, though
Yeah, it's not it's not even just specifically this matchup, but it's also the game in its entirety
I think this Timber mid pick is kind of a misunderstanding of the game. I think
You'll posh is a small hero pool. It's one of the big problems of him as a player
And so you pick Timber in a game where it's just it's not gonna cut it
It's not good enough you need to beat Ember harder than that
And I think even if it's Mallory and Timbersaw the expected result of this only the best possible outcome is like 5545
And that's just not enough to get the game rolling because you don't meant to beat them
You have to crush the ember like if you see like an ember or puck on 23 and you have 24 you is like necrophos
It's huska. It's monkey. I want to send that ember like crying back to his coach at the end of the game
Like that was it was kind of like unacceptable to be even in that bit. Yeah today
I learned you know, I hear you guys multiple times, but this was a very clear illustration of that and unfortunately
O.G. having lost both of the games in this best of three, it does mean that they are
eliminated from Blast Lamp 7, but there is so much more to it.
Something else that when I was talking to Adam, he mentioned, they only really have
had about 15 to 17 official matches together as this roster.
And so whilst it feels like this roster change was made some time ago, and yes, there's always
scrims, there is that element that we have to take into factor of fitting such a new
element into the whole lineup.
Yeah, it's tough. It's multicultural. And I think like it's also like they're not they weren't the best team beforehand.
So it's not like he's coming into a team that's like fully fledged has all their ideas figuring out.
They're still growing and adapting and figuring themselves out.
And they're also adding someone from another region who is a very opinionated player.
There's a lot of stuff there that you have to mesh and mix.
It's not it's not an easy recipe to cook.
And so I think it's the kind of thing that will take if it's going to work, it's going to take a little bit of time.
Yeah.
Before T, just because I want to make sure they're not waiting too long, we do have Natsumi on
standby joining us here.
Natsumi, thank you so much for joining us, I know of course it's not the best situation
to be chatting with you in, but I want to talk about, you know, Blast Slam, your expectations
and how you're feeling after the loss.
Yeah, like kind of sad about the result, but like even in our scrim, we kind of like really
Like not doing good, like even in screen, so yeah, I do not really expect a lot on this bus.
And I want to talk about for you specifically bringing in a new off-laner, sometimes it's hard in a draft when to pick up your hero, how much importance is placed on you.
Do you feel like you've had to change as a carry to suit Toronto Tokyo style, or are you still trying to say true to yourself?
I think for me personally, I think it did not really matter to me about the change, I think it's about the playstyle and my teammates, the supports can get affected, the playstyle basically.
Again, many people enjoyed watching OG throughout the year, bringing back SEA Dota to be a dominant team.
What do you think right now going into TI qualifiers is the biggest change you guys need to make so that we get to see you at TI and get to see you perform on the big stage?
I think really the playstyle, if we want to keep this going, we need to fix the playstyle.
We should not adjust to Toronto, basically the Europe playstyle I think.
That more to Europe, thank you very much.
So do you have a very clear vision of how you want the game to be played and how you want stuff to shift?
shift or is it something you feel like you're going to need to figure out over the coming
weeks and months?
Sorry, sorry.
Like, do you have a very clear idea of how you want things to change and how you want
stuff to play?
Are you okay to more follow someone else's idea or have it take a little bit more time?
I think we really need to like talk to each other.
Like, we cannot really do this and if we keep following on his idea, like, it's going to
take a long time I think like even TI is not enough so yeah I think we should really talk about this I think
yeah next all sons all right that's me we'll let you go again thank you so much for joining us
really appreciate it's been a lot of fun to see you guys at BlastSlam yeah thank you see ya we're
looking at our last chance qualifier bracket and now after having spoken to Natsumi oh gee we
closed that chapter for them unfortunately. I would love to see them go a little bit further but
today Spirit really showed up. They came in and it was a dominant 2-0. They're getting a little bit
of time right now to reset because we will be covering Spirit up against Yandex in a moment's
time but if you are looking for a little bit of direction I believe game number two is happening
over on the B stream between Tundra and Aurora. Small amount of spoiler in case you guys don't
don't want to know. Tundra did win. It doesn't work. Yeah, you're still going to hit me.
I can't hear you. Tundra did win game number one. Oh, it does work, yeah. Yeah, okay,
great, awesome. And there in the midst of their game number two, I think we're going to have a
little bit of a check in there. Yeah, last time I was looking at it, now you're going to cover your
eyes. Aurora was up. So there's a potential. That one goes the whole distance as well.
A much harder fall at best of three there. I mean, it is just scary to think that I think
I think I wore a tundra liquid all in the same bracket like only one spot for one spot like I
Mean, yeah, I don't even say anything else like the team names carry the weight on that one once look very spooky B stream pretty good
I agree. I totally agree and I'm curious to see how liquid shows up today because both of these teams are
Ramping up. I think this is one of these cases where sure you get to skip one round
But I'm not fully sure if it's advantageous for them in this case because I think
they need the games to figure stuff out because they're not like solidly set in a
way they're playing and so I think the winner of this lower chunk here could
be the favor going up against Liquid just because they've had more time to warm up
through the day. It's not so many games you're tired but it's enough games where
like I'm ready to go. It's just crazy to think that like Tundra almost could have
been eliminated last night if OG had have won their best of one to a point where
you're going up against Aurora who was just in the grand finals of the previous
tournament to then continue on up against Liquid who won the previous Blast
slam like that is just an unbelievably stacked last-time qualifier on.
Yeah I mean I feel like most teams nowadays like you could probably have six to eight teams that
on a good day should be winning tournaments compared to you know years before where it was always like
two teams inevitable for the finals so we are really kind of in this like beautiful era of Dota.
Sure it's a little bit European heavy at the moment but maybe the likes of like LGD or someone
can come and change that narrative a little bit?
Well look, there is that action over on stream B if you guys want to see that one.
Or you can stick around because after this break we are going to be having Spirit up against Yandex.
I'm a support player. Of course I will die 20 times in a game, still win and get the
MVP.
I'm a Huskar player. Of course I'd last pick Disgusting Nonsense and ruin everyone who
lost this game.
I'm a Dota 2 player. Of course I have more hours than I do MMR in the game.
I'm a Dota player. Of course I love this sudden.
I'm a mid-player. Of course I scream at my panelists to check the ruins every two minutes.
I'm a Dota 2 host. Of course I'm watching the games.
I'm passing the phone to the only other player in the building who's got second place in TI.
I'm passing the phone to the guy with the second best haircut.
I'm passing the phone to someone who literally lost everything we see.
I'm going to pass the phone to someone who can't handle more than half a beer.
I'm passing the phone to someone who has 15,000 Spirit Breaker games.
I'm passing the phone to someone who has won zero kill on tournaments since going bold.
I'm passing the phone to the one with the lowest in my mind, Talon Team.
I'm passing the phone to someone who's a warlock one trick.
I'm passing the phone to someone who probably should have zero communication score.
I'm passing the phone to someone who has a crippling addiction for mystery loot boxes.
I'm passing the phone to someone who's been kicked more times than his kicked players.
I'm passing the phone to somebody who can only play hardstyle.
We're back for our second best of three in the last chance qualifiers here.
We've got Spirit coming up against Yandex and a couple of people who might be either looking
on Lycopedia or just looking at the group standings could be a bit confused as to how
Yandex have ended up in this position of having a play large shed qualifiers because of course
when you look at it they're on the same score line as Falcons.
Why aren't Falcons here instead of Yandex T?
Because the doctor himself has come- The good doctor!
The good healthy doctor.
Great doctor.
Health care in Denmark is exceptional I must say but that has clearly come into play.
Why would I know that?
of the game. I mean, it's
It's just because Scandinavia
did some kind of collect to be
together in good health care.
Okay. Anyways, uh, yeah,
Yandex, uh, yeah, because of the
old new style and the team that
they lost to of the more
course meant they had lower
points. Therefore Falcons has
had better teams. They beat
hence why they are in the top
four and coming to Copenhagen.
Well, one of the best things
though, if you index is out of
the seven teams that they
this one you should be feeling in high spirits, high spirits in high hopes, feels good to have
upon a bat spirit for Yandex.
A little bit, but it was the game of spirit Yandex was the first game of the entire tournament
for both of the teams, so it was kind of like a oh damn this is what they're doing, we got
so excited by Yandex and they kind of peed it off a bit, enigma for DM versus the Yatoro
Lounder, there was some like wake up cool moments in the draft that I think both teams
have learned from since what day one game one tour you know now almost 70th
series something yeah that is the element of having a break in the
previous tournament to come back in people wondering where exactly is Yandex
on that power raking so maybe there was a little bit of catching them off by
surprise but it feels like some of the heroes that are garnering them success
Quinn aren't at all things that should be taking you by surprise they're a very
clear distinct signature heroes for both players like DM and Sarkoven
Yeah, I think they're players that they don't they're not trying to play everything
They're trying to play a small set of stuff and they're trying to get really really good at it
I think especially for DM you look at these heroes
He's had a very small hero pull this turn which the couple heroes in the normal category sort of like a slaughter or a pango
But outside of that, it's very much just this stuff. He's trying to zoom
He's trying to run you over in lanes
He's trying to play fast and so I think especially for the offline versus safe and there's an interesting dynamic there of
Can they overrun the Yatoro safely? Can they take over because Yatoro is not a player likes to play from behind
He doesn't like to play from a Porsche that he likes to do well in his lane well enough
At least he can go farm and DM wants to ransack you
So I think there's a lot of there's a lot of give and take there
But DM just looks like an MMR farmer based on those heroes, right?
Like he will pick those heroes on like the kind of the fourth position in a pub
He was obliterate the enemy carry
He'll make him super tilted and then he's like winning in 20 minutes
And he's farming MMR like none like no tomorrow like he is insanely good at breaking down the early game
And that's like we just didn't see in OG versus Spirit like Yutaro was not challenged at all in that series
So I am looking towards DM and Saxer of course to bring a lot more fight because if Yutaro goes in farm mode
It's like you're probably looking at like a very difficult game
Yeah, if you're having stronger lanes come out from Yandex especially up against Yutaro
Who was very active in the previous series the fact that they could close out games early
I wonder if there's a chance that we end up seeing quite a long game from them
I mean the last best of one that Yandex played for themselves was against LGD, and it was a
111 minute game. So this team very familiar with the with the late late late late late game
Yeah, I mean there's probably like a million and one choices in this game as well
Where there probably could have been like a different I didn't hear a different play there
And then they wouldn't be playing against spirit
That's the beauty of donors like who cares it was such a great game
And it's like there's there's of course so much analysis to give to an a game that lasts a hundred and eleven minutes
But I feel like for Yandex
You need to make sure your teamfight is polished because against a team like spirit
They will put on a master class at kind of kiting out the fights utilizing the buybacks knowing where and when to fight like there was games in the group
Station that they utilize that beautifully
There's like collapsed buybacking on a back rider
Then there was lull buybacking on a primal beast like we're gonna show you one example here
And it's like the start of this fight is the double supports of spirit kind of baiting P vision in then you get the double support kill
And it's so you keep kiting the fight back you keep fight kiting to the right-hand side
Of course, you see at the top of your screen, LAL has bought back. They have to tear to available.
So not only are they taking a fight on their terms,
they're also choosing to fight in a location where they have to teleport advantage.
They have to buy back advantage. And in this series, if this was the one, it happened twice where buybacks were a critical factor
in Spirit mounting a comeback into the game.
So you just always have to be mindful that Spirit is a team fight team and right now leaving the group stage,
they are kind of leveling up more and more. So Yandex, they're not gonna go 111 minutes against Spirit.
They probably would have lost by a minute like 70 against him if it is to get there.
Yeah, I think Yennex has sped up as a team with the addition of DM compared to Notice
because they are playing drafts that are less structured.
Like I think whenever you think about the old Yennex, they always had two stunning bros and then Watts is playing hypercarry.
It's a little bit less of that because DM is playing his signature heroes, he's playing the snowball type stuff.
And so it's a different style.
And I think their drafts probably will not match up as well against spirits as more time passes I totally agree.
So I think in some ways Yennex will be geared towards slightly earlier timings
They'll be geared towards stomping them in lanes running the game over and then once they have that early advantage
They can scale right they've got players that are very competent very high ranked players on all their players
But I think especially that early game is very important for Yennex to get a good footing because I don't think they want to play this
Hey, we're even at 40 minutes kind of game that will not end well for them
Also like with CJ right from the mid lane often we praise him like having a nightstalk as the Slardar is creating this like
Initiation like when he plays Zeus or snapfire we kind of felt that he wasn't as present in the game
So I am looking towards him like have his like weird mealy bro initiator here
I want him to be like a thorn in the side of spirit and like don't allow loud just this free game
Like often loud can be challenged in difficult games
But like on the Queen of Pen that we saw earlier like it was completely free
So the mid lane is also very important
Yeah, that is one of the biggest joys that I have of watching yandex not only play but draft is what so the hero is
CJ gonna get for himself and hopefully we get an answer that as we head into our best of three
one best of three between one of these two teams either spirit or yandex book in that
the game. We're going to
get a ticket here to Copenhagen.
The other one. Well, that's
Blaslam seven all done and
dusted to them, and they will
be eliminated. And so a lot of
questions about the matchups.
Who's going to make it to late
game if they get it there and
how exactly are we going to see
lol contested in the mid lane
because it really happened in
their previous series up against
OG. So now looking at our game
one at bands loan drew it a
keeper of the light. Pango the
We just don't know what it can do.
And it honestly will be the future.
If Sphere is to make it to Copenhagen,
I am expecting it to be either banned
or you're gonna have like the most insane,
aggressive lines of deal with it.
But for now, because you haven't had time
to truly digest it, just ban it out.
Yeah, I definitely agree.
And Spear from the flip side,
I think my Beastmaster fans,
they know what they're playing against.
Double respect for the DM.
Yeah, and I'm curious what, I mean,
they don't think Slaughter is,
actually for Clockwork over Slardar, this may have been the trade Spirit was offering up a lot
of times when you go into the first phase you're, if you're not trying to ban out everything which
is often difficult then you're saying okay they're going to pick this and we'll pick this other thing
and you're swapping those heroes and the trade they offered I think was Clockwork for Slardar
which is a hero that both teams prior worked as quite a bit, one of the few flexes they both have
see if they end up taking it, go for the friend instead. I'm a little bit shook that they're
putting SF at that level where it's like oh well if we're not going to be able to open a draft with
Drow then we'll try and respond with an SF. Yeah, I honestly feel like it's just spirits,
tier list of carries clearly is like Drow is number one, SF's number two, just that's it. It's not that
complicated. Not deeper than that. Yeah, I'm not even gonna try and make it any deeper. It's a matter
of that. Like you pick the SF here, in the next phase you just pick like a tree or a body to protect
to the landing phase, you'll see if he's good.
Well, he's not in the tree.
Let's band out.
Literally, as you said, you either want to look for tree or...
Yeah, it's okay.
It happens, but it's like you're at Tusk Clock Tree.
Am I missing a mealy bird for the five?
Woo!
Don't do that to him!
Sorry, that's mean. That's like teasing.
Yeah, is the post good something in suddenly or...?
How many likes Ogre?
He likes Ogre.
I wouldn't mind.
On Ironically, it's possible.
I would like to see it at some point.
I think this hero has been disrespected.
It's too long in the Dota 2 scene, but yeah, if all the Lili bros get eliminated from the draft, then sure, we might see it.
It's also good, because if you don't pick it as Spirit, then you will need to pan it.
The ogre, right?
Yeah, the ogre.
Yeah, obviously.
It's not too much of a threat, of course.
Big problem.
Fire Blast is just disgusting.
Now, I think, yeah, like SF Clock is just, I mean, it's a tale as old as time.
Even though you don't have the farming, souls and base combo anymore, it is very, very good.
And I don't know, we haven't, outside of Dry Ranger, I don't think we've seen a real counter to Shadowfiend that's been super convincing to me.
Maybe Yennex has something in the back pocket, but this hero has seemed kind of untouchable besides Drow.
It's also like the value in which it brings to the draft, like where teams pick Windranger in previous patches, it was fine.
because like, ah, okay, nothing really stops her from doing her job.
Now like Shadowfiend is that version.
Like, you play in most lanes, you have kill threat,
you very quickly get online because you have like the specialist array build as well,
where it's not like you're kind of like a glass cannon, like you're buying stats,
you're finding ways to like, be a bit more of a, you know, hero present in the early game.
So yeah, Shadowfiend is, yeah, it's kind of like Dota, of course, in modern day,
it's like, items make heroes viable rather than the hero itself making it viable.
And it's like, especially this way, make Shadowfiend viable.
If that got deleted, we probably wouldn't be seeing as much SF carry in Blastlamp.
And they banned the Phoenix as well, so it really is just three respect bans to DM in total out of the five.
Going the way of the offlane.
And they take the tough. So yeah, as we mentioned, the three melee bros, the clock, the three, the tough.
You just need to pick one of them and SF's fine.
With Slaughter banned too, I think everything that DM has played this tournament besides undying is banned.
And you're not picking Undying the Chow Fee, which means we're getting something new for DM.
Okay, he might have played the Lycan.
I take it back. There's Lycan still to.
But anyway, almost all of the stuff he's played this tournament is banned.
Yeah, I can...
Yep, it's Pango.
Yeah, Pango's banned.
Yep.
That was the only little one.
Yeah, so it's just the Lycan.
Which, uh, he has not played this tournament.
Did he not?
It's Phoenix, Pango, Beast, Enigma, Salada, Undying.
Okay.
That's the track I have.
Okay, no, no, no, I believe you.
I thought I'd see him like that, I was incorrect.
Underward against SF is a risky one,
but I think parry with Rubik, it's a lot better.
This pit into lift back, into repit,
is a very disgusting combo.
You have made four staff really good for Shadowfiend,
so it's a game where SF could potentially not buy BKB,
which Gatoro loves doing.
Games where you can just buy Mantapike on Shadowfiend,
make it just much nicer to play
because you aren't focused around a short fight time
or you can play more elongated fights.
I mean, this type of draft really sets up for CJ to want to have that hero.
Like, he wants to be on the Ember-type Void Spirit-style hero that's kind of just jumping in like a madman, making the plays.
Because if he's not doing it and you have like a farming mid lane, there is this kind of pressure on Yandex, like, who wants to make the move?
Suddenly, Watson might have to feel that role. It can be difficult.
But if they are respecting that, then their first three heroes are very good at just kind of creating this like defensive fortress on their side of the map.
As I already mentioned, Quinn said with the damage reduction of both Underlord and Rubik,
Clock as well with the Hookshot for the Cogs to just hold down the positioning.
There is just a lot of reaction available for Yandex.
It's also pretty cool because if Tusk ever commits on you with Tag Team, you can just lift them away and buy extra time.
So it's not as easy to kill Underlord because a lot of the contacts Underlord would be kind of rough against Tusk
because they would just beat the crap out of you with Tag Team and kill you.
But having some reset in your support, whether it be Lyft or Hoodwink W or something like this,
changes the match up to where I think it's a lot more playable for Underlord.
And I really let team so that when they play up against an Underlord have a lot
of kind of map play. I don't want to see just like one move made because like you
make your move, Underlord ults in, turns it around, you kind of go back to this
like status quo of like we both farm. But when you have Lion and Tusk, you know
multiple twin get users, Tusk and poke one side, they Underlord then you could
suddenly the other side of the map with the Lion, you're like making the map
really really wide and Underlord can't be everywhere. So Spirit, they go back to
their Lago, getting Croke a genius on the Shadowfiend is going to feel quite nice.
The Croke on the Lion as well, a combination that we've seen Tundra run, is quite a fun
little combo to think about, just good cheap damage.
It does mean that Lowe on his last pick, be it the Queen, maybe a puck, he's going to
be quite happy getting that extra little bit of a damage buff as well.
I like this TA a lot.
It's got a very good matchup against Shadowfiend because he doesn't really have any killthroat
on you at all.
And if you don't have Killthroat on TA, then that means the hero is just very difficult
to deal with.
She plays on the fringe and just hits Shadowfiend, and then if her stacks up around, she can
blink back.
Or she can play on a refraction timer and get another one going.
Not to mention, if you look at all of Spirit's Heroes, there's not really anything that burns
through refraction.
And she's got a Clockwork to help her in lane.
She's got a lot of stuff to abuse the traps.
You pop a trap, suddenly Clockwork rockets and hooks, and you're underlord getting a
guy's dead from thin air.
So it's very good, and it's Watson's best hero.
And people kind of forgot about TA because of like the loss of her shard, right?
Like not having that silence, but the vision that traps still bring is very important.
When you have the initiation tools of Lion and Task, like having your TA be able to farm an area,
like unless you're using a smoke, TA will be able to dodge the ganks.
It is something to note in the Andex, it's kind of defensive playstyle right now.
It's very like, it's very simple lanes. TA should farm, Underlord should farm.
Like they don't have to make any moves, they just need to wait for their items to then kind of be confident in the game.
Yeah, they're also very much geared up for a game where CJ is playing a move maker
Yeah, I was playing his melee hero, which I think is what suits them best. So I like that as well
That I mean, you're not getting slaughtered
But stuff like ember or storms not melee but something along those lines of hero that can just get in there and do stuff is
Is very solitary and X because like you said underlord very far me
NTA also quite far me. So you you can end up with some lack of playmaking
making. But at the same time, it's not the end of the world if you if it's slightly slower for you next,
because I think their scaling is not bad. Like TA scales totally fine against Shadowfiend. It's not
like playing, I don't know, something like some random hero against Rouranger where you're on a
timer. There's no timer here. So even if you have to play a little slower because of how the lanes
go, that's okay. Do you have to be mindful though that Spirit can still take like a, like a primal
beast last on the mid lane. And then it's like, you just farm the mid, you just crush through into
to the TA early on, you have like high rotation. Of course, there's still like the ember that
you mentioned that you can get preemptively picked and maybe try and deter it. But I feel
like there's a lot of comfort for the spirit, just getting this like casual primal. You
have to croak on the Largo. You just kind of create opportunities for your Toro to find
his entry.
It's probably okay. But I also think that the N-axis has decent ways to deal with it.
They can just still pulverize.
I guess it's a block lock is very good against primal. It's definitely possible they pick
just because they love this hero and they will tend to jam it in cases that might not even seem
like good primal games. But I don't know if like, yeah, Yannick's opps to not ban it.
I mean, I've kind of blindly assumed based on earlier when they picked Largo, it's like
Kup Pak for the top two that I mentioned. They are two banned out, so I'm kind of going,
most like the A tier or B tier hero for Largo. All it needs to do is just go in and I think they're
fine. Yeah, a big part of this Largo hero probably is this croak of genius spell. It's just a weird
because you don't actually see what it's doing.
The damage is, I don't know, it's hard to see.
It's kind of invisible.
So it's the kind of thing that you probably have to check the stats on
or play the hero a lot to actually get a proper feel for.
But it does seem like when they pick the frog
that they prioritize these high magic damage heroes.
And I don't know if Primal is actually able to deal the damage.
Like, is it able to abuse CrocoGenius in the same way?
What happens if I don't even, does Lyle even play Viper, for example?
Because I'm looking at TA and Underlord.
If you pick the wrong hero for CJ,
What if Laugh takes the Viper? You already have plenty of initiation and stun and ways to progress, like take Roshan with Tusk.
I am just a little worried that that could just become the kind of conclusion of this draft.
He's like, ah, Laugh found like the counter pick.
Yeah, you've got to be careful here for sure.
If you're mid just gets, if you pick something that you're like, hey, he'll make moves and then he gets crushed in lane, well then he can't make moves.
And now you can get ransacked a little bit with your two afk side lanes.
lane so they may actually have to compensate a little bit and pick something that they feel can do well in lane
even if it's slightly move-making and they play a little bit slower of a game because they feel like they have a good carry
matchup is definitely an option
Yeah, this is this is very much that and mocker does fine against a lot of zeros in lane
It's slow for sure
But I think they just felt like they couldn't pick something that is quote-unquote faster because if it's counterpicking lane
Then all the speed goes away and then you're in a rough spot
So this is like a they were playing a little slow, but our scaling is beast mode
Yeah, it's a at some point the the game will switch and it's like oh dammit
How do we ever cross the river anymore like our initiating supports are just food for the enemy the traps are doing it there
Invoker's scouting with forward spirits and of course does a gillian damage
Don't quote me on the actual damage numbers, but now that's an accurate measurement
I think also one of the more annoying things is when an evoker gets picked like this
Even if your side lanes are struggling or let's say you're crushing your side lanes on spirit
There's still always going to be external help from the invoker
So you also have to question like how heavy do you want to initiate on them in the side lane?
Yeah, I mean this uh the underlord lane has gotten a lot spicier for sure. You've got pit into
lift but there's a sun strike now on top as well. So the damage range has changed and then
you've got a little more potential in the off lane. Ember is pretty solid against Invoker. You should
win the lane by some amount but it's not the kind of lane that you win on your own and so I expect
there to be a lot of rotations mid and you try to play through this lane. I think Invoker tends to
be like the focal point of a lot of games when he's there you should run at him because he
He sucks from behind, but he's also relatively easy to run at.
So there's a cat and mouse game there.
But not only that, it's like if you bait the rotations towards mid,
and then suddenly you let your ETP top or bottom,
and then you're like killing the TA on the load,
after dragging the Andex's heroes there.
Like, I think Spirit, they're the ones who can create a lot of opportunities early on.
And it's on the Andex's side, which ones are we actually going to react to?
Because we need to make sure we're ready for the right one.
Because if you start getting dragged around, wasting TPs,
there is a lot of like, pick off potential and nuisance from Spirit.
Luckily for Yandex, their lanes are just, they play themselves.
It's just push the wave, get fat, get your items,
and then you play the game and what's in, you know, he makes the call.
Yeah, I think Yandex have flipped the script a little bit.
I think Spirit, they need to be the aggressors.
I don't think it's a game where they're OK just sitting around and farming.
I totally agree that the moves should be coming from them.
They have moves to make, there are options to happen.
I think a lot of the first five to ten minutes is a big skill check
and I'm just curious to see what happens.
Okay, another even-ish draw to where both teams can play through different avenues.
It's all about who is deciding to show up today, who's going to be able to skill check the other, our best of three for a ticket and a spot here in Copenhagen is started with game number one between Spirit and Yandex.
Spirit versus Yandex.
Spirit had a nice little casual warm up beforehand, taking care of business against OG.
I'm sure Yandex wasn't too happy about that.
They would have rather them have gone through some slog of a three game series.
That was not the case at all.
So maybe not that much of an advantage for Yandex here, but the winner of this series
will move on and blast Loser out.
So second attempt for Spirit to dodge elimination, Sindarin, yeah I think, perhaps like you said
maybe Yandex didn't get too much information from the last series but I think if they had
any consideration of giving away Drow and trying that for a game in the BO3 that probably
put an end to that.
So at the very least I don't expect Spirit to get their hands on it in a single game
here.
The rest is a little bit more nuanced with what heroes they're choosing to ban and pick,
Obviously, the panel talked about well when Drow is out, maybe Shadowfiend is just the best carry, because that's the only hero we've truly seen deal well with Shadowfiend.
We cast the game, but I just had a really good start and ended up losing because you actually couldn't kill the enemy core, so it sounds crazy to say out loud, but that was against OG, where they had a bad and carry and Timbersaw offline, I think, in that game.
This time around, Yennex are bringing something else to the table that theoretically is good against SF, the TA can obviously block a lot of attack instances, and Underlord could just be that beefy boy that SF doesn't kill in four shots.
So, a bit of the same line of thinking perhaps with different heroes.
Yeah, I'm glad to see the Underlord, glad to see the Invoker, glad to see TA, never thought I'd say that.
Here's what we haven't cast yet this tournament and like we talked about last series with collapse playing Largo this hero
Suddenly a resurgence out of nowhere. It feels like nobody could win with him now. No one can lose with him. Yeah
Well, maybe it's a case of the best teams were beating Largo and now the best teams are qualified already
So sender in perhaps. I'd just like to congratulate you on something by the way
Thank you. Thank you very much. Is it a good thing?
Well, you don't know what it is yet.
Oh. Sure. Usually you say thank you after I congratulated you and told you what that congratulated you.
I was just blown away that you wanted to congratulate me on anything.
I had to go into Sandbox mode and test the Largo, uh, Catchy Link, not doubling up.
And you're correct, this is not. I personally think it doesn't make sense that it shouldn't do that.
I think it doesn't because that's what it says it does.
a basic dispel to me, I would consider that a buff for your ally, so it should be a buff for you.
That's how I would.
Something you place on an ally when they get it on their status bar, a buff for a hero.
I understand what you're saying, and I'm just saying...
I'm proud of you for that. I want to congratulate you on understanding what I'm saying.
This is a positive cast, Shannon. We're both improving.
Having said that, what do we have here that can be dispelled? The Underlord Root is a big one.
Yeah, the panel talked about the double root potential with the lift
I mean even the triple root potential with a post if they're gonna be gliding if they go in the underlord
Not as much value as the last series
But still that's a good one though because they think we can do as well that and cold snap are the two big ones, right?
I don't think there's anything else. That's really
Particularly meaningful. Yeah, you fire your forge spirits minus armor sender and how dare you for real? Yeah
You can dispel them and less disarm on your FF.
That's right. And you can reposition for EMP very important as well.
Not a dispel for it, but you know.
So that's not at all what you ask, but now we're just...
It's utility. It's a good usage of Lick.
You can also displace every single enemy hero with it.
What do you think the record for the word Lick being used in a cast is?
Do you think we can break that here?
Whatever it is, we probably have it.
have it so we don't need to improve our record we need someone to challenge us
first well we need somebody to actually keep track of the record and then we
can do exactly that collapse then we get what happens there when you when you
bowl a cog while you're inside is it just not work at all that's what you're
you have to be more specific so you are trying to hit a hero that's inside the
cogs yeah with bowling then it doesn't work but you can go from inside and
outward you can basically people inside cogs can't be hit by knockback people
outside cogs can get by knockback from anywhere okay if you could hit them
inside the small cops would be even crazier because then you could cog them
in walk out and then you could bounce them between all the cogs basically that's
try that would be quite broken. Not to say mega broken in Voker pick and it is an
exhort is up the standard these days. I don't really know what the standard is.
Oh, actually hits and that is going to be first blood for Chira, Jr. Just
clipping him barely on the outskirts of the AoE. Huge kill to start the game for
Yandex. It is a very good XOR game though in terms of setups for Sunstrike.
you've got like you talked about you've got the double bit and you've got
cause so it's a really nice way to potentially threaten and win the
sidelines as far as what's the standard I do think this is more normal
Oh and stop lane, Watson can you get some help from Sunstrike but it's not
nearly enough Malady don't think you can finish off you say not me okay he goes
bowling he gets a strike congratulations Malady
Yeah.
Yeah, he's trying to hide in meld, but the sentry eventually came.
Yeah.
It's good news for Yandex that Chirijunior got that first bloodiness having a good time mid because in terms of just raw CS Spirit clearly pulling ahead here in the early laning stage looking at the numbers.
That's because they had a warm up game cinder in bottom lane. We got a pit. Snowball is here. They're gonna still be stuck inside though.
Sunstrike is not going to clip anything as rotation is coming from not me. Sox will die as a result.
DM does survive and we'll get some nice solo XP here at the prairie.
Slain is so strong. Tusk is up.
And the fact that they have the snowball to block a lot of the damage from the firestorm is really nice.
They get caught in a pit, snowball, he just stalls it out.
And then when that damage isn't hitting, you know you can just take the fight afterwards.
Mm-hmm
Maybe the index need to not even try to play aggressive down there to an extent kind of wants with some straight those socks up
and they get caught and
killed
Facting being used to good good effective. That was a beautiful telekinesis getting all three in the area
But just no follow-up unfortunately towards the index side
Although now that Malady has come to play now remember help from not may shift with this to an end. It's earth-like Shannon
And I'd refuse
It becomes actually different enough from Impale, then I'll start calling Earth's like you're also
Use finger death on Laguna blade interchangeably when you I don't because finger sounds better
Okay, so you're called Laguna finger. No Laguna sounds fine. It feels more fitting for
I'm sure that I'm sure that I do say the same thing. It's fine. I mean two out of the three
I use the same name hex for both. Yeah, you know, that's true. Anybody ever called voodoo
No, I don't think I've ever hit that's probably the only spell in Dota history that nobody ever calls what it's called
That's probably not true. There's probably another yeah
Challenging you to find it. It's not a full view three to think about it
Amplify damage syndrome. I'm sorry. Hey, so that's already disproven. I
Do miss that one though is pop wisdom try and play for malady
Don't think I'm gonna get away with this one.
No.
Get back.
Spirit can both.
And his collapse is there as well with the Frog Stomp.
Doesn't have mana for Lick, but I think they still get this kill.
Doesn't even need it.
This is so good.
Lick is a nice impale there.
Yep.
Just to make sure he has the binding correctly.
What do you think of the TA?
And why are we not seeing this hero as much?
As we used to I think she's targeted as a pick against SF. I think that's kind of the only reason they grabbed it here
They wanted a carry to carry matchup that has a good chance there
Chura junior with the tornado I
Thought of another spell me fall I
Definitely call it meteor. Oh
You're a moron
You're gonna make me look at the hero list and all this was one trying to cast like it's an impossible
Endeavor, you know this between game one and two, right?
Yeah, but I don't want to think about Dota at that point
All right
I need to turn my brain off and look at cat pictures and then reset the game to that's how castors work. You wouldn't know
You got twist chat open syndrome. I don't
Okay, you've learned a lot over the year. I'm gonna open it. Well, I do have a window is the game running on it
I can tell so you do have chattel. Someone wrote a little
Okay, very good. Congratulations to that guy
Flaps working on Kaia or any items that everything's gonna be relatively cookie cutter so for invoker. Let's talk about him
He's going for meteor hammer
Is this a hero that you typically will just go agg every game at some point and just decide which version of the you want
Which I assume this one would be the cat up
And it's not me. It's actually in this game. It's just Watson refraction charge is not gonna hold up too fast with
The flamethrower from Laura as he chases with his haste rune meld strike under the tier two power
Malabi is here as well slight of fist not quite enough and watching has another refraction for the road
We could have passed the chains there on the way out
I thought they're gonna come to the mid lane instead as cheer a junior not taking a bit of a beating nice tornado timing though
But mr. Remnant man himself is here Laura
should be able to kill off Shira eventually.
Surely he's dead.
Surely as the bean scape is used,
really wants this kill.
Snowblock in three seconds.
The shard's gonna block him in.
Laurel will finish the job as Zutoro coming to play as well.
Unfortunately for Yandex DM, he's not able to do too much.
In fact, he's kind of out of mana now.
As Zutoro and Laurel might be able to team up
to try to build his big, sad GP, man.
Yeah, the portal has, unfortunately,
and expired. Double kill for Yotaro, so a wasted rotation. Kind of a big deal, because the offlaner is, I feel like, off to a decent start.
As a triple kill. Oh boy. Okay, so, picking around. Yeah.
And a regen rune, and he's gonna look at Laurel being a buddy, giving the bottle over to Yotaro at 10 minutes. You carry as that gets to get the room.
Meatball? Not to be confused with Meteor, of course. Because there's Meteor Hammer being built by Chirra Jr. We can't have that.
Not me kind of just random circles and died there. That's pretty weird.
And the root. Onto the fallout. Should be time now.
They get the tier one tower. No deny coming out as a steering chain.
Onto cheer up.
If there's any follow up here as a telekinesis though with that cool snap.
I don't know if those have a remnant though.
I might to be back to base and keep this pressure up potentially.
He's going to give the refone and he'll connect again.
Spirit are playing super fast in this game.
Yeah, if not for some great fancy footwork from cheer this could have been a even worse sequence
I think he played it more or less perfectly with his mechanics
however
Support especially socks is off to such a bad start zero and four on the rubic level four eleven minutes
Seems like every time you try to come and help people under pressure. He just gets caught by lion in two ways
You found the stacks here all
Well, EM is hit. I'm not going to really block at all, but the impale is there.
Tornado from Chira, good deafening blast. I should put things to an end with the Cogs
at the back.
God, these tricking Cogs at Halaya. I thought of a new spell.
I really thought they were going to kill DM there with a finger and then connecting
further with Ember, but I guess cooldown on the Remnant, I suppose, so you couldn't
finish the job still even though they don't kill anyone they are the ones
setting the pace spirit constantly forcing Yandex to rotate after their moves
Yandex hasn't really made a move of their own yet this game. No they have not.
The fiends gate was a move actually it just did not work out they will come to
the bot lane and defend that successfully and I did think of a new spell
And they're like people don't call by the actual name. Yeah, amphibian Rhapsody
Well, that's because you never talk about the spell at all. Oh
So now there's qualifying. Okay. I don't understand you were looking for one spell
You know, you're actually you know, you're actually right the individual song people don't call them what they're called
So you're right. Good job. Yeah, I'm one. Yeah, good
I can't remember any of the songs except well, I can remember two of the three actually come to think of it
I was gonna say you always call the blitzkrieg one and the other one and not the other one though
Hold it blitz and island elixir, but I don't remember what the first one was
Fuck me hustle, damn, I remember it
You're gonna even just look at it
I actually didn't look
I believe you
Trust me, I'm an honest person
You are, that's the only thing you got going for you is
Oh, okay
Has the yasha
This is a good thing
And working towards the manta now
Should be able to get this tier one this time
So, looking at the Yandex lineup, when do they... when do you think their first power spike is?
Like, how fast does this invoker become a fighting invoker as opposed to long range poking invoker?
I mean, the hero levels up massively when it gets ATOS, but I don't know if he's going to buy that before or after the boots of travel.
I think that's the thing you need to figure out right now as Yandex is what timing are we actually playing for here?
We're gonna try to play extra soul. I would like to see the ATOS first just because I feel like I'm just so much pressure
That if they have that to respond with that would probably be very helpful
So that is a timing if he goes travels first it's first with my sights are there for not me
We'll be clicked by the NATO though, and oh look at that fuck
That's handy and now he takes his hat takes hex only level one but
Better than nothing.
Socks are finally getting something there.
Getting the steals, getting the wisdom, now it's almost level 7.
What is DM looking to buy? Looks like an ATOS, so not going for the Aura bill, at least not initially.
What would you like?
Yeah, I was going to say, pipe looks pretty good. Crimson's not particularly good here.
I know, but the damage is already done.
You have to say something nice about him, he dies.
No, that's right.
Thanks, Cinderant.
A little bit of a wraparound play, though, from Spirit.
A great friendly guy.
Good face.
Good what face?
He's really, he's been growing out his beard.
What do you think about the muck stack?
He loves that.
He loves muck stacks.
He loves muck stacks.
We're taking out, not me. We'll punch him to death.
Ten-five advantage for Spirit with the 2K lead.
Definitely a good start taking that momentum from the OG stomping into the frog stomping now from collapse.
Has the Kaia and is the Sange on the way? Yes.
It goes for the full combo before the Aghanim Scepter next.
We thought maybe Whisper's build was a sign of the change of times, but no, it literally
was a one-off.
It was a cool one-off.
There's definitely, I don't know, there's got to be games where going fast Lotus just
makes sense.
Yeah.
or something there has to be even Lincoln's potentially
Yeah, this is I think this build is just
Standard and always good generally
Sure, junior gonna lead the way here. He has a toast and meteor hammer, so they're gonna have double a toast here pretty soon
You get like quadruple roots and
And the pinamales
That's why you gotta lick em.
Yeah, but then you got telekinesis to counter the lick.
That's why you gotta lick em.
That's when you get level 20 on Largo and take two lick charges.
That's what he did last time. He didn't take the armor aura, which is, I would say, usually the choice, because there's so much armor.
But yeah, the lick charge is when the game is good enough for it. I wouldn't mind seeing it here.
I think it's less good. I mean, the last time was insanely good, right?
The game against OG earlier today.
Yep, that was something really good.
3K lead now for Spirit, as...
...Andex looking to make something happen, it seems.
Like, Chara Jr. gonna get a nice knee-fall surprise on the roof.
He's gonna survive as a result.
Yeah, a little late.
Sunstrike's not gonna hit.
I'm not sure he's gonna actually connect now.
He's gonna keep you the old-fashioned way, actually, as Laurel and company.
Okay, Yatoro.
Kills off Malady, so first casualty is the side of Yandex.
Instant punish, right?
Yandex were just not on the same page there.
I think he's instantly under Laurel.
That could've been really good, but...
...PM decides to join...
Look at this combo!
Oh my God!
Whoa, Laurel!
He's gonna get telekinesis back into the group again.
Double kill for Watson.
The Atoses are out of control.
That was a pit into Ato's into lick into Ato's the counter like we said
Beautifully done. They were not expecting the second Ato's syndrome
Glick that's right get that quote up
How much liquid a lick lick lick if a lick lick could lick lick that's a great question
It's gonna get blocked by the shards and manager in for his troubles will be able to walk away
who did take quite a beating here and continue on it seems no and now rubik skills earth spike
because it's a better spell on Rubik and it's not lion so I will call it Earth
bike for him just so you guys can use okay I see it's different enough now
because of all the juiciness that the Rubik can add to your spell with his
passive which is called off cover your hands arcane supremacy I believe that was
random trivia question yeah well you called it juiciness so i had to check oh okay i just
like the word juicy what can i say i know that poke not going to materialize into much
boots travel now online for cheera well this smoke could still work out if they get a wraparound
behind bomb this is actually a really good time to strike if they kill lardo here you open up the
the area for the Tormentor so very natural time to move and Largo. Yep he spotted, hookshot hits,
and there's the earth spike, and the bowling. Actually okay though. That was not the right hit.
I mean if you want to hit sun strikes with cogs you just need to cog them in place. I think it's
better to cog Largo in place there anyway because he needs time to break out of the cogs. Tia gets
to attack you get a guaranteed Sun Strike hit. The knockback is not worth it.
Muscle memory I suppose. Yeah I guess. Thor coming in. Cover of smoke, Soxa spotted,
there's a hit of Malice with a tornado. EMP combination. Finger finishes off Soxa but
Rue gets blown up by Watson. You can see the close nap. Do you want to work on
your Thor? Okay, knock it off the requiem but the rest of the gandex now seemingly on
the run. Chira Jr. It gets impaled. Sorry, I have to think about that one for a moment.
And collapse under the meteor will survive double kill for Watson Sunstrike not gonna hit
Only three alive now for spirit as the attempt to run away the chase
seemingly not at an end. Yeah, they're gonna spot not me
With the trap one more hookshot for the road so successful fight
With a triple kill on top of it for Watson and the pure one top and the torn. This is a huge move
So while that smoke might not have worked out in the first place onto the Largo's, the extended
fight goes very very well for Yandex and they get their grand prize, which I assume they're
hoping, I don't actually know, they're both really good shards here, they'll get the one
on the top for the Jetpack, the Rubik's save is great this game though.
Against Tusk, against Lion, against Ember, being able to toss damage, I think you should
buy it, honestly.
He's queuing it up now.
Yeah, he just switched.
He had the blink queued up.
He was hopeful.
And now the reality has been that...
Oh, he's still had blink.
You think he's going to just buy the shard at 1400 instead of waiting for blink?
I mean, I would like to see that.
I don't know, well, feel it is.
I'm with the tip, good job, Melody.
Now you can die in peace.
You've got to steal.
It's all we wanted from you.
They can go on cooldown, so no satisfaction there, and this is taking forever.
They do get the kill.
Chara Jr. working on BKB, Watson also working on BKB, they'll align relatively well, and then DM to round out the cores.
A Lotus, actually, so against Searing Chains,
Kind of Snowball,
I guess Impale.
Impale gets reflected, right?
If you unit target.
Yeah, if you unit...
He's gonna get punched in the air.
Finger is dead.
I think it's one of those, if you keep that interaction,
that if you've ground cast Earth Strike, it doesn't reflect,
but if you target it does, and for Nix it never does,
because you can't target it. I do think that Relic is still there from times past. I wanted
to say pretty rare in this tournament that we've seen a good start for Shadowfiend and
then he's not top net worth. He's 5-0 on 4 and he's actually not ahead of Watson here
on Yatoro. TA one of the few heroes that can rival Shadowfiend in terms of raw farming
speed. So another good reason to grab this hero is to keep up in terms of number of items.
And if it comes a little bit of a game of...
If anybody gets the one item advantage, the matchup can actually get very low-todd,
especially for TA. Like, let's say Shadowfiend is working on...
Generally, Shadowfiend might get butterfly sometimes, but let's say you go Silver Edge,
And TA is a hit by a damage item.
If you get any detection on the S, I could just burst him in four shots, and you can't do the same to you.
Yeah.
I had to buy the man to try to deal with the matchup better, but it's still...
That already in itself is a nice quality.
So the TA pick is making it...
So the mantlet is just to try to get through the refraction charges, I assume?
It's a big part of it. There's also the added benefit of being able to break out of traps, slows, and...
Uh, doesn't have a shard yet, so not silencing quite yet.
It's also that if you get jumped, you can man-tent TA maybe doesn't hit the correct one immediately even if there's some benefits to that.
We'll be taken out. Roche is still available. Maybe this is enough for them to go there.
And they're not feeling quite strong. It's a 1K lead. The numbers don't seem significant, but they'll all flow of the game looking great for them, and now Largo, the lap.
I'm spotted. Tornado.
Trouble.
Gonna take a good amount of damage with the hookshot as well, and even DM coming to play with the fiends gate. Collapse.
Still alive though. Do they have the damage?
Alley's gonna try to hound him down, but he's not gonna do a whole lot.
He's licked instead, and now Collapse's gonna try to turn around, but there it comes Watson to try to finish the job on the frog.
It's not enough. Yes, it is with the fable from Soxa.
Takes a long-ass time. I feel like Spirit had more than enough time to try to counteract that, but...
One of my situations where he probably thought collapse was dead, and then they're just equally surprised that he's still alive.
That agonist up there.
Yeah.
Do they want to fight here without their larvae, though? They aren't. Oh, that's a very good-
I think I've spotted it!
With an Alice with a Sun Strike to fall in to burst damage from Chira.
Down goes Laurel, and now Yatoro, the last remaining for a life for Spirit.
Spirit, Ithoros gonna get essence distillard, gets off the requiem, is that enough for him to get away as a question?
Put him out, just barely clips him, put the firestorm and the lift, another one bites the dust for Spirit,
and now that's surely enough if you get the Roche as he transports himself to the bottom sub.
Gonna steal away the enemy triangle first to min-max as much as possible, now TA will head over there.
these fights. I think Spirits staying there on the high ground trying to go for
an ambush with dead Largo I I just think at this level with this opponent
just don't like the choice. You're gonna get exactly what happened is what can't
happen. Just random rocket flitter flying across get to like an E-System and fight
while we're due off. That was Spirits maybe a bit too optimistic trying to play the
positional advantage. Also keep in mind you don't have BKB on a set so you can't
even if you do pull that ambush off you're probably not getting off a
directly on him. He has 100 different stuns. So, possibly, possibly a couple minutes here
for Team Spirit. That's the ages for Watson. He gets level 20, so minus four additional
armor on the mel. Did not take the dispel on refraction, which is interesting considering
he's playing against Ember. I think that's usually quite valuable, but just wants more
damage.
Well, he does have two I was gonna say two I guess one save in the telekinesis
Yeah
We'll see how it's done I suppose
Chira has his DKB now Watson as well
And cheer are working towards a glide near so once the extra aoe and then I assume eggs will probably come after that
Yeah, I would be in DM DM's not going to life near which is interesting. I feel like the big pit of Malice is
with Kata eventually is what they would eventually want.
Gage, they found Gitaro.
A good shot at Gitaro, dead again.
There is no way out of this.
Good attempt, but that's just too much damage.
Slightly out of position.
5K lead for Yandex.
Oh, man, I'm not done yet.
Rue is also definitely dead here.
You had that same thing back here
that you were discussing, Cinder.
You see it now?
What's that?
thing you were questioning from the tiny last game. That's cosmetic. Oh, I see. Tusc has it.
Wait, why does Tusc have it? I'm saying it's not for the specific hero.
Just look at her money response. Why is this so difficult? I'm just saying.
Because I thought Gatoro had the item. So you're saying it's a cosmetic that's multiple of their
players have an issue. Yes, they're rich. What have I told you about rich people? They get gifted
things. I mean, rude-leave guy. In bundles. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Once you join the club,
you know. All right, well, let me counter you with why does he not have it on SF?
I don't know. He didn't equip it, I guess. I don't know. Maybe we're just stupid. Probably just
It's very likely, usually that is the issue.
What else would it be?
Ah.
That is weird, they doesn't have it on that set.
Maybe it's something that you do have to equip on the hero, but it's not like an item for
the hero if that makes sense.
I don't know.
That doesn't make any sense.
Shout out to the Underlord, Cosmetics by the way, great set.
I think I made a hundred dollars on that one and it's the most used under what's
that? It's all I guess it's because certain individual heroes can have a slot
that has it. If you look at the Tuskeye has a corrupted gem on his fist.
Believe hallucination it's called. That's the one thing. But SF. Oh wow. A lot that uses it.
While you're talking about cosmetics and ruining the cast, Laurel gets blown up.
Sometimes you just get wrecked when very true. Actually not at all.
You're off. You're two taken out.
Find an easy line. Look it up.
Things are starting to roll and Yandex is favorite.
DM offing for the Ags next. We'll have that global presence.
It's kind of going to be tough playing your way out of this for Spirit, isn't it?
Like, even if Largo is actually going to be something armed with the BKB, maybe that
could change things.
If this was three months ago, I think Spirit would be ahead, because when Largo got BKB,
he couldn't lose.
But after the changes to the hero, I'm not sure this curve is strong enough, especially
into the TA, but I think it deals quite well with it.
She has great chase potentials.
she hits so overwhelmingly hard that she can kill Largo and stuns, um, and we've already
seen it showcased here just how well she deals with the S.E.V. of Yatoro, and again, you don't
want to build like this on SF to be clear. He has Pike, Mantle, DKB, Triple Defensive Item,
so his 16k net worth actually doesn't hit very hard. There's no data lesson here,
there's no Mask of Madness or something in here for extra damage, so P.A. easily dwarfs him in the
the output department. If they're gonna find him here on the sentry, they see him.
Well, Hoke shot to set things up, but a nice tech Watson, gonna blink into the other side,
delete the supports instead, Yatoro will delete one in turn.
Good counter initiation to prevent Watson from just blowing up Yatoro.
Oh, I'm sorry!
They'll get lifted and destroyed. Double kill for Watson.
Damage runes still active. You do not want to fight in this.
Yeah, I might just chase the SF here. I mean, why not?
We'll get some good damage on him, let him go, impale from the other side from Soxa, another lift for the road and down goes Yatoro.
Triple kill for Watson off the back of this damage rune and now the high ground will commence. The Aegis expires.
This is going to be a full team wipe and all likelihood collapse. Actually is fine, but he can't do much alone.
Watson is just styling this game. So many nice side light splashes from Traps.
The kill on Ember was really nice, double side light splashing them to get to the kinesis
and he gets the melt shot off.
12k now.
And Spirit, they have nowhere to go.
They have all the waves that are pushed to ward their towers.
The wards that they do have, they actually impressively enough even the games they have
a ward in each lane.
I have some information but unfortunately for them, well, the whole game is taking place
in 20% of the map right now.
And there's the telekinesis save.
And Watson is AOK.
No agents any longer, so they're not going to overstay their welcome.
And, oh, it's not a Glypnir for Invoker.
It's the Shiva's instead.
So I still guess the A we increase.
Yep.
Which I assume part of it has to do with DM wanting to go for Glypnir eventually after the next.
Yeah, I guess they don't overlap.
I mean, it's not like it's bad though.
No, I wouldn't have minded it.
You might be thinking of it from the perspective,
this is one of those things that we've talked about prior that...
I like to credit Quinn with this line of thinking.
The way he presents me was very simple.
If you're ahead, you buy tankiness, and if you're behind, you buy damage.
Because, if you're behind and you buy tankiness, you can't overcome the deficit.
You can just stay alive longer, which generally doesn't help.
And if you're ahead and you buy damage, you're opening the door for the enemy team to kill you and get the comeback.
That might be the part of the reasoning here that he's buying Shiva's instead of Glidenar's, that he's recognizing, hey, we're winning.
I just need to not die, and the fights play themselves, because I have a big lead.
And Glidenar is kind of more of, more playmaking that he doesn't need.
He just needs, oh, if I get jumped, then SF gets to attack me for three seconds, can I possibly survive?
arrive and with a shiva guard you would be shot right so I really like it and I
think that also plays into the problem of yatoro here you're really seeing the
issues that he's behind and buying tankiness so his hero is not a threat
every fight they just go on the SF and they don't they don't care like he
doesn't he doesn't pose any issues so until he gets there and gets the damage
items I just think mathematically this game is it's so difficult to win a quote
I'm so terrified because you kind of can't kill the underlord you can't kill the ta look at their health
3k on underlord 3k on ta
It's tough ember also has defensive items his bkb mage flare
It's uh, there's no aggs on him or some sort of
Massive burst they are definitely lagging all damage. This has to work or if you're done in this game one spirit
I smoked up looking for an opening. Soxa is going to be that opening. It gets the 4-step off though and it's probably going to get the fire and stuff.
You can see the Deansgate on the back line off the 2 Euros, the Bagman Scepter. They do get the support to start things out.
The right-clips from the tour are doing a decent job, but Jared Jr. able to pop the BKB now in retreat and the TA completely surrounded.
It's going to be a huge kill for the Spirit side and they get him. A 10x kill streak ended.
And as Malady sent the another one to bleed for Yandex, so Spirit said they need to get
something and they win this fight, three for nothing.
Man, that's pretty much the dream.
You overcome your damage issues because the formation of the enemy team is completely
broken.
They were so...
Like, if you look at how the heroes were placed, I wonder if you get a replay of that,
because Rubik gets caught, he pulls himself all the way out to the right and gets Eichling
killed there.
is helping him, but Underlord and Invoker are fighting on the left, so you have all
of this strength, but your numbers aren't combining, so effectively you're going to
see the problem here.
So see, Rubik's going to toss himself away to the side, and he's going to get killed.
Clock and Tia are trying to help, but Invoker and Underlord are all the way to the bottom
left, so now they're going to get cut off as well, and your Toro gets to free fight
in the middle.
This is just the power of Smoke when you get the correct jump, and a huge pickup for Spirit,
They're keeping the game alive. If that was a more connected fight, I just don't see them winning it, but this exact fashion works out really nicely.
Indeed.
And now your Toro's going to get a damage item. Silver Edge.
Exactly.
I'm going to get one KOA.
I'm getting there.
And Laurel's halfway to his axe, and Collapse is going for Lotus next.
There is a chance.
This was win expectancy with 96 to 4
Three minutes ago now. It's 92 to 8 don't get too excited
It's a step in the right direction for spirit is regardless and spirit have won countless 95 five games seemingly
Perhaps the reason that it's how I was them because they win them 20% of the time and everybody else does to percent
true, but this current roster has not had that same vibe.
So maybe they're getting back into it now.
Yeah, I mean, with any roster shakeup, including coach-related,
it's going to take some time to get your juices flowing again.
Yeah, as they say.
As they say.
Also going sheath on Underlord.
I thought he was going to go Blightmare.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Okay.
Double Sheevahs.
Nah, I just wish they'd one of them had just gone Glidemere instead though.
Sheerah is now going for a hex.
He's almost finished with it.
That's a huge pickup.
But really not prioritizing aggs at all.
Which is interesting.
Yeah, I thought Kata was gonna be worth the purchase here.
have you seen the tornado on a decent amount what about the ice wall have you ever seen
that one yes but it was well not since it became the scepter then people haven't really
valued I have seen it I have seen it but I don't think it's that good yeah it does seem
like the week it's horrible this is a fake fine that's gone on good horse that he actually
finds a lot of distance and that's forced out of the BKB from Watson maybe just
maybe Spirit can try to take a fight now they can instantly get him out of
trouble lick pike secondary four-step from the lion and yeah that was a BKB
from Watson so see if they fancy their chances here it's Boro in the middle of
the river he's just gonna walk straight in he's going for the kill onto
Underland that's a tanky target to start out on the MP gonna hit the target now the BTB
They really want to fight the M on the run gets forced out a nice ice wall from cheer
That's gonna put the fight to an end. It seems now the ATOS re-initiation hook shot misses though
Helicaneses with some good damage to stack it up under the fiends gate comes out as well
No real follow-up. Yes, though
Laurel getting relatively low on HP good side blades attempts from Watson who gets hexes getting controlled with their
There's a forceps to keep him safe, ruling very deep all alone for the time being the finger of death another great ice ball from Chura jr
able to get awesome meteor as well as he attempts to run away
Right a little bit disconnected. Oh the link the link it saves the rule another atos for the road and rule
No way right by this
Oh
Nobody forces this game
And that's the end of the fight nobody dies
Nice.
Great.
Classic Largo.
Classic Largo mid late game.
Somehow everybody stays safe between the moves, the heals, the spells.
Gonna make Roche roar here.
This is a dangerous proposition.
You're half HP and almost no mana on the TA.
They feel like there was enough of a...
We're starting to really...
Watson has anything.
Watson has BKB though.
Yeah.
the atorals another 13 seconds you know they need to try and delay this but the
pit amass is gonna be pretty annoying although DM is taking the breath of the
damage here he's about to drop he does there's a remnants into the pit there's
Laurel gonna get punched by Ruvik that looks hilarious
Rosh relatively low but I don't think they can go for it now this did not
maybe Spirit can't remember collapse is the Aegis Stealer he knows how to get in
Not playing the enemies hero.
That's right.
He's gonna fight.
He's gonna watch the game on the high ground.
But Laurel jumps right on top of another BKB.
Yes, he just has to right-click his way out of this,
but it's not gonna happen 100 seconds on the deck for the TA.
The age is taken by the Invoker though,
so Chira Jr. getting what they came for,
and now the cold snap applied to the Ember spirit.
Gets lifted.
Laurel completely out of mana.
He gets hexed and brought down as Chira Jr.
you're winning this fight for Yandex. It looked like it was gonna go spirits way
after Watson just got completely destroyed. Not the case at all. Not the case at all.
Cogs could have even got the SF. Yeah I thought that was gonna be a great fight
for Spirit considering they ran down the TA but they had to commit so many
resources and of course DM had the buyback so the numbers were fully there
the side of Yandex. How much can they push without their PA rather?
Voker does a decent job of this if he has backup.
One Forged Spirit will take the ranged racks, nobody stopping it.
It's a late bear with a lick. Looks like that's all they're gonna get, but
It's pretty good though, I mean it is so bad for a Yandex
What do you think about okay, there we sure I had his shard in his back
Yeah, that's a rare one
It's gonna use it now you will take the EMP pull the standard
Just the best shard right that's just no way about it
Yep
And he's going refresher, and then I'm assuming it's X don't worry. We'll get it eventually
All that talk of eggs, you know seems to be quite low priority for him
Like socks is gonna have eggs first halfway there already
And what good steals does he have remnants?
Kick I guess kick is really good. Yeah, you'd get that but
I mean, how do you get to have them hit themselves, right?
I actually don't know.
Right over this with some Shrine.
I think you have to use it as Laurel to DKB.
You're going to apply some pressure to Clockwork,
so it's a support for support.
Fiendscape, though, on everybody for spirit.
He's actually going to commit to this.
Doesn't look like it.
Yeah, I'm going to have to run away.
Chira, he does have Aegis.
Doesn't want to burn the DKB quite yet.
Lotus, keeps him safe.
It's still has two and a half minutes,
I definitely would like to maintain the Aegis for now.
And Chiris staying here.
Is he just taking a Lotus or does he actually have any plans?
Sorry, he just took a Lotus and left.
He was going to try to do a solo kill on the Sephora or something else.
Very high risk, but not the case.
He's just going to back off.
Got him?
Still, yeah, the lack of damage from Sephora.
Okay.
I mean, it's a mix item at least.
This is not a characteristic Shadow of the Mentor in this patch.
Maybe it feels like he needs the mixed bag of tankiness and the ability to stick.
As long as Tartar with the slow.
But, um...
Yeah, it does...
It just does mean that he doesn't have that overwhelming threat of,
alright, we're gonna jump you with a Lion Hex and Esoph's gonna free-shot you with a Daedalus.
Yeah.
He's not even buying Crit at all. He's going Butterfly next.
So is T.A.
Oh boy, that was out of nowhere, they were just not ready.
though he's considered that that's a 4k HP shadow fiend who just got stun locked and killed tusk wasn't nearby to save
Larva wasn't nearby to save
That has to be game one in the books. You have 70 seconds of 5v3. You still have the ages even with 6v3
They're gonna go magas. They're not gonna take any chances
They'll go thrown after when they see there's no buyback
Yeah, the buybacks will be brought here if they have them. So this is pretty much confirming to Yandex
but this one is done. Just a formality now. Clean up the lane and then go clean up the ancient.
Get yourselves a nice 1-0 lead. I was not expecting such a sudden end. No, me neither.
Especially considering the fights so far were very back and forth. There was a lot of like really
cool individual saves in a bunch of plays and then there's one moment of slip up that just immediately
Yeah.
Now, they get the connection on to Klappy.
It's a tough nut to crack though, off the BKB.
And now the ancient expo.
There's a buyer from Laurel, but again, like you said,
3 versus 5, not even including the Aegis that they're retaining right now.
Laurel trying to reposition him, so he's just taking casual right clicks from Watson.
Gets off the slighted fist, able to get back to the base.
Humbstrike not gonna hit, but it matters not anyway.
Clockwork does die and shadow things up in three seconds, so maybe they cannot actually finish quite yet
Let me do a little fashion spirit
Versus mega creep situation here. I'm surprised they defend it
Let's see if John can do it John the super melee creep you will be stuffed by Laurel John
Need to work out more brother. We will remember you John
in good news there's five more johns every wave now or six that's really hype
all right where's this agz at I still doesn't have a refresher at the end of it
you can buy it now then you want to buy back Fox that has ag so can steal two
spells now I mean yeah I can back to our conversation
Has amphibian rhapsody so you can play double songs
Don't call it in figure out city. Come on. He has guitar
Yeah
Wait, it's not wait. What's that instrument called actually that he plays?
It's a two-string right
Because he messed up it was almost a three-string something something car. It's not a banjo. I
Don't remember the name
You're reading chat. I'm sure you can get that at some point
That's the way games gonna be over before the delay hits. Yeah
Why don't you just Google it?
What instrument does Largo the Dota 2 hero play?
Well, that's not what I would have for sure. All right, let's see a
Stringed instrument. Thank you so much
That's very helpful. It's not wrong
Not wrong smoke from the index
And they put the finishing blow here
Laura
Spotted they have hex on cheera
Doesn't have a way to blink and quickly get in though
I mean this I'd be a little surprised if Yandex doesn't just wait for ages as much as I think they can probably finish now, but
Style points. Let's take your turn. Yeah, I appreciate that
Not doing the old falcon's road where they delay as long as possible
They're getting paid for each minute that they play as Laurel, telekinesis, almost dead,
gets hookshot right in the hole, and there's a fiend's gate off of several heroes.
They'll be able to get the weapons onto the clockwork though, so they do get one kill
as Watson trying to reposition, gets in, gets licked, is in the cover of the pit of Malus.
A whole lot of damage done to the side of Spirit instead, it's going to be the TA that
dies, so Watson down and out.
Another nightfall away for DM will be successful.
Falcons had it figured out.
They should have stuck with the Falcons.
I'm to chill and then call it up.
Don't they know that you can just level up?
Of course they would love it if they don't level up in the series.
It's true.
You just want to see chickens and frogs.
According to the wind probability, the radiant has had 0% for the last four minutes.
So even for spirit, this would be quite incredible.
flat line them I'm googling what's a two string instrument here well it's
supposed to have three strings right he isn't that one of the things where he
broke a string or something isn't that part of the lore oh is it didn't he break
it while tuning it or something there's a lot of two string instruments one of
them is a Chinese violin called the air is a Chinese mandolin
Could be that sounds familiar
We'll get us burst by
I mean we'll deal with a mandolin
What's that?
Are you cast here?
Here comes Rue, excuse me Laurel
And he leaves
Oh if I, I think it is a mandolin
Good call, Cinder
Looks very similar
Not to be confused with Pangolin
Hmm
I'm getting a mental image now of Largo holding Pango and playing him as I didn't need that
today but I appreciate it nevertheless.
Alright, Knoxville is messaging me, very important, he says it's more like a loop or
a Sanxian, so Knoxville known for his stats, I'm not sure I'm going to trust him on instruments.
No, especially when you write more like, that doesn't sound like you know what it is.
I
Sounds like I got this number I think it's only the third Roche. Yep
They just cheese for pressure and a banner with a big a we
Big bad banner
All right, let's see if spirit can do another heroic defense
They're not a team anymore though. It's LGD.
See if they can do another, if this doesn't roll off the tongue as well, does it? An LGD defend.
Yeah.
It's because it wasn't referring to the team. They're stupid. Here we go. Laurel is in.
Yep, Laurel. He gets tornadoed. He's alone for the time being. He'll trust a little bit later from Nally.
Laurel is getting a lot of space. He comes in with a punch. Not me as well. A good stun onto the TA gets the hex as well,
Well, but they're able to reposition for the most part and they have to worry about the creeps pretty soon in their base
The clock was taking the right clicks of you tall. It's enough to get the first kill of the fight for spirit
But look at their base
How do they keep trading favorably?
On spirit is there the ones jumping there the ones jump
They also got the smoke jumped in their base and got three kills two minutes ago
But they couldn't use it to kill Roche because he was not alive.
If Chara wanted, he could almost buy an egg since now.
He could sell his Atos and do that, actually.
They don't know this, but Yotaro is the only one without buyback on Spirio.
I know, I'm sorry.
Laurel as well.
They should know about Laurel.
One of those two should be the end
And they're gonna get the four staff initiation a lick to try to save it
So we're gonna take the deafening blast some strike not gonna hit
tornado now
Finding wall
Do they have the right click damage they do down and out and that's without the desolator
And he does not have buyback for a minute
If he think he has saves behind her did he have maybe he thought his BKB was ready either way
They got caught off guard by a pit of malice and just kept them there for it.
Yeah, I mean, Collab had two licks. They had snowball save. Nobody was nearby.
They used everything on your Toro.
Hundred seconds.
Technically, yeah, he actually doesn't have enough money. He doesn't buy back.
You're definitely looking to press the issue here. Whether you know he has buyback or not is irrelevant. The play is the same.
the same. You're gonna go and make him either use it or win the game. This is
ultra respect for spirit. They've seen how this team reacts. Two mega creep
situations. Bunker on the base. Yeah, and fail to start things out, Yotaro. Gonna
get saved. There's the fiends game play though. On to several here, the car with the
BKB. Right-click and cheer up by a lot of damage. Sunstrike coming in on top of
Yotaro though. Has to force staff away. Collapse, trying to front line. He's gonna
to get bashed by the melt as Watson now taking the damage is going to get low
this low already a half HP still has that ages though on top of all of that and
now they have the control for Yatoro no more saves for your carry asked to buy
back instantly along with the plus but look at the space being created by DN
allowing Watson to actually right-click the throne and that should surely do it
for game number one the control is there on top of Yatoro they can just focus the
buildings despite the crimson guard and the fortification Watson that will
relocate yourself with the blink and that'll do it for game number one. Wow. That was, that was a
really good game. I'm genuinely surprised with how competitive Spirit made that in the last 10 minutes,
ultimately. It kind of, it went back and forth, it was pretty even and then we had that one key
moment where Yandex really pulled ahead and got a good fight and uh, yeah as far as your taller
shadow fiends go, they found the solution this time. Forced into by defensive items and he didn't
didn't really have the output. It is the best of three though. Yandex off to a good start.
Yeah, winning game number one is always a great start to a best of three and what a fantastic
game what it was. We saw Spirit come in and in their earlier best of three it felt like they were
the team always in control and with the draft that they had in game one Quinn you said they wanted
to really play it at a faster pace and maybe they could have put Yandex on a back foot. We saw
We really saw a spirit tidied up in the earlier part of the game.
Yeah, they were cooking in the lany phase. They made some really nice rotations that I think we'll look at in more detail later.
But they were cooking, but at some point when you make a couple of mistakes against his gandex lineup, you're playing against the signatures of the Watson TA and the CJ and Volker.
You are. You're going to get cooked.
I mean, you kind of just felt like you just saw spirit run into a brick wall at some point, right?
Like, anywhere you went, it was trap vision or a rocket flare or some Ford spirit or some sun strike.
And then Underlord on top of that, any move spirit made felt like it was matched with like four to five heroes minimum in every engagement.
And unfortunately, Toro, from his perspective, he just wasn't able to do much damage in this game.
He ended the game with 25,000 damage.
He had Skadi, Silveredge, Pike, Manta, Butterfly, all the tools to survive what Yannick's had, but he didn't have that X factor.
You know, I'm looking at damage, Underlord has 33,000 damage, Malady had 26,000 damage.
Like, we're talking about clocks and underlords were doing equal, if not more damage than a Shadowfiend
because of how defensive he went with his ultimization.
Which is crazy to think considering looking at the rest of the lineup and how many saves and things they could have done.
It's insane to think that Yotara had to still build that way.
Like, even with what felt like the double lick, there's a couple of fours stuffs as well.
The snowball save.
There's still not enough knowing what Yandex can just throw towards you at any given interaction.
Yeah, I feel like Yatora's build, honestly, would look fine if Largess had a better game, right?
Because it's like, if we look at the OG series earlier with the Queen of Pain,
like, Yatora can go for Dispersus because his Queen of Pain is popping off.
Like, when he's itemizing like this, he's kind of itemizing to join a team who's winning equally.
But when it's like, the team's not performing as well, when he has to really step up,
it's like, he either survives with his current build, or he's a full-glass cannon,
but his team's already dying, so it is very volatile, his itemization,
but I don't think that's obviously the major problem, it's just, you know, one thing to note.
Yeah, I mean, there's a huge difference between this game and the prior Earths and the games against OG, where
Utoro doesn't have the free scaling matchup in this game, right?
TA has a good matchup against Shadowfiend as time goes on, and I think the Invoker is a really, really smart adjustment.
And you can see the way NX is playing these fights, they're kiting, they're dragging them out, they're moving
spirit around, and they're not just like fighting them straight on, letting SF hit.
Once his BKB is out, he's getting tornadoed and cold snapped and pit and lifted and cogged and hooked,
and it's like there's so many ands that one BKB is not enough, there's no way he can itemize in this game to fix it.
once it goes long enough in the tutorial.
Yeah, and what if you compare that to TA, right?
If you compare that to have Watson wanted to play the game, what he was able to do?
Like I was full chill, alright?
Like we double-checked the stats behind during the game,
so it's like he is the most experienced carry TA player.
Of course, there's plenty of other TAs out there who have mid games, right?
You know, Quinn's one of them in the top 10, but...
Congratulations!
Congratulations for playing in the back in the side blade days,
but in regards to carry players, like Watson is the carry TA.
He has the most games, and I'm...
Again, I think we're both shocked that why aren't other teams playing the hero?
It's just been fully ignored, like maybe shard and like the science value, whatever,
but it really played a major part in this game.
Yeah, he was he was super legit.
I think honestly, it's it's also good resilience from Yannick to survive the early pressure
because I think Spirit was they were on them.
They were on their case and making good moves.
And I think that was it's it's not easy to survive that to have the
the 4-2 to get through those tough parts and to keep the farm up and to react properly but not
overreact, commit too many things and end up losing a fight and I just did a really good job of that.
It's also why Yotaro had to go for his item belt. Like Watson was playing so well with this
damage, he was like if you got to see anything else for Yotaro, he'd die so much quicker. So he's
really playing for the we-women this game through clutching up together rather than me having to
like 1v9. Like he trusted his team and unfortunately this wasn't enough against everything Yannick's had.
Yeah, you're talking about this earlier part of the game, everything that needed to go right for spirit still did show itself.
We saw Yutoro do so much in the mid lane.
It feels like not often are you seeing early carry rotations, maybe sometimes through the twin gate, but very rarely is it towards the mid.
Yeah, it's a gorgeous TP.
Gorgeous!
It's gorgeous. It's enabled by the fact that CJ moves up to the enemy hill.
And I think oftentimes you see rotations like this, you see moves like this, and you think, wow, this is super awesome.
and it is, but what enables it is a slight mistake from CJ, moving up onto the enemy hill,
moving slightly up too far, which enables Essef to make this move.
He couldn't make this move running mid, because you can see,
Yenix can kind of just walk away and kite back from a fight,
but they're allowed to actually chase them because CJ is overextended in the first place,
and because of that, Yitoro seizes the moment and they get a huge play here,
this is like, it's really small margins.
He keeps you just at the right time when he's slightly overextended on Invoker,
and abuses that mistake.
these are clutch moments that you really have to see right when it happens or you'll miss it.
I mean, and like you can see from the heat map, this is not a carry heat map, this looks like a
position 5, right? Or you want to rotate from the safe lane in towards the mid, and like Quim was
mentioning, because the Tusk was already set up there, because they identified the positioning
of the Voko, it is the correct TP from a carry. Like we've been seeing it throughout the entire
time, like even Armey when he's playing the low end, if you see the opportunity, go for that TP,
go for that kill, then you can reset back away. But even with these type of moves from your Toro,
It just wasn't enough to like to stabilize the game enable low because again, we saw the result of it
Well, I do want to break it down a little bit more because we see CJ overextend
He's the one that dies
But then DM commits to going through and using his ult and going through the gate and that's my question
From that point do you just go we can't engage anymore and you have to play on the back foot?
Are you even questioning the fact that DM continues whilst the Invoker is already being killed off like that's the part where I'm
wondering if Yandex could have just played it differently within that and what they ended up
changing from it. I mean I think the ideal place probably you don't TP anyone you just cut your
losses and it looks except he's dead but it's really hard to gauge that in the moment. You'd
say it with hindsight but I think that's what what the power of aggression is is that you force the
enemy to make split second decisions and oftentimes they will make the wrong call on how many resources
to commit. I think it's totally reasonable that he pits there and tries to join the fight on Underlord.
It just happens to end up poorly and that's because the aggressor I think often times has better
vision of how this is going to go because they've anticipated and they've thought
a lot of beforehand and if you haven't from the defending side then you might
not have as clear of an idea of how this fight will actually go and maybe you
commit yourself to a fight that is bad for you.
Yeah we ended up seeing that from spirit as well another moment so it's all this
early immigration it's looking great from spirit and then we see Lal have a
little bit of an over commitment for himself and it feels like he's there to
try and save his support task and all of a sudden he just gets a
It's a permacy seed in a fight.
What can you do? Double A post on a pit?
Like, I mean, most midlaners, honestly, it's a treat to watch a midlaner die to this, you know?
Like, they're always so cocky when they play like this, you know?
It's like the Pox who don't care about all kids, the Embers who get surprised by a root.
I mean, Quinn, you've probably been on the brunt of that sometimes, but honestly, as a support,
or anyone who's like, it's refreshing to see, like, that type of lockdown be enough to kill off an Ember.
Like, you need to be at the right place at the right time to punish Laugh like that.
Yeah, I totally agree. They are... It is very...
You need just the right number of heroes and you need to be in just the right number of spots
I think Laurel kind of kind of messed up this game with the item build
We're talking about backstage
But I think this is a game where you can't buy both mage slayer and vessel because playing against the underlaw playing it through
But you could see the all the all these fights where he's getting pitted a million times the invoker spells are kicking in
I think you need a second item BKB in this game
Probably vessel into BKB as mage slayer into BKB kind of waste the magic resistance a bit redundant
And I think when you don't do that then you get to BKB much later
You buy mage slayer and then you buy BKB right after as your third item now
You have no damage and you spend the whole game sort of fixing your last item decision that got set at like 20 minutes
And so I think that that's like whoopsie these mistakes
They really add up against team as adaptable and the skills you index
That's where like the game even still become
Extremely close between the two teams because it would see the back and forth like a later portion of the game
Like even the spirit had kind of lost the early game that there was this like tenacity in them
Like utilizing the four stars of drinking buddies. We had like SS getting kind of back
We had collapsed saving and we're gonna show a kick on it
This is like the intensity that both of these teams can bring,
where it's like, you know, largest initiating, like, being this crazy man,
and then, like, T.A. is getting forced off the out.
She's got another forced off out with her own pipe in a minute,
and it's like, Spirit Identify,
oh, wait, this fight isn't good for us.
Maybe we should just chill for a second,
and Clapz eventually saves the ball.
Like, watching both of these teams fight on even footing is exceptional.
Of course, Yannis, they just had the better scaling.
They had the better position in this game,
so why they were able to eventually close out this game?
But when you're watching teams fight like this,
when you're watching these, like, little mini moves,
team makes helping each other out like it really feels like in the fight it's
anyone's game this is just truly like who has the better like laning and it was
the best game like drafts are so important when these two teams are
against each other when you see people a team fight and interact that way that
is like this is the epitome of of Dota like to get to see a team fight go that
long everyone's using as much as they possibly can to the point where like
skillshots are somewhat getting missed because it's no longer easy to set up
for a clock hook a clockwork hook shot yeah I think these are they're two
amazing team fighting teams. I think they're teams that have really solid fundamentals
about fighting. I think what he said about people realizing when it's good to back up,
I think Yandex have learned that especially with the addition of Sokzai. To me, I think
of him as a player who's so stable and so regimented in the way he plays the game, I
think back to playing on Tundra. We all know how that team plays and played back whenever
he was on the team too. And I think he's taken a lot of those things to Yandex. And Spirit
is the best comeback team ever. So when you put them in a game against each other, I honestly
hope that Spirit picks a better late game line-up next game. And so does Yandex. And we go the
distance because I just want more of that because I know I got popcorn back there I gotta eat.
I need some like terriblates and stuff in the mix. I want like terriblates versus
the deuces. I want like that type of scaling. I want to be like yeah fully invested in like
minimum 50 minutes at the game. I don't know I kind of enjoyed what it was because it's
always got that secret element of spirit way even though we're seeing them down then mega
creeped. It's like okay and now Yutera just plays at a whole nother level and you're still able to
have a smoke initiation on you but you're the team that comes out with three kills. You're the team
that doesn't lose anyone.
It really kind of boils down to Laugh.
I think if we want to super simplify it, it's like the Ember, just like you showed with
the itemization, like going for the double vessel and mage slay, like he was in the game
in the game and then suddenly just full disappeared.
And like sure, as an Ember you can like soak up stuff and give information, but like it
just wasn't enough.
So I'm looking at of course the scaling of your Toro, the character carry matchup, but
also Laugh having continuous pressure for the game, otherwise you will just use Yandex
just outclass them with the type of drafts that you always seem to have.
Yeah, I think that's one of the coolest things about these like really high-level games is they see
Timings that are coming up that maybe aren't super visible to like just the average viewer like they understand that okay at the certain minute
And things are gonna shift and suddenly ember becomes killable once we've gotten a toast
You know and so they're all farming and they're bleeding a little bit
But they know the bleeding is gonna stop soon and there's that specific point
And there's a point where ember runs into the woods and he gets owned by this underlord a toast that they've been waiting for them
It's slowly dragging them in they've been baiting them a little bit and now suddenly he's a lion and he gets a toast and he gets pitted
and he gets repitted, and he gets ATLs again, and he gets repitted again, and then a Volker gets pitted,
and then he gets repitted, and then they're all dead. Suddenly you've got two huge kills.
I mean, the worst part with Laos in this clip is that he's walking in, he walks into the route
initially, then he pops his illusion, and then he, like, it's also kind of a big blunder from Laos,
to be honest. Like, there is, like, as much as we've hyped up the ATLs in the pits,
like most viewers will also be looking at the, uh, the OOPSsies of Laos, but that aside...
I am, like, what is running through your mind to want to re-engage in that way? Are you, like,
Like all the sun strikes about to come out, so you want to split the damage?
Like what, like I just, I genuinely, I guess a genuine question, I'm just not sure.
I will assume it could be something like that because, yeah, I, again, from the clip it's like he goes in next to the lion,
he's just walking next to him so it does look like he's trying to soak something,
can do like a bit more over the top, but in the end it just kind of kills him.
Or is this just a small like, oh, you misjudged the A-toss?
No, I honestly think it is a matter of, it's a matter of him trying to soak it up, to be honest,
But the fact that he uses everything to do that for a lion and kill himself,
it's kind of cool if he does it with Remnant already out.
If he walks in, soaks, sunstrike, hits it by a root, pops illusion, jumps out,
that's really cool.
But just walking in and then going,
BOOM, and then dying, he's like, that's not so cool.
Well, look, it's not just Lala, it's not just Spirit
that are putting everything out there to try and make it to Copenhagen.
Of course, over in the B stream, there's a series that has just concluded.
I'm going to give you guys an update on it.
It was Aurora who ended up getting game number three
fought themselves.
They're going to be playing up against Liquid
in a moment's time.
And it does mean that Tundra are now eliminated as well.
So they joined the likes of OG, Glyph, and Extreme Gaming.
Yeah, they just didn't cut at this event.
I think they started to slowly get it together
a little bit toward the end.
It was definitely not as bad as it was at the beginning,
but overall, a bit of a train wreck,
kind of surprising from them to see for certain.
We talked about it during the group stage,
but it's a really long time now, at least a month and a half,
maybe even two months where they're kind of just been sucking.
And so I wonder for the, you know, for the big dogs coming up
for free, do we see in TI have to be able to get their form back
because I have not seen this team be this consistently bad
for a while now.
Yeah, I mean, sometimes it takes like coming out second
last at a tournament to be that wake up call.
Also, you have to think about Tundra every time you watch
about tournament that they are boot camping.
I think we spoke about this before like other teams where
they kind of, they go home or whatever like Tundra always
seems to be like at the boot camp putting like all maximum
effort in. So at some point you have to maybe factor
it is quite an easy excuse to
also give teams, but I'd like to
think that. Take a break after
this have like two weeks off
full reset like you've already
got the invite. Then you fall
send compete for T. I that is
the thing that's like a blessing
and a curse right now. This is
the last tier one event before
we start getting into that
season of qualifiers and big
events, right? T. I qualifies
are only two weeks after a
Blast lamb seven concludes. So
at least it's four weeks there where you're like,
we don't have to be actively bootcamping.
We don't have to be looking towards all of that competition
level of things, but you still need to stay in shape.
I mean, it's also for Aurora, right?
Beating Tundra in that position, like Tundra out of form.
You don't want to be Aurora in a second place in a tournament
and then you're eliminated by an out of form team.
Like you kind of want to take that second place,
feel yourself together win, like break the curse of nightfall
at an event before you go to, you know, TI.
I think you wait until TI and then you break the curse.
That's what I'm thinking of, it's the boys.
Only Wings was the tier one tournament winner pre-TI, right?
So therefore, you know, you don't want to be that one.
So, yeah.
Either way, Nightfall has a curse management situation unfolding.
As a team, they have to decide which event they want to win, but it should be one.
Yeah, that's what's going on. You as a player.
I mean, I think they have to break it before TI and before EboiC.
Oh, crush my EboiC.
No, no, no, no, it is because I think if they couldn't win a tier one event before now,
that event is not going to be TI.
The pressure is higher there
there than anywhere else so if you want to win TI then you need to break the
curse before them to convince you because really it's not just the public
I don't think I think there's a chance that they don't believe that they can
win tier one third but deep inside they might feel it's the truth that they are
chokers I can tell you those thoughts okay if WS is joking about it then
stable already made the jokes and if every joke is a half-truth right I wanted
to ask though before we circle back into our best of three here we're talking
about like a roar maybe potentially winning blow of blood do you think that
they're even going to make it to Copenac, do you think they're going to win against Liquid?
I have a team Liquid or Aurora will be in winning contention. They are both so strong,
even though they're not in the top. Is that what you asked?
No, that is what I have been asking for, and luckily that's answered a game too
draft on our screens very soon.
We'll keep you guys up to date with all of the action that's going on, of course.
be yapping about that B stream and the fact that it is going to be a roar coming up against
Liquid very soon, but we're refocusing on Yandex and Spirit here. Yandex a one game
in the lead here in a best of three and also one game away from joining us in Copenhagen.
For game two, it's been swapped around. Spirit are going to have the opening pick of the
draft and so we do see if the bands change up a little bit. Yandex now taking out Snapfire.
Lockwork is not going to play, but I want to potentially give Spirit that for the opening in the draft
and Spirit still sticking with a lot of the respect bands of Enigma, Beast and Kotal.
Yeah, I mean, the Beast and Enigma feel like no matter what, they are your first-phase respect bands
against Yandex. I mean, now it's on the Yandex to decide, is Drow really, like, do they have a plan
against it? It is a game two, you're already one game up, it would be kind of cool to see them try
and break it, but alas, they don't want to mess around with it, they just ban it out.
I think it's correct. I don't... I don't know what you're supposed to pick against it genuinely.
I mean they could pick Invoker against it, I think it's one of the better ones, but
I don't know if they have enough answers and it's also hyper-comfort.
And I think the other thing is, the Spirit clearly likes turret carries right now.
They like the ranged heroes and I think they have better answers for those other turrets than they do
than draw. And then I was like SF and Pango into the pool, so it's like if Spirit take SF, they don't
really care about the Pango because you have that turret to right click down the Pango and if Spirit
themselves won't take the pangolary, of course, you know, I've just mentioned SF's good against it,
therefore Yandex can look towards it. Of course in these scenarios and sometimes both heroes
can just get ignored in the first phase because of that kind of like who picks it first to counter it.
Yeah, I don't know if I've, I don't know if pangolars as powerful as these teams might think
it is in this series. I mean the hero is good, don't get me wrong. The first picked pangolars
is not the same as an 18 pangolars or a second phase pangolars. I mean, Spirit's thinking about this,
They are going to take the hang of it, so Yannick could definitely take Shadowfiend,
but we also saw Shadowfiend just lose and get outscaled a little bit.
So it's possible Yannick's also pumped the Breaks here, I wouldn't blame him for that
at all.
I mean it feels like are you going to have as bit of a supporting crew on the side of
Spirit though if they do want to go for something like a TA if Yannick's feel that they are
comfortable enough in the SF?
Quick update, Lone Druid's not banned.
We haven't spoken to that.
That was often a first-phase ban.
That's true, it is not banned.
But now, I think going back to your TA point,
I often see in the previous game,
I do want to see this hero more and more in the tournament,
but when a hero like Lone Druid kind of
ekes its way through the first-phase bans,
you're probably going to call for it.
Yeah, and now I want to see what Spirit can do to this hero in lane,
because I have not seen this hero lose a lane a single time,
except the one game at the beginning of the time
where Spirit picked Enigma against...
Or sorry, Yandex picked Enigma against Spirits Lundur.
Sorry, can you say that again?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Run it back, run it back.
So Yandex, Enigma against Team Spirits Lundur, the first game of the tournament.
Right, and they won with that.
Correct. Apart from that, I have not seen the Lundur hero lose a lane.
Okay, now I understand that.
Enigma's banned, so Globs might not be playing that.
So I wonder what they'll do because Pangular cannot lane against a Lundur.
I think you get totally demolished, so it has to be something else.
And also like the 5-click for Yandex is so important in bringing that fight to the offlane,
whereas like there's the banes, the liches, even like a witch slot to potentially could
you be thrown into the mix just to win that lane even more for the Loan Druid against
some of the maybe beefier options that you want to kind of present to survive what is
a Loan Druid.
And the thing that makes Loan Druid so strong is with the bear plus 5, you create such a
wall away from the lane that even like missing out on XP or the creep wave sometimes just
trying to survive the damage.
So I want to see kind of kill threat on Malady's 5 pick, and of course Barret, they take away
the lich and the tree, some of all kind of comforts for him.
The best response I've seen is Timbersaw, and even that one has been getting crushed in
lane, it's just cool in the game, because you can come back farm agents, and I think
as more time passes you're pretty good against Lone Druid, because the bear cannot assassinate
you, and you do a lot of damage, so it's quite a solid response, it's just the lane can be
really tough, and you can end up in a spot where Lone Druid is sitting safely in a sort
of an invincible wall and there's just an assault happening everywhere else in the map
while longer it chills there and you can't gank him.
I'm surprised they've started, I was going to say, favor the licentiary of our bane.
Like we told you that so many times, if you just get in a good position to fiendscrew,
this pango even rolling up is like kind of useless.
No, for sure.
Ever since pango's introduced the game, bane has been in like the top list of supports to deal with him
and it is going to be kind of the same thing here.
Strong lane throughout the entire game.
I am already looking towards Spirit maybe go for an unconventional hero
Maybe like a clink slays run in the draft
I just want to be able to find ways that you keep hunting the laundry like the main hero
Hides so far deep into the map that you kind of want to go find him and kill him rather than just like always fighting the bear
Go get a random kill then you go back you can feel on the bear as well. Just have map play
So it's a hero that I believe Yandex themselves have played once in so far, but
So to consider either way they are bringing the aggression with the techies
I want them to fight into the laundry. If this game is to be competitive
You cannot allow laundry to just win his lane like Quinn mentioned and then farm his way for free
Like you need to fight his tower drag heroes into the fight like pressure laundry to think about jungling a little bit earlier
Before he's got like the mousetrain and some of his earlier kind of jungle timings
We're just looking to see what's what's next for spirit
I think if they pick double support here, they may end up with a tricky situation where
Okay, so you need to pick your offlaner still against the lunge. There's not many of those we've seen we've seen tight hunter
We've seen temper saw if you pick one of those on 18 that reduces your carry options going into last phase
And then there can be a lot of carry heroes banned and you can end up with a worse carry pick
And so we've seen a lot of teams picking a core here
They're gonna opt not to so I'm curious to see if if things get bottlenecked and your total ends up on a less than ideal
Carry matchup because you've already seen the opponent's carry hero and you haven't responded yet to it either in lane or in game
just, you know, some casual supports. They're fine heroes, but Spirit, the
problem is yet to be addressed. You just see so much like cheap damage and
early map play. Like, it just skirmish from Spirit. Like, there is a point where
Yandex, if they start building the same like brick wall of a draft like they
had last time, then that's all they need to do. It's like survive the early timing
of Spirit, you get to scale online, and then you get to play out your game. And
at least Spirit, they have enough damage. If that, the bear is running around with
You know eggs if you're found by a pango or a hood of it or a techies add a couple more heroes into make like the bear is dying
So they've always have they're progressing their way to the deal of early game druid
Of course late game druid is a whole another broken thing that probably will get patched out of the game one day
But just removed. Yeah, like the first study of laundry then from the game
I'm really sure so that's your off lane duo
Very solid, sensible, nothing really wrong with it, and the Necrophos pre-ban to set up for it was very solid.
I think that kind of is a pretty big giveaway, they want the axe when the Necrow is banned, but it's not like you can pre-pick something to prevent the axe in any way, the hero is just...
We haven't really seen many strong counters apart from the Necrophos.
But here's the big question mark, is what core are you going for? Are you putting Pangol off lane and full throwing them to the wolves? Are you picking a new mid?
What which which carrier you're opting for shadow fiends still in the pool, but you don't have the melee hero to opt for this game
Right, so it's not the typical turret setup. We've seen a lot
Okay, so if you go for the alchemist again, it's really cool for me
I'm next taking the offline before here because they have the last pick in the draft. They don't need to flex anything
It's just they want the strongest mid possible for CJ and that's why picking it here is just
Just really hard to break and spirit they take the alchemist again
And it's, you know, you farm your lane, you give like one axe away, probably to Pangelaire.
He gets like mage slayer, a free axe and a blink.
There is a really good time to play on, really aggressive in nature.
But I'm still kind of worried, like, what is like the Lundrid answer?
Like the three to four item Lundrid answer?
I mean, I like the idea of the Alchemist.
Lundrid is a very slow hero. He just sits in farms.
So he said, okay, you're gonna farm, we're gonna farm two.
And we're gonna hit timing before your timing is ready, where we'll overpower you
and we're way too strong for you to deal with.
Alchemist, historically, is also pretty good against Axe, because he wants to jump blade and he'll call you.
But you've got your old running and it's kind of just difficult to burst Axe, especially when you've got, like, Techie's disarm or other heroes nearby.
So, I think it's a cool pick that makes sense. It thematically fits, I think, how you want to play against Laundry.
Do you either go when you attack him really early, or you pick something that outgreets him and outscales him?
Yeah, right. One thing for Yandex is, like, they know that the Alchemist kind of provides economy elsewhere.
So, like, it's an old-school Alchemist going, like, Radiance, Orchid, Blink, you're, like, the main character.
So Ack can just initiate on the Pangalare.
If you Blade Belt jump him and you kill the Pangar,
then also the fight can change.
Ack can sometimes feel like he's missing damage
if he's kind of invested elsewhere.
Also could just be a game where Ack just only thinks about himself.
Like, he free farms his lane,
he then just builds all these items,
he just keeps jumping the bear by himself,
like, just hammering it down.
Like, there is a world where we don't see the Ack being given away.
But still, again, it kind of makes sense.
I am just seeing a world that damage could become a problem
eventually for Spirit,
especially because Yannick's had the last pick.
LaL needs to find his hero.
Yeah, Yennex is going down the spreadsheet of classic.
Alchemist counters, they've been co-op.
I would not be surprised to see them ban Primalbees next.
I think these have been the two that they've picked the most with the Alch
because you just want to give good ags away.
Huge part of this hero.
I'm trying to think of it as a kind of lap-share that they can say Primalbees.
Yeah.
I mean, you have to respect when Alch is in the game, like what he can enable.
What was it? The big list was Quok, Panglion, Primal, right? At the start of 7.41?
Yeah, there's a lot of people missing here.
Ah, yeah, of course.
The other one.
But I don't think Largo can lean against Laundryrd.
I think you'll get crushed beyond imagination.
And then you're really sad.
Right kill.
And they've still not addressed the Laundryrd in lane.
So I don't think Panglion is going to do very well against it, they put him there.
And just wondering what the choice is, because I don't have an answer.
When I see Laundryrd, I don't know what you lane against it.
And Spirit may not either.
So do you go for that late late game that you're talking about?
Is there a carry that could, sorry, not a carry, but something in the lane
that can just prolong the game a little bit more?
You don't have to win the game, but you just want to put it in a position
where Laundryrd feels uncomfortable.
That was not what I had in mind.
It's cute, I suppose, because it's a flex.
So now you'll never know where this Pango or Viper are going
until the game starts.
So potentially it makes it difficult for Yannix
to pick a mid hero.
So even if, say, you throw your pangler to the wolves,
then Yannix is similarly throwing someone to the wolves
mid, and you've got at least a choice there.
Yeah, it just feels like it's adding to the tempo
that we've already mentioned, right?
Like if the outs in the game, and you're getting the pango,
the aggression of the supports of Sprint,
everything is going to align to that kind of 15 to 25 minute
win the game, which we praise immensely against OG
when Spirit was able to dismantle them,
like that's the type of game that you wanna see.
If Spirit's winning this one,
it's like they're replicating the aggression they had
and the ability to overlap all their cores
with like the right item timings.
Like attack speed slows on Viper,
you've got like bloodthorns from Alc
and just decent lockdown.
Like they have individual tools to deal with Lone Dread,
but I think it's gonna,
I don't think Viper should be good
against Lone Dread in lane.
Period.
So I guess it's mid, it's just rockin'.
Which is a classic response to Viper mid, because you're super far-ranged.
And then secondly, if he tries to skill Q, which is the powerful Viper build, where he hits you much in lane, then the trees own him.
So instead Viper has to max his W and just put it on the wave, and they sort of become a trade lane.
But that's generally not favourable for Viper, because that hero is kind of awkward in trash in the 10-15 minute period.
So if you're not winning your lane, then you're a bit sad. So it's a cool pick on your profit.
also like it offsets how Viper is very clunky in the early game like until you get boots of travel
you can't like quickly TP make a gank and then run back to mid very slow so if there is a world
where Axe is chasing down the Alk or Lone Druid has found a kill threat on the Pangolier the
Prophet will just keep beating that lane get the kill reset so some of that aggression that could
have come into play from Spirit is going to be maybe thwarted by Nature's Prophet. I kind of
like Yannick's lineup like if the game even is difficult they have so much like kind of wave push
and like macro play that we are probably gonna see Prophet and Lone Druid hold this game hostage.
If there's like a 15,000 Goldies for Spirit, they have to keep finding these Rats and these like
this Infestation on the map. No, I think the I think the Nage Carver pick is awesome. I think
this Viper pick is one of these picks where you're not sure what to pick and see a pick a hero that
like okay it's strong in lane and then now it's not strong in lane anymore. Now it's a draw at
best for Viper and I think the whole point of the hero has already been diffused in the draft
whereas the Nage Prophet's gonna buy Vessel and he's gonna camp this Alchemist like he's out in
attempt so I think, I don't know, I think Yandex, they cooked here.
And that's just focusing on the last few picks. There is still a unanswered first pick loan
druid that Spirit are gonna have to deal with when that game gets to the later portions
and it's not looking good because right now they are one game down in a best of three.
Yandex could potentially book that ticket to Copenhagen with a win here.
and
and X up one zero in this best of three elimination game now for spirit can they bounce back
I think the real loan druid in professional matches is one and three.
It hasn't played a ton of them.
Is this a real loan druid or is it a mirage?
And how many of the wins are in this patch and how many of the losses?
I think it's the other thing. Did he play it?
You're going to make me open this up again one second. Let me see.
If I had to guess, he probably lost a couple of loan druid games two years ago
He's one one this patch. That's my guess. I think I saw him lose one
He won against ParaVision at slam seven. So that's this one right? Yeah one
Yeah, he lost to Navi in PGL of Alachia season eight another loss season eight
I remember and I lost to game in in Dream League season 20 with with Quinn. So that was 2023
Yeah
checks out
Thank You Knoxville as all it doesn't have all that much experience on the hero in pro games
But the games that I've seen in this patch, she seems comfortable at the very least and, uh...
There's a lot of good pits in this game.
Who was the one that we were casting that they were feeding relentlessly with Lundru as Yatoro? Uh-oh.
He's in some trouble.
Obstacle caution. There's a blast out there from not me, but first goes down, Yatoro.
Malady gets the first blood.
There's not me.
He's gonna be the second death for Spirit.
So again, a good start for Yandex, and we can talk about...
Well, anything you want, Cinder, in the world is your oyster, and you love oysters.
They're pretty good.
Oh, hang on.
We can't talk about anything, because Alk is here.
Yep, he's right, he's there.
Alright.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of picks that are interesting here.
The panel is talking about Alchemist as a potential solution to low-endure it.
I think it's, I want to say it's high-risk high-reward, and I think that's fine if you're
going into again, two of a series like this where you feel like you need to shake it up.
Spirit are never afraid to throw a curveball and try to change the narrative. Same logic with Viper
when they picked that they weren't showing whether it was mid or off lane, it can flex with Pango.
But ultimately what ends up happening is that Pango will be going off lane and will be losing to
Lone Druid, unless by some miracle they managed to float this lane. But like Lone Bane, good luck.
It's tough out there.
Indeed, and you can see, I don't think I've ever seen this before, Yatoro queuing up 51
individual items in his quickbought.
He knows exactly what he wants.
Wait, did he just remove it?
No!
He said lag and disconnected.
Maybe it's because you quickbought the entire store that you're lagging.
Yeah, that would be funny.
You lose one FPS for each item queued up.
Let's see if it, I feel like when you reconnect,
your Quick Buy does not get retained,
or did they change that?
I think it doesn't get retained.
Yeah, that's why we see it lost here.
So you're gonna have to take all that time
to queue up everything again.
If I had to guess, he queued up like three items,
and the last one, he just mashed on eggs.
He queued up like seven eggs.
True.
What do you think about this as an Ags game? Pango, obviously incredible Ag in a sub-game.
Viper, I feel like a hit or a miss depending on the lineup.
Math for this game, I think.
Yeah, so do you stop it? Like, typically the first Ags almost always goes to mid laner, right?
I don't know how it works now with after the nerfs, because I think it would have been easier to
answer with the pre-nurse crevals creep, uh, aggs where you got four, uh, excuse me, you
got six base gold instead of three. It does change the ramp up quite significantly. If
you gift away two, does your impact just get so late that you're kind of not even really
playing versus in the past when you gave away two, and then you still got six slotted?
I think the point I'm trying to make is typically you will prioritize your mid laner, not your
off laner, but I think you have to do off lane here, so the agg is just so much better.
I don't think Nose Dive is good enough here. It's pretty good against Laundryd, but, um, yeah, I would rather, I'd rather they try it.
Let's see how the lanes go first, because gifting an axe to a pango that's in the gutter might also not feel that appealing.
Exactly.
I was wondering if he was going to gift one at all, actually.
Um, Parfee was playing, if you're playing on the laundry, uh, excuse me, on the alchemist
power spike of the mid-game, maybe you don't gift any acts, you rush radiance, you go for
the classic alchemist style, and try to get there fast.
So far, the lanes look great.
Well, I think I speak for myself.
I speak for myself when I say I want to see the axe.
Yeah, you definitely do speak for yourself.
The panel did bring up a good point. I know it's very uncommon for Quinn to be able to say something intelligent, but
Viper
It feels like you've talked about this as well when you pick Viper in the mid lane. It does feel like one of these
We have to win our lane or what's the point of this hero and it's against the nature's profit. That should not really
Probably just a wash of the lane for being a profit wins this lane
wins the lane, okay? Yeah, I think so. Viper can't deal with the trance. Now that
profits can go this build with nature's call after the buff, you just
sprout Viper, you spawn trance around him, and if you get a good body block, you're
chasing down. If he tries to fight you back, you have overwhelming damage. In the
early levels, Viper doesn't really CS easily by just hitting creeps versus you.
The way Viper wins the lane is bullies you out, and CS is against nobody, but
since you can't bully profit out, he can stand to the ground and kind of fight
Straight back at you. You're seeing so far profit is 17 for 12. It's a lot of denies. He's teleporting top
Taking a beating and we'll fall he was the aggressor to start that out that Chura can join at any time
That is the beauty of this hero. The profit gets us very fast vessel as well. Let's we forget so
Might even have the vessel before Alchys level six, but even post it obviously was just vessel and after uses old team
Blast off bot lane, they want to kill Watson's bear, they do, but he's at the cost of collapse,
gonna be close.
Couple more right clicks, we'll do it, Malady needs one more, can he find the range, no.
We're good, we're living on the edge, not me is the one to fall instead though.
This lane is too easy.
But like he said, well that's the thing, like if they're losing bot and mid and you're
Gifting an axe to a hero that is losing the lane. Is that really even good?
I don't know you want them to have like a major advantage, right? Yeah, I
Just I think you're losing all three lanes here and if you want to win
Alchemist needs to get big and he's to 1v5
Yeah, I know that okay. That's maybe a little bit strict to say at five minutes
That's calm down a little bit, but you're losing the lanes hardcore and profit mid is going to keep that momentum going
He's going to hit level six in a vessel and he's going to hunt you all over the map with these two aggressive supports in Bane and Rubik.
So it is definitely not looking healthy whatsoever.
Look at this rotation. Yatoro already going through gate at level three. This has to work.
Watson is obviously the one they want. Blast off. Shaking his butt. He's going to get it.
And there's a concoction to follow. So they get the kill they came for.
It's not even for free though.
Oh my god, collapse dice. I did not see that.
It's a trade. That's a 4v2, and you traded one for one.
And now you've left Axe all alone, DM, super happy, level 5, has phase boots.
He's completely free. There's nothing hoodwink Elk can do to stop this Axe from just getting a mega quick timing on everything he wants.
As a matter of fact, if you're not babysitting Elk, he can die to Axe.
So...
Yep, they do have to be careful.
pretty problematic. There will be stacking camps, hopes DM doesn't check them because then he's just going to steal them.
It's already a 2k lead against an Alchemist.
Yeah.
Battlehunter and Titoro immediately dispel thanks to the right clicks there.
Bushwack, can it help their cause as Titoro's going to try to turn the tides as Laurel shows up as well with a Viper Strike onto Sassah?
Surely they get at least him.
Another toxin with another right click to boot.
It requires some rotations, and by some I mean basically everybody.
Yeah. That's the funny thing about these plays is Prophet can TP up there,
and be like, oh, nope, not good, and he just TP's back to mid,
and well, Viper has rotated, so now Viper has to waddle all the way back to mid
where Prophet is free farming.
So even though the play isn't successful, all you lost was Soxa,
and your TP's just feel less important, because you have the...
You have extra. It's unfair. Watson, the bear is going to try to steal this wisdom.
It'll succeed because of Malady's nightmare. They even get both wisdoms too. This is very,
very good for Yandex. Malady is going to die if they push back. He has. He's going to kill a
I
Making this very difficult as rule
I mean
He's gonna right click them and sticky bomb is there to finish it eventually, but my goodness
Collapses I'm showing it took it took three heroes to kill off this band another feels like so much space created
That feels really good. You've helped the bear steal the wisdom and then the enemy team stays on you for like 40 seconds
That's yeah
The five dream else is good Cinder in poly market is the official prediction market of blast lamb
All right, I'm a market comm to live trade of the game. She didn't know that one
How do you trade a game that's free to play?
Cosmetics hmm, I guess don't think that's how it works. I'm talking to Toro
Bro, he's going to find Soxa, it's a fully juiced one as well, he will fall.
I think DM might have had a chance of reaching a call there and maybe saving him, but risk
reward and all that just doesn't bother.
Yep.
It's five kills for Spirit, but except the one on Watson that spawned the supports, so
Shira as well as DM having very good early games.
Now Alchemist is on top of the charts finally, farming those stacks that Rue made for him.
I'm just, I'm so curious to see the whole Aghanim's thing here.
I think that's the biggest mystery of this game is, if you buy it here, do you ever not?
Right.
Yeah, you can see bottom two net worths, all the heroes that we'll be getting, the Aghanim's
So, unless we're looking for a support Axe, which we haven't really considered, but highly doubtful.
Hecky's and Hoodwink.
Maybe you can get Pango there. He rushes to Fusel, he gets Basher, you give him an Axe, and suddenly...
Raph of Nature, Laurel, with the Fable now as well.
Getting some help thanks to not me, but DM is there with the Battlehunger and Chira gets the last right click.
And this is going to turn to a tier one tower, all the momentum right now on the end exercise.
I feel like we're going to see more profit in the playoffs of this tournament.
It's just the games that we see, whether it's played carry or mid, I actually think the impact is really, really high.
Now that you go this nature's call, I think the teams are picking up on that.
The turning these plays into immediate tower pushes and you still scale like a beast.
This is extremely valuable.
What do you, I don't think you mentioned this. What do you think of earn on collapse?
Hang on. Soxa.
Caution. Will be successful, Yatoro.
We'll find Soxa again as DM will kill off NotMe and looks like he did get a stack of the Colling Blade.
Yeah, Erna and Pango definitely is a bit interesting. I am not sure what the rationale is.
I mean, it's good value for money. Maybe he wants some cheap armor against Lone Druid and then
Might as well upgrade it because all of the stacks feel nice on Pango. All attributes, mana regen.
that's decent I don't know if he generally does it when you place pangor
this is a laundry-specific thing
your total is back to killing up 46 items in his inventory so it will be the
single items or at least a short term I don't know ADHD imagine there's a bug
where you get more gold on elk if you have more item than your quick buy
oh they failed to stack both camps that is illegal guys you picked alchemist
and both elk and hoodwink missed the stack timing that's unfortunate oh my god that's not
unfortunate shan that's not a luck thing that's just straight up bad well unfortunate doesn't
That's right. I have to be a block. That's correct
rule
It's dead. Let's see if he gets a bite
They're not even waiting over DM to get the dunk
That's all he does me as an ax player
So annoying somebody over there's a race at seven o'clock here
Yeah
Gotta hurry up the index if you want to make that
And DM has blade mail will be the blink next
4k lead against an Alchemist. I can't say that that is a recipe for success.
And it's not just that, it's with loan profits. So like how big is the map even gonna feel in 10
minutes? Where can Alk farm if he loses all his towers to the bear and the profit and then the
bear gets a Shadowblade and so it's fencing them around the map.
That seemed tough. A bold choice I have to say to give away Loan Druid in an elimination game.
Not what I was expecting.
Maybe they saw Watson's record, and they're like, let's take the chance.
And that's where Coach Solent would have been like, sample size guys, but...
I mean, I don't think that's an unfair thing to try to take a chance on, if I'm being honest.
If you feel like you need to let something through because the draft is not to your liking,
It's not like you're banning a bunch of specialty heroes necessarily against your own team.
It just didn't feel like when you looked at the way they drafted and the pacing of it
and what heroes they chose when.
It didn't feel like they gave away Londroid with a clear plan, which is surprising when
it's speared.
At least if the plan was, we're going to solve it with Elk on 18, then they spent reserve
time on that pick, right?
I think that wasn't necessarily premeditated at all, that was the goal.
See here, collapse plus friends looking for a bot tower, but there's a big bad bear.
He's already morphed.
And he's gonna get some...
No, he's got team grip.
Nightmare's gonna be taken off, but there's the team grip.
Immediate cancel, but it doesn't matter, clap is super dead here.
No chop again, but...
Oh, a lot of heroes for this.
You see things?
The whole team...
Yeah, both sides basically. It's just the plurals on the top.
How does it feel bad to TP here though? Because there's a tower you can take.
So then I'll laundry it and software and just turn it into a push.
Axe though. Blade now.
And he's dead. A kill.
They're gonna pick off their first grade. They're gonna need a lot more of this.
5k deficit without...
I'm gonna say that every single time because that's unbelievable.
There's the Radiance though, so...
Ags shouldn't be on the way soon.
Looking for the ways to get stolen.
Not me getting burned down to socks up.
No, don't let it go.
Oh, everybody follow the concoction.
That's right.
We've talked about this before, right?
How it used to be?
When it grew bigger and bigger and flew off screen.
Like if it was global, it would gain damage and you'd die.
I was uncapped once upon a time.
That's in a while like 10% chance. I believe the projectile was track for many years, right?
Is that true? I think you're right. It looked atrocious
But now we're out of beta yeah very recently
Sox is the battle pass ended that's that's when beta ended as well. Sox is still proximity mines. That's really good
So the clip that you were watching yesterday of the triple kill with Techies, it was actually
the Rubik at taking the Techies mines.
They're even stronger on him.
Indeed.
I wonder if they're going to try to go for the same play on the gate.
That is really funny.
If nothing else, he can just farm up the storm.
It's just farming a double stack up hard camp plus a creep wave, so just getting a lot
a net worth out of this sock so it has to combine net worth of the enemy supports at
15 minutes on rubik.
Very good sign.
Spell is so good on rubik you have cast range for it, it's amazing.
I've never heard you be so complimentary about anything techies related before.
That's because it's not techies.
because it's somebody fucking over techies, which we can all get on board, of course.
Right.
Right, Sokka?
And how he has the mines, they want to put that to an end,
and Cokshun finds them and down goes Sokka.
But the counter initiation game is there with the blink reveal,
and the blade mail, he's gonna get bypassed,
but there's the fiend's grip onto Yatoro,
and down goes the big bad ogre.
It doesn't look like they'll be able to get done now.
Laurel, he is getting completely blocked.
Oh wait.
And he's going to get calls for his troubles.
Is there follow-up?
Those Wattson will join the party now.
Laurel is dead.
That is a yikes.
What a great block from Chira Jr.
Now, Collapse trying to help out, but yeah, he already lost three members, my friend.
That was a lot of Trian.
That was like
What do you think what do you think the win expectancy of this game is right now I
Would say 95 5 if you're down 6k with Alc. That's pretty close 91 9
Okay, this area much even yandex escape new all
So spirit we can't have you guys get more net worth than me
He's not worried about that I think
Indeed.
Your prophet has overtaken the Alchemist now and that worth wise. He went for the Agon of Scepter by the way.
What do you think about that? Is that that's definitely not normal this early?
Uh, I like it when you're playing from ahead.
It's pretty dope. Yep.
It's a matter of time. Not that little battle hunger. And Ruzedad.
I think Vessel plus level 4 Battlehunter, it's level 3. Even Vessel level 3 Battlehunter will probably take 2 thirds of Ruse HP.
And Na'Vi will get Profited.
that's right cross the map spirit after a very easy 2.0 stomp of OG are now kind
of on the other side of things against the Andex just there's levels this yeah
there's I just on another level where's this Agzat so 600 away still pretty
The Aether is definitely going to collapse.
You can see he's not even queuing up in eggs.
I have a mechanics question for you, Shannon, that I think you know the answer to.
If Laundruid's bear is next to a flag bearer creep, but the Laundruid hero is far away
and the flag bearer creep gets killed by an ally, so the bear gets gold.
Wait, what?
You know when you kill a flag bearer creep, all heroes in the AoE get gold, right?
i did not know that now
risk the person that kills it
well you get gold and then there's bonus gold to everybody in the radius
uh... it's been that way since the start
does the bear count since the start
you're kidding
flagbearers have always given bonus gold no
am i talking about you talking about flagbearer
for some reason
that's interesting because i said flagbearer
Yeah, that's weird, I was here for something else.
I can see why you would think about Rotary and Stainless.
I just thought it was going to be an interesting conversation.
This is really uninteresting, actually.
You made a little of a mistake.
I'm not being dead.
That's so mighty.
Can you think of anything more dull than who gets the 30 gold?
Ehhhhh.
I just like asking you really dumb mechanics question.
It's funny.
I would say no, the bear would not get it.
Alright, I'm not sure what the answer is.
I don't know either.
I knew you would know.
A Rosh banner on the other side.
It's like, when could you get a Ui-Gul from Rosh banner?
That's crazy good.
Speaking of Rosh banner, I'm gonna go for a walk now.
I would imagine that Yandex will be happy to kill Rosh in the top half now.
Alright, they had Ags on collapse.
Maybe waiting for his blink until they try to do something with it.
So he's now top net worth on Spirit.
it. Yeah. Well, it's a good player to put your faith in, but the issue is his matchups
aren't even good. Yeah, it's not a good pango game. There's grip. There's call. You're
not that great against the bear. It's got to come up here. You will find line for his
team. Nightmare. Socks at teepees out. I'm going to find anyone. Five man move in, move
in vain and this is going to be a lot of agginess or something or any of his
patented signature heroes like not that he's not good on pangob I would not put
this in his top five right and maybe he could pull something out of his hat but
it's just a matter of hero limitations right even if this was if he had if he
was Magnus this game can Magnus win this like that I mean high ground you have
something right they're gonna root yatora on the wisdom he gets scared and will leave so now
the bear will get it the bear is just standing here and it just forces the rest of spirit away
that is so sad to watch oh my goodness the prophetel to connect for the root and they're like wait are
we getting ganks yeah that is and well now the bear has eggs so now it's a different story
Now it could have actually just killed them.
Really?
I don't think so.
You don't think the bear can kill Alph there with a Prophet ult?
He doesn't have three chemical runes there.
Were they three? I thought it was just Alph for the ring.
I don't think so.
More were TPing, so they would have gotten there.
It's just you always need to factor in that Prophet can connect, right?
That's part of every play.
Bear is on the hunt, Rue. Okay, no mind, he didn't connect, I thought he was actually on the hunt, oh now he's on the hunt.
Yeah, there's initiation, DM looking for the chop, we'll get it. Three chops to his name.
Here comes Aghanim. And now the last with that Aghanim Scepter, already at half health, has to back away.
That was a very important taser.
Last moment, the next swing from the bear would have been a root, and collapse might have actually ended up dying, but...
It's there in time on NotMe.
I'm pouring myself a drink, Cinderan.
Alright.
What's your drink of choice today?
Hot water?
This disgusting ginger garbage of having to drink.
Interesting drink of choice to pick something disgusting, but...
I have to.
That's the life of an old man.
It's not your drink of choice, then.
That's right.
It is my...
Saksa?
A small price to pay but at the very least it gives spirits some space on the map now
It's probably worth more than the kill itself, especially if they also get Malady, but at the nightmare
I don't think they can reach this, no
Did it always show when somebody is under nightmare did it always say a sleep instead of just sleep
Never know. Very important conversation. You're having a very getting gank concoction will stop the teepee
Sharp shooter gets the kill so rule is an extra 325
We're some of our though, so very cool
That's almost like a
Respawn talent from back in the day. Just caught some gold instead. They got removed for a reason.
Undying still has it, in a way. Yeah, I suppose. Nobody has a problem with that one.
I might if undying was really good
That's the difference between laundry than undying longer, it's really good
Kind of sad undying I find to be very fun. That's a fun design
Much like Oscar all right. I just beating
Chira generic is, oh hang on, they're just going to take the taunt, this is a pretty
late taunt until they don't get it in time before the inevitable side switch.
And Chira will be going for Silver Edge after getting Specialist's Array, kind of interesting
that he doesn't choose to, well I suppose he wants, never mind it makes more sense,
now that I think about it more, all good.
I think he, yeah, he just died to mines on top of the gate.
Can it happen to anyone as we found out?
Yeah, indeed.
Hey, that's why you got to be the one to do that, Soxa.
Come on now.
You didn't watch that reddit clip, obviously.
Tier 1 Tower will be Spirits.
That'll be their second tower of the game.
There's a pro Dota player that's unlikely to watch reddit clips.
I think Soxa's pretty high up on my list.
Yeah, probably.
Don't think he cares.
He's not a huge memer.
No.
He doesn't hear all the QC.
He's not as healthy as the core player gets in terms of his vice, I suppose.
Yeah, he's reading plenty.
Gitaro is asleep, not to be confused with sleeping.
Yeah, it's because...
Oh, holiday, hello.
Yeah, but look at how many heroes showed up for this.
Yeah, they have boring numbers because of the threat of the counterplay always being there.
there bear plus profit what a disgusting global combination as if the bear
wasn't bad enough like when it gets to a mid late game that sometimes can just
solo even cores add a profit that buys a hex for example I'll see it there where
it was gonna die profit actually disconnect for it but was too late to
even get a vessel charge this game is so hard to play for dire I think it's
hard to showcase it while watching the game, just how difficult it is, but you have to
get really creative with your movements, you need to get deep wards out, and even with
that at any point you could just get this as a, oh yeah, okay Watson actually did 50
ancients, so.
Uh oh, Toro.
They've been gone on by the bear, it's going to require a number, cheer is here, with the
BKB as well, you're Toro on the run, yeah, they're going to be able to withstand this
pressure.
You'll be able to kill the bear as well.
Congratulations, you get a bear kill.
it's back. Yep it is. They got Prophet's PKB as well. Can I ask you a very important question?
What is the point of having a barrier on teleportation? Is this not already one of the best
spells in the game? I mean it was a balance. Prophet has gone through waves right? He was,
he had a patch that he was really bad and then he got buffed and then he got buffed and then he
got buffed and it was really good and then they dialed back something but one of the ways they
They made him stronger was giving him barrier and teleportation so that when he went for
power dives and early moves, he had more like relative strength to other heroes.
But yeah, at this point, I mean, I wouldn't be against that way of nerfing the hero to
remove that barrier, but then you probably need to commentate me in some other way slightly.
I mean, he's not like probably broken right now, right?
No, no, no.
I just find it weird that a spell, if you bring this up to anybody in any other game,
like, yeah, this guy has a global teleportation on this cooldown.
Like oh, yeah, and he gets a barrier as well like it really yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah already
Um Watson they're gonna find you Toro
There's the call from DM and the bear is going to work double battlehunter and the dunk goodbye you Toro
That's the problem in this game. It feels like it's just a matter of time
But you can't play perfect keep away forever. You are going to be believing out heroes
Who does steal the wisdom?
Man gets dropped for his troubles
these are not the wisdoms of old much like neutral items have you found us not
irrelevant but not important enough to die not me needs to okay well just off
the bear and we'll escape
Sheerah jr with Hydra's breath by the way, marigold.
Yep.
Good farming item if you don't go Mjolnir, maybe he doesn't want to double-dip on that
since the bear already has one, so like this he can farm with Specialist's Array and upgrade
it this way.
Good scaling damage against Elk.
Oh, they find the grip on collapse with the bear there, but they give it this arm and
and suddenly dispelled though, it's a full duration grip, so goodbye, collapse.
60 seconds on the deck as they blast us on the bear.
Looks like the only casual, okay, huge call from DM, on to three, chops one to the ground,
focusing on Rue, Laurel, all he can do is right click, but he's just getting right clicked
down by Chira and company as the atorile has to pop his VKB now, but I don't think he can
withstand the pressure here for too long, Spearfessel is applied, Watson, trying to do
some damage with the bear they will find dm in the end but now you're total on the run
stun locked and killed off cheera jr. owning on this nature's profit put the help of a bear of
course and what's uh what's Watson doing the first 30 seconds of that fight the bear wasn't even a
part of it they didn't even need loan to it anymore man i mean full duration grip is death rock
I mean, this is definitely a, this is a statement game in my eyes, I think, from Yandex.
Just very, very aggressive, exceptionally good laning, early pressure, they are the
ones dictating everything in the game.
They've, I just, I think back from this, like 10 minutes in this game, and I'm just like,
Spirit must have already felt cornered so early.
Maybe they find socks in here, at least something.
The small picks is all they're going to give.
Well, I will say though,
Roche has yet to be killed at 30 minutes. That is
kind of interesting.
Is that something that Spirit can steal somehow?
It's hard to get out on the map.
Your waves are being shoved in at all times from the prophet and the bear
It's not easy
But doing something crazy like that I wouldn't mind seeing a smoke play but
They also don't really kill it that fast to be honest
Yep, that is true
And DM, he has BKB to go along with an upcoming Sheeva's, which we've kind of talked about.
He double-edged swords at his Sheeva's for acts these days, but I want to see more Bloodstone
acts against Cinder, and what needs to be done for Bloodstone to come back for acts?
Well, it probably needs to work differently.
Why?
Because the bloodstone that you liked was the one that gave AoE, right?
No, I'm not necessarily.
Because it was picked a lot on AXE, at least for a short period, before the AoE garbage.
So which versions of bloodstone was it that AXE used?
Do you use the AoE one? And then the one before, which one was that?
Yeah, that was just a spell-like-
Is that the one that had a...
It's not that dissimilar to the current version.
But this one is in theory better because you're getting amp damage, right?
So it was, well, the old one also had the dispel, right?
Dispel?
Yeah, when you activate Blood Back, it would cast this dispel.
It doesn't have that either.
Right.
I don't know.
I find most of the time, current X's just better to go Kaisange or Kaiyasha, probably.
Who goes Blood Summoned, dude?
Strikes on Bane
Nice man, but the grip comes out actually help me. Oh boy
That is rough for Laurel
Man, I'm still playing the support
well
So what happened if you do damn it if you don't kind of situation when you use the man to bang gets a big brain
Step off with shard so he yields a lot, but if you don't I say it's just gonna grip you, right?
like
I think the clutch play would have been to Manta and then pipe the fame and then your main can kill them with the vision of the illusions.
Maybe. It's not easy.
Well, it will finally be taken by Yandex.
Yeah, Aegis for Mr. Chiro Jr.
Yotaro getting close to finishing his assault.
That's collapsed looking like right now.
Oh no, guys loaded.
Not a ton of damage.
Funny enough, the win expectancy hasn't really changed.
It's still 90-10.
It's already leading to high.
There's always a chance, Shannon.
Yeah, this is looking grim right now.
I feel like part of this game, I know it's not the whole thing because they did lose a lot of their lanes, but if they just had better agonimceptor syndrome, you know, there's something in that mid lane.
Like we've seen it gifted to clops before where they just completely destroy. Hard to lose a lane on clop anyway.
It's not many, like, that's the tough part as well of what they're up against.
It's hard to find a mid-hero where you, like, give this hero an axe
and it's going to change the outcome of this game when it has to A,
lane against profit, and then B, play the game against Bane axe afterwards
while you're out just in the jungle. It's tough.
I think you're giving a little too much, because they picked Viper a little earlier
and then they were counterpicked.
Like, are you picking Viper knowing that there's a nature's profit? No way.
No, I'm thinking completely different. That's right. This hero hasn't really like you're not getting a break
That's that valuable this game, but at that point if you were to pick another hero that it was good to give X to then the profit
Could have also been a different pick even
Yeah
That works
Get thorough
And go to town on this day one getting destroyed as Laurel just right clicking the bear
This is a disaster for team spirit. Bear is just decimating them at every turn
To the north they go, but the bear is chasing, and Churiju, you can keep in at any time, gets the silver edge break, onto the Viper, no corrosive skin for you, four dead for Spirit.
And why not just go for the full team wipe, collapse last remaining member, call, keep them in place, and one more chop for DM.
Full team wipe at the cost of just a Bane Elemental.
Your name?
Yeah, so...
And you can put much of the lanes with this bear.
They're just, uh, I mean, the index are just on a different level today, I think, especially in this game.
The last game was competitive for quite a while, and then ultimately they pulled away.
This one has had their name on it all the way from the very beginning.
Absolutely everything in this game. You know, they have 2 kick old lead at minute 5, and...
It's only gone up. If you look at the gold graph for this game, it's just like...
constant improvements it's gonna be two sets of racks trying to defend but
they're just feeding their lives away now this will be two sets easily tier two
still exists though ages for another minute 40
it's gonna refill here then he'll TP top and take top tier two and then you can
decide whether you want to look for the GG or play the map a little bit I don't
I don't know what you really wanted to wait for. You have all your abilities. They're lined up super fast.
You have everything ready.
Fiend script with Agz plus Lens. You've got a losing with a stolen Shardshooter.
And you've got an Alchemist almost getting soloed by a Baron in his base, so you have to use Ult.
Yeah.
Time to go top.
And Bane-Aggs could be the
nail in the coffin for Spirit as Laurel front-lining right now
He is not looking too healthy though has a hurricane pike manta boots of travel and that's it at 36 minutes
Going against the likes of Chira Junior with
Quite a bit of network
Last off to start things out
But that's gonna cost the techies his life meanwhile DM with a huge call into several heroes
We'll get broken though with the Viper Strike and his Bi-Back now on the Techies.
And you get the Nightmare to try to save the Axe taking a ton of damage though.
Do they have the damage to finally get us? But there's a fiend grip.
On to Collapse, he is dead. Does have the Bi-Back, but his allies are just dropping like flies.
Yitoro with a defensive BKB on Retreat.
Looks like they'll get the bear as the Aegis finally consumes.
I'm cheering now on the Rumble. Collapse getting it really deep.
It could be a dieback for him to be able to turn this around.
Axe, he's dying this fight and he's not easy buyback yet,
and there's the Viper Strike.
So it looks like Shira, his reign will finally end
for the time being as a 10x kill streak.
But it came at a heavy cost, three buybacks.
We finally bring him down for the first time this game.
And then in a way, the saving Graves of Spirit
is that Greed is the biggest curse for Lone Druid.
So his hero was so far away
that the resummon needed forever to get there.
If Watson's hero was somehow in the top half of the map,
they might have won the game there.
Yeah, that's true.
Gotta keep farming.
Then gotta do it.
Still, that's two massive buybacks
that they have to expend here on the side of Spirit.
Nullify, Vyper, and Thickey's.
There's actually three of them.
For all.
Lotus apply it to him, and Collapse is here
to try to assist with Fiend's Rip's death 90 seconds.
no buyback either. Yeah. This is this is game over if they five man top but they
don't necessarily know that he doesn't have buyback so he has that going for
him. The bear is on the prowl. Laurel not going to get found.
It takes the Enchanter's Bobble on the Waxman's Bear, like being with the Karate Logging.
That is... hello.
Goodbye.
This is without a basher.
The Silver Edge Nullifier, Mjolnir, Agz, and 6k in the bank.
Looks like an 8k in the bank.
5v3 situation.
And we see the blink and profit with buyback.
So two lives on the action.
Never mind.
Now that he responds, he won't have it if he dies again.
Going to town on this tier three.
There's the initiation from DM.
No follow-up is collapsed.
He's there with the rolling thunder.
It's not going to do too much.
Still 20 seconds for Yotaro.
And this is going to be mega-creased,
but they're not careful.
They break the viper.
In some space, the rest of the team
DM comes in with a call-off to do with the Fiend's Grip on to Pangolier, the Chopper Viper.
No chop this time on Pangol, but dies nonetheless and that should do it.
Now that Alchemist is up, Gatoro, what is happening in the fountain?
All right, cheer up this Fiend away. Yeah, and yeah, the Bear is just going to finish the Ancient here,
getting bashed up but too much damage and too much of a lead to withstand for
Spear as they get too owed very convincingly by Andex. Yeah that was
just an exceptional good game from them. I think one of the best individual team
performances of the tournament that we've got to cast everybody played
exceptionally well this game on their side and I hope we get to see more mid
profit. I think this hero is really fun to watch and in my eyes definitely
underrated but yeah it's also easy to look good when you're smashing the game
but it was that is the biggest reason let's go to the panel so they can break
this down you want to see more mid-nages profit well it's very likely with the
fact that yandex are now continuing on in Blast Lamp so they're gonna be here in
Copenhagen joining us T and what a way to end it to end a vest of three words
elimination or make you go into game two and it feels like you get the most
I mean, spirit kind of entered
game to gift them alone,
Druid and then. Didn't read
up to try and shut down the
hero across the five further
than the next person response.
Think you had it for just in
full comfort in the second game,
and that's not what you wanted
at all. But when you look at
the job, mostly his team, they
really can run away with game
if they have a good draft and
the index. It was kind of
gifted it in the second one.
Yeah, I think they did an
amazing job with prep and the
bands and just the way they
And the bands and just the way they figured all this stuff out because I do think in both games
They had a significantly better draft and a better draft against spirits specifically
I think some teams they would function better against these liners of spirit
But it was it was very tough for them. They shot them out and they played well on top of it
It wasn't just a good draft that then they bungled along the way and made it messy was
Pretty clean and they kind of just shot him out, which is not what you'd expect
I think especially considering how good spirit looking against against OJ
I also just love the fact that you know CJ from the mid lane that we know he's an extra prophet
We know he can make the move.
Oh, they're going to say he dives down here.
I mean, he dives everywhere.
Like, he was doing everything.
I was actually going to talk about his first rotation
where TP is top with the axe to help kill the elk.
But it's like, he knew exactly what he needed to do.
He goes for the vessel against the elk.
He then goes for like an agonim, just for a bit more map play.
But yeah, the Andix, they, I mean, you look at these heroes,
and I feel like each player wants to play as a hero
for many more games.
Like, if we're in the playoffs, like,
these are the heroes that they're going to look towards
if they are going to try and win this tournament.
I mean, Malady on the bane is so impactful in my eyes,
just the way he's able to play.
Again, they're doing well, so it's easy for him
to have great itemization and to be more of a threat.
But for collapse on the pango,
you're just afraid to rolling thunder in.
I mean, we saw them trying to fend their high ground.
He rolling thunders, he rolls around, he sees the bane,
and he goes, actually, I gotta leave
because that being the group has come my way.
Yeah, it's a very tough matchup.
I need a very tough lane.
I feel for him.
I've played these games against bane,
especially when your lane is bad.
And it ain't easy.
easy being cheesy so I it's it's just tough I think they're honestly just in a rough spot from
the heroes but they you know the draft is part of the game right there's a lot of skill it's all
skill right there's no there's no luck in the draft you don't just happen stance your way into it
I just bump into the cross a little bit here it's a good draft like it you don't just find it so
it's a lot of work and prep that went into that and Yennex they just I don't know they just cook
them they so mad props to them because it's not easy no I mean it's really not much it's it's a
They take a major break, they come back after skipping out a different tier 1 tournament,
they come here, maybe the rust having to use this tournament maybe is a couple of scrims,
that isn't the case at all.
Surely it took them maybe a longer path to get to Copenhagen, but it is a well deserved
spot.
Like you said, they're drafting confidently.
One of the few teams, when you look at them draft, when you look at them play, they're
playing their game.
They're not reacting constantly in the draft, they're not having to go, oh wow, there's
epic teams against us.
No, it's like every game, it's like you deal with Jander external, if you don't, we will
beat you. And I think Spirit, they crumbled under the pressure of what Yandex was bringing.
Yeah, and I think a special shout out to CJ, who a lot of people, including us, put him in a box
a lot of times saying he only played melee heroes, he can only play the aggressive sort of
stereotypical CJ gameplay. But in the series he played Invoker, he played Nature's Prophet,
and I think in both games he played amazingly. So massive shout out to him, and not just in
this tournament, but across the entire season, I think he's been consistently improving and
he's gone from being someone who's quite chokey, and I'll be honest, quite bad to someone who is a
very, very good player. I can play not just a small puddle of heroes, but also expanding outside of
that, which is not an easy thing to do. So, Matt props to him because he deserves it.
I mean, it's like kind of like, they're the players of the season, right? I think CJ from
the mid lane, like WS from the offlane for Aurora, like we are throughout the season
getting notable players, kind of rising up and stamping their authority. Like, look at me in
my role as we move towards TI. I think you're going to list some more players as well. You've got
CJ from mid. Is there anyone else from other roles? I would have said noticed. I think noticed
could easily be up there for another offlaner. I think even though KJ has had highs in his career,
I think he's potentially depending on the result of slam could be in contention of being another respectable five
Yeah, I mean the outside of new upcoming stars that are making their name stamped in the Dota history
There's obviously long-running at players as well. We got one of them joining us here. It sucks. Uh,
Congratulations on winning this best of three. Did you guys even really break a sweat?
Maybe the first game the second he was pretty smooth
What was the prep like because obviously it was so close to if you guys were even
gonna have to play this best of three all the way down to the last best of one
yesterday so how did you kind of go through the motions of yesterday and
then coming into today knowing it was either Spirit or OG.
I think obviously this is the point of yesterday we were hoping to just kind of
qualify without having to play at last chance but I think the prep for today is
like we were expecting to play Spirit by chance and then we just knew we had to
It depends if it's bad for a hero, if you feel like you need something else, you can
blink or something then it's not the greatest to buy but kind of as a core item it's strong and so
many heroes and just the aspect that the vision aspect that it gives that you can just even place
it on the ground it's it's kind of in both and yeah that's why I gave it. And against like Nightstalker
because I believe when you put on Nightstalker you get his vision as well right so why are teams
not doing this I feel like against all these Nightstalkers I'm seeing teams are ignoring it of
course I feel like you probably wouldn't but do you think that's a thing that other teams what
what should we be looking at?
I think usually from the games I've seen on SNS Talker, people always buy it.
It's like, I mean it's definitely good against SNS Talker, but you might get killed before you get to use it.
That is true, yeah. I probably got the two games where they didn't buy it.
I got the bad games, unlucky. What can you do?
I was curious how you felt about the drafts going into the games,
because I felt like they're significantly out drafted both games.
I guess I think we had some good ideas about what they wanted and what they wanted to counter with it.
I think the coach and Maladid did a great job preparing.
I think Spirit is also, they're not like the cheesiest team.
You know, they're going to pick their heroes, they know what they like,
and then they're going to play some honest though.
You know, it's not like some LGD where they're like flexing everything
and you don't know what's going to happen until the last pick.
So I think drafting against Spirit, I guess in that sense, it's not that hard.
We actually didn't get to talk to you off the your LGD lost the 111 minute game
Well, like let me know because like very rarely do we get to see you go late late late late late game and then to lose it
Like did you go leave me alone team? I just need to go outside for a moment
You pretty much have to like just have a half an hour an hour just to reset
Especially when we lose that one is like you spend like two hours of real life just playing this stupid ass game
and then you have to come back to normal so yeah definitely it's a long time to reset after 11
especially because it was like an important game yeah please tell me you did a replay review on
that game like please tell me like you broke down the minute mark so did you go through that game
or was it more like a what it's just a long game you looked at the first like 30 minutes and then
you put it aside no we did look at it like a few hours ago we did like we watched it for like an
hour or so just a few moments where I guess we threw we had a we had like a couple of moments
to win that game and there was like some throws so yeah we had to look at it.
And I guess my final question is like how do you prepare like for the ultra late game of a game
because again like in ranked games it's like 40 minutes 50 minutes like you don't really get to
that plus 60 minute mark like are you guys talking about like like you theory crafting the 60 minute
moments as a team now now that you've had like these 111 minute games?
I think you talk sometimes about the items and what's important and some late game items
But the biggest practice is just playing over through.
Like no joke.
If you want to practice these late game scenarios, you play some 5v5s.
And you just get to the late game timings, you practice some spellcasting,
and it can help in these kind of situations.
Thank you.
Did you get any small amount of PTSD when the first game against Spirit was pretty close
and it was hitting like that owl mark?
No.
I'm ready for another 2 hour game.
game.
You were locked in there.
Do you have anything else, Quinn, before we say goodbye to Soxa?
Yeah, I have one last question.
How much TikTok has Watson been watching and are there any hot memes off the press?
I don't know about any new memes, but definitely a lot, like, constantly.
Just thought I'd check in.
All right, well, Soxa, thank you so much for joining us.
I look forward to seeing you in a couple of days.
Yeah.
Bye, guys.
See ya.
Is that like a what's always constantly doing that like in draft he's still on tiktok? Oh, it's an absurd addiction
It's it's it's way past a hobby. He's like it's like a full-time thing
I think don't as a side gate in tiktok is is a no
Algorithm will be like clear like it's that's like the most fine-tuned work algorithm
He knows exactly what he wants
I tell you what a lot of his algorithm is just dough to stuff
He'd be like oh, there's this like random bug you can use or whatever from his his his tiktok is like
I didn't know people were making TikToks over that.
No, trust me, Russian TikTok goes crazy with bug abuse and all kinds of other stuff.
Usage, not abuse.
A little bit.
A feature, usage, thank you very much, Quinn.
Some bugs are bugs, let's be honest.
Some bugs are features, but you've got to walk the line competitively where the feature and the bug exists.
Alright, well, maybe I've got to start getting on that trend a little bit.
Give me a little bit of MMOB buffer there.
But on the side of Yandex, they're going to be joining us in Copenhagen, so it's a big win for them.
two O and for spirit. I just don't really know what to make of this. It's not like,
Oh, they lost gas by any means, but the fact that they have to look towards what is going
to come in their future for the competitive season.
Yeah, they kind of never had gas in the first place. I think this is a team that they've
just swapped a player. I don't think like they still have their identity. They're trying
to be team spirit, but they haven't had that same pizzazz, that same spark, the same aura
they've had compared to the old days. And so I don't know what the fix is because I don't
I don't know how to play that style with Dota. I don't think many people do besides them.
It's a situation that I don't think many people are capable of fixing or navigating through
because it's just such a unique way of playing. So I'm just kind of watching and waiting and
hoping to figure it out.
I'd argue there was points in the script stage that they had the aura, like against
P version when they had the Drow games. Like there was moments of it, but even against
OG, like Short is like very stumpy, but like they look like, okay, if Spirit have the right
draft they can't scomp out games. It's just the variance of their drafts. Like they sometimes
You know fly too close to the Sun and then like teams like yandex or like a falcons or someone or Aurora
They'll kind of go you cannot do that against us like please tone down your creativity
And like this game too for example like giving away the loan to it not really having a response to it
Like then they can't be the mistakes you're making if you're trying to make like grand finals of a tournament playoffs of a tournament
Well, it feels like then the teams that you're mentioning you would favor them slightly more to take out Blast Lime 7 to potentially win it all
as I said last time
truly is anyone's game. That's how beautiful and competitive Dota is. Brackets, European
teams. LBD, close bracket, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, new sentence, whatever. LGD though,
they hopefully for the sake of narrative can, you know, change a bit of that shaping because
yeah, Europe is very dominant. Any mix of them can always win.
Well, the other reason why I ask is because if you guys want to head over to Polymarket,
it is the official prediction market for Blastlem 7. You can have a look and it looks like now
Falcons are the most favored team when we checked in the other day. It was parry vision that was up there by a large margin
But now it's ever so slowly leaning in favor of Falcons that 30% parry 26%
Yandex just below them at 22 now and then yeah that final non-European team you mentioned LGD at 14%
Yeah, they're kind of holding it down for everyone other than Europe
So, you know for the sake of regions doing well
I'm just going to just throw my bias towards LUD on board of Europe winning everything
End of sentence Quinn. I'd love to see Aurora win. I think I think it'll be hilarious
I thought finally when a tournament
There's gonna be a weight off of my shoulders as a nightfall fan. No, but that's the thing though
You know how army okay nightfall fan I see like army not winning TI like when he wins TI
What happens for the narrative? What if nightfall wins the tournament?
Like we don't know if Uncharted Territory.
That's where we begin the nightfall dynasty.
I don't know if I'm ready for a nightfall TIE win yet.
Last win, I don't know if I'm ready for a TIE win nightfall.
Can we scroll just a little bit further down?
The team below Team Spirit, I believe,
is going to be liquid if we could display that one.
Now, the reason why I'm bringing that one up,
there is 6% prediction to win the whole thing, a war at 22%.
But they're both going up against each other right now
over on the B stream.
So that would mean surely they're heavy favorites of war
in that best of three to make it to Copenhagen.
Yeah, you'd think that, but of course, either team, if they are to win, they have to go up against BB, then P-Vision.
They have really, really scary teams, especially because we know they've proven themselves in double-limb bracket forms before.
So, yeah, it's just very scary for Liquid or Aurora.
Yeah, well, thank you again to Pauli Market that you guys can head on over if you want to have a look at any more predictions.
But Quinn, where would you be looking at Aurora and Liquid? Are you going to be a bit more of a fence-at-electee?
Um, I mean Aurora stomping game one
I to me it's a it's a Makoto puck situation if you give it you're gonna lose if you ban it you might win
But please you might win you might win. There's no guarantee, but you need welcome to the fence, brother
That's not a fine fence that I don't think there's a guarantee
I think Aurora is probably better than liquid right now and Aurora it will likely win the series
But if liquid wants a chance need to ban the Makoto
Fuck.
I don't know.
You should have watched that one.
Pocoto?
Pocoto is way cooler.
Pocoto is so cool.
It's not like the Makotak.
No, don't say that again actually, please.
You mispronounced that then.
Some memes you don't see.
You're walking the line then.
You're walking the line.
You just pronounced anything.
You say that, but.
Let's have a look at our last chance qualifier bracket here.
I already miss speaking there.
Like we had on the A stream today,
OG unfortunately lost an O2 against Spirit,
then had to play up against Yandex who came in and really showed us all how it's done.
They had a phenomenal two games and that's why they take one of the two slots to join
us here in Copenhagen and then Aurora, eking out the win against Tundra with a game three
needed.
Did you say it had concluded game number one of Aurora Liquid?
I don't think it, not when I saw it, but they were getting Mollywopped.
Okay, well it is still going either way, they're best of three by no means has concluded there.
They're still on game one.
Okay, it looks like a comeback, maybe. Or don't call it a comeback.
Don't call it a comeback. Maybe just a stall out.
I have no idea the context of this game. My glasses are not good enough, so all I know is the team with Aurora logo has AGS, so thumbs up and gold lead.
Thumbs up. Well, you guys can head on over to that B stream if you want to see more of the actual Continuit along.
But before you do, you want to stay tuned because we're going to look at our playoffs bracket.
We've already said that Yannix has taken one of the two remaining slots.
That is going to put them in that upper bracket up against Falcons.
The winner will then go up against LGD.
Of course, Parry Vision is going to be coming up against whoever wins out of Betbombe
and that Vesta 3 that's now occurring over on the B-Stream.
All I know is like LGD having this incredible form, getting number one.
Like knowing that they're waiting in that semi-final, looking at Falcons or Yandex,
like how dominant Yandex just was, like that is not an easy feat.
But if LGD win that Vesta 3, like they really are going to stamp themselves,
like they are going to actually be a contender.
And it wasn't just the fluke of the best of one group stage.
So I'm really happy that LGD are actually facing a reef of minimal opponent, like instantly.
Yeah, I'm just excited to get to see it.
It's a great bracket with a lot of great teams.
And I think I think it's a tournament that pretty much anybody in that bracket can win a tournament.
And that's that's just cool. That's fun.
It means every series is a barn burner.
It's got that spice that's gonna say, what's the second offense?
See, he just joined me.
I think that's different.
He's having a he's having some fun.
And look, you're going to have to keep the hype going.
What's a little done, Quinnie?
You're gonna have to keep the hype going
because it's gonna be a number of bleeps
between us right now and when we get to see
that double elimination bracket.
We'll see you guys on Thursday.
Have a look at that B stream
and see who wins Liquid or Aurora.