Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Competitive Roundup (Part 7)

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.

Mouseports vs Na'Vi

  vs  

Tournament:  D2L Finals (Game 1)
Teams: Mousesports versus Na'vi
Casters: Ayasee and Maelk

I really like Na'Vi's drafting strategy in this game - it's a strong mid-game team that can push and teamfight at all stages of the game. It's a flexible draft that could adapt to counter whatever Mousesports threw at them. Mous picked a Spectre as their hard carry, so Na'Vi went for early push and managed to destroy two lanes of barracks by 20 minutes. The Spectre managed to farm a fast 20 minute Radiance just as their second lane melee rax was going down - it was a fast Radiance, but simply not fast enough. One final push on the last lane at the 23 minute mark sealed the game.

There was no good quality Youtube upload of this that I could find, so you will have to watch the VOD from Twitch at this location. It's one single VOD of the entire finals lasting 4 hours and 16 minutes and there's a lot of filler and waiting in between - skip to the times I indicate below.

Draft Stage starts 0:51:30
Game start 1:13:48


Na'Vi vs Mouseports 

  
  vs  

Tournament:  D2L Finals (Game 2)
Teams: Na'vi versus Mousesports
Casters: Ayasee and Maelk

Na'Vi allow Mous to pick up Puck again, Fata's signature hero, but they have a nasty surprise for them - they last pick Outworld Devourer.

Last week I highlighted a match where iG counterpicked Na'vi's mid Storm Spirit with Outworld Destroyer. Because of how badly OD beats other Int heroes mid, Na'vi had to move their Storm Spirit to the off-lane. This forced a very unfavourable laning situation for Na'vi and they lost the game badly.

This time Na'vi does the same thing to Mous and counterpicks Puck with the OD. Mous however, stands their ground, sending Puck mid anyway, and the result speak for themselves - by about 6 minutes and 15 seconds into the game, OD has 35 CS and 31 denies, while Puck has 10 CS and 0 denies. By 11 minutes in OD is nearly level 10 while Puck is still level 6.

Another interesting thing to note is how Funnik abandons top lane as Windrunner and just jungles the ancient camp with a Quelling Blade for the first few levels, it's reasonable common for him to do this. Mousesports do pick a KOTL as their last-pick in an effort to contain Na'vi's aggressive pushing but the game still ends in 27 minutes, with Na'vi racking up nearly 1000gpm of gold advantage per minute due to their superior hero picks and laning.

The VOD is just a continuation after Game 1 linked above, the times are listed below. 

Draft Stage starts 2:04:53
Game start 2:16:15


Mouseports vs Na'Vi

  vs  

Tournament:  D2L Finals (Game 3)
Teams: Mousesports versus Na'vi
Casters: Ayasee and Maelk

Game three was a long one, with Mous playing very well throughout the game, their Anti-Mage carry having 21k net worth versus Na'vi's Gyro having 16k net worth. However, all it took was one perfect teamfight by Na'vi to turn the tide of battle completely - and with the momentum from that they assault Mous' base relentlessly and end the game right there.

This VOD captures that perfect teamfight till the end of the game, a sequence lasting only 3 minutes, completely reversing whatever happened in the first 40 minutes of the game. You could watch the whole thing as well (it's part of that long Twitch VOD linked above), but it's just a lot of back and forth until the end.