Introduction
There are so many tournaments going on at the same time that it can get overwhelming trying to keep up with them. In this series of blog posts, I will share matches which I have found notable and worth watching in the past week or two.
vs 
I almost could not obtain this match for you guys in time for Monday - best game of the whole of last week, I watched it live, but again there's no official uploader. Thanks to Hexor who must have bought the ticket to the game, recorded and uploaded it to his youtube channel.
Quantic are probably the best drafters in DOTA2, and their lineup looked a lot better than the one Alliance picked. In fact, Alliance's heroes were confusing - they picked Puck, Nature's Prophet, Chen, Alchemist and Wisp - a team with very little damage capability, which should in theory lose in early game, mid game, and late game to the lineup that Quantic picked - Undying, Warlock, Batrider, Shadow Demon, Gyrocopter. I mean just look at that teamfight potential, AOE, and lockdown.
Despite the casters feeling the game should be a certain loss for Alliance, and despite losing in CS across every lane, Alliance show that they're in the DH Finals for a reason. A couple of flawless teamfights later, they close out the game 22-0. As Ayasee said, we may never see a game like this again.
vs
This match happened two weeks ago but the Dreamhack group stage was not casted or uploaded as far as I know. This is a delayed replay cast, with Luminous and EternalEnvy.
Alliance is one of the strongest teams, winning both G1 LAN and Dreamhack. Quantic Gaming, also known as DD, came runners up in the TI3 Western Qualifier, and are generally regarded as the the team with the best drafting, coming up with innovative team compositions and many times winning on the strength of their draft alone. This game is one of them - Quantic run a very interesting pushing team with a Naga Siren support - a hero previously used as a carry - and overrun Alliance's mid rax by 20 minutes.
vs
This happened quite a long time ago, but I wanted to highlight it anyway.
LGD is considered one of the top teams in the world, with a very strong showing at the TI2 tournament last year. An interesting fact (to me at least) is that LGD is sponsored by a chili sauce company of the same name, Guizhou Laogandie Food. Generally the Western teams get sponsored by companies at least tangentially related to gaming in some way...
The Chinese teams in the G1-LAN were unprepared for the playstyle that Alliance brought with them. Chuan, leader of IG, said in an interview that he knew they were in trouble when he was watching the Alliance draft and did not understand their strategy at all. Their playstyle leans towards "Tri-Core" where they split their farm up among 3 heroes who all get strong, while Chinese playstyle leans towards "4 protect 1" where their entire team and laning setup is designed to guarantee farm on one hero. Well, and part of the problem was that they didn't respect Admiral Bulldog's Lone Druid enough to ban it - he is well known for having an unhealthy obsession with playing the Lone Druid, which he is admittedly very good at.
LGD's strategies were ineffective, they try every trick in the book but they never really get any traction in the game and ultimately go down to Alliance. Nice casting by Luminous and LD, many memorable lines in this one. "If your Gyro is 0-5-2, is that not feed?" "He's... had a lot of pressure. Let's be fair."
There are so many tournaments going on at the same time that it can get overwhelming trying to keep up with them. In this series of blog posts, I will share matches which I have found notable and worth watching in the past week or two.
Dreamhack Finals "Perfect Game"
vs
Tournament: Dreamhack Finals Game 3
Stream: ???
I almost could not obtain this match for you guys in time for Monday - best game of the whole of last week, I watched it live, but again there's no official uploader. Thanks to Hexor who must have bought the ticket to the game, recorded and uploaded it to his youtube channel.
Quantic are probably the best drafters in DOTA2, and their lineup looked a lot better than the one Alliance picked. In fact, Alliance's heroes were confusing - they picked Puck, Nature's Prophet, Chen, Alchemist and Wisp - a team with very little damage capability, which should in theory lose in early game, mid game, and late game to the lineup that Quantic picked - Undying, Warlock, Batrider, Shadow Demon, Gyrocopter. I mean just look at that teamfight potential, AOE, and lockdown.
Despite the casters feeling the game should be a certain loss for Alliance, and despite losing in CS across every lane, Alliance show that they're in the DH Finals for a reason. A couple of flawless teamfights later, they close out the game 22-0. As Ayasee said, we may never see a game like this again.
Quantic draft Naga support
vs
Tournament: Dreamhack Group D
Stream: LuminousInverse
This match happened two weeks ago but the Dreamhack group stage was not casted or uploaded as far as I know. This is a delayed replay cast, with Luminous and EternalEnvy.
Alliance is one of the strongest teams, winning both G1 LAN and Dreamhack. Quantic Gaming, also known as DD, came runners up in the TI3 Western Qualifier, and are generally regarded as the the team with the best drafting, coming up with innovative team compositions and many times winning on the strength of their draft alone. This game is one of them - Quantic run a very interesting pushing team with a Naga Siren support - a hero previously used as a carry - and overrun Alliance's mid rax by 20 minutes.
Alliance baffles Chinese teams
vs
Tournament: G1 LAN Finals Game 2
Stream: Beyond The Summit
This happened quite a long time ago, but I wanted to highlight it anyway.
LGD is considered one of the top teams in the world, with a very strong showing at the TI2 tournament last year. An interesting fact (to me at least) is that LGD is sponsored by a chili sauce company of the same name, Guizhou Laogandie Food. Generally the Western teams get sponsored by companies at least tangentially related to gaming in some way...
The Chinese teams in the G1-LAN were unprepared for the playstyle that Alliance brought with them. Chuan, leader of IG, said in an interview that he knew they were in trouble when he was watching the Alliance draft and did not understand their strategy at all. Their playstyle leans towards "Tri-Core" where they split their farm up among 3 heroes who all get strong, while Chinese playstyle leans towards "4 protect 1" where their entire team and laning setup is designed to guarantee farm on one hero. Well, and part of the problem was that they didn't respect Admiral Bulldog's Lone Druid enough to ban it - he is well known for having an unhealthy obsession with playing the Lone Druid, which he is admittedly very good at.
LGD's strategies were ineffective, they try every trick in the book but they never really get any traction in the game and ultimately go down to Alliance. Nice casting by Luminous and LD, many memorable lines in this one. "If your Gyro is 0-5-2, is that not feed?" "He's... had a lot of pressure. Let's be fair."
