DOTA 2

Woke up, saw reddit: WHAT?!

Random speculation - DigitalChaos has been playing without Sumail's brother recently & Aui2000 on carry. Maybe they can pickup PPD for the second support

Is Alliance still their second team or whatever? I could see them just calling them EG. PPD could coach or something, I don't think he's a good enough player individually for teams to upset their whole apple carts by picking him up. Fear will probably retire. Sumail can go wherever if anyone wants him, but he's a little shit without the biggest hero pool. Universe was by far their most valuable asset followed by RTZ, I don't think the parts that made up EG are necessarily all that important to other teams.

I wonder what actually happened behind the scenes, since this move effectively broke EG's back, offlane is very sought after position with very few rock solid performers and Universe was one of those, effectively without equal in NA. RTZ is good, but "young upstart mid or carry" category is getting crowded. On the other hand, Secret has been doing really good at Valve events, but totally terrible outside of those. Misery has been known for slacking off in the past, w33 can also be cocky, so I wonder if EE and Puppey wanted somebody who gives it everything they have all the time. Still a pretty shitty thing to do, but it's been shown that anybody gunning for TI win has to be willing to do anything and everything to make it happen and if you look at it on paper, they are definitely upgrades. And you got rid of one of your greatest rivals in the process.

There's been some talk about coaches playing bigger and bigger roles - huge part of Secret's success can be attributed to 1437 and Bulba was coaching EG in their TI run.

Secret seemed unstoppable when they had arteezy and zai until they crashed and burned in TI. This lineup has a similar all-star feeling, so I hope they don't under perform when it matters again (though they did win like 3 straight lans leading up to TI).

Then when they reformed with pieliedie, w33, misery, and EE, they seemed to be much weaker on paper, but they go and win a major, so who knows. It seems like any team puppey puts together is going to win lans and this one seems almost as strong as Secret 2.0.

At this point I feel like being a strong on paper is almost a detriment to your success, since the clear favorites have never won TIs or Majors (ok, TI3, maaaybe). As ppd aptly put it: "one less ego, one more championship"

Anyone heard from PPD? I heard he is on suicide watch.

Fight_sl said:

Anyone heard from PPD? I heard he is on suicide watch.

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He teased this happening after Shanghai on his vlog. He said he was very excited for the future of EG, so I'm guessing they're going to get some pretty good players to replace Universe and Arteezy. I wouldn't be surprised if Zai comes back to EG.

One does not simply lose the Universe and gain the world.

Sounds like Digital Chaos = RIP?

Nikki Elise on Twitter:

Del_sl said:

He teased this happening after Shanghai on his vlog. He said he was very excited for the future of EG, so I'm guessing they're going to get some pretty good players to replace Universe and Arteezy. I wouldn't be surprised if Zai comes back to EG.

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Yeah, he was definitely not talking about that, since one of the EG managers said they had 0 warning about this. Fragbite.se even ran an article on Sumail and Fear leaving too, the team effectively imploded at this point. Zai could be a standin, but he's not going into top tier form until he finishes school, which is a month or two away and then he has to catch up on practice.

EG is dead, if they have any championships before TI is over, it would be a miracle.

If DC is dead, then CoL is suddenly the strongest NA team... lol.

Not trying to derail tourny-talk but Ability is Draft is so awesome sometimes. I had Treant and managed to get SB bash with Enchant Totem, Sprint, and Nether Strike. I would enchant before hitting someone with Nether Strike and it would hit for a good amount initially, but then when the animation finished and he pushed you back with bash to finish the ult (with totem activated) it would literally take 3/4 of someones health. I was 1 shotting PA, Enchantress, Viper and Windranger. I also bought crystalis for crit so if the crit landed on nehter strike you could hit someone in the thousands.

One of the most fun games I ever played.

Fight_sl said:

One does not simply lose the Universe and gain the world.

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When zai was at his best he was as good as Universe at his best, imo. Was 1a and 1b as far as offlaners went and I dont even think there was a close person behind either.

RTZ is a cancer, and maybe its just me but I would place him a lower tier 1 in both mid and carry.

Until player compensation isn't dominated by prize winnings this will continue to happen. Roster lock just guarantee's it happens just a few times a year or whatever. Without a players union, or compensation that isn't so top heavy the players can't be faulted for trying to constantly make what they feel is a super team. It would be essentially throwing away their TI lottery ticket to stick with a team they didn't believe in.

Genjiro_sl said:

RTZ is a cancer, and maybe its just me but I would place him a lower tier 1 in both mid and carry.

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I think I agree, but we can all agree we know the potential is there, but he absolutely never meshed with Sumail's EG.

1437 to Secret as a coach. If they don't win TI, they will explode. Again.

RTZ might be an ass, just like EE is an ass, they are both huge tryhards, which is what makes them so good and so bad to play with if you don't share their attitude.

Zaphid_sl said:

1437 to Secret as a coach. If they don't win TI, they will explode. Again.

RTZ might be an ass, just like EE is an ass, they are both huge tryhards, which is what makes them so good and so bad to play with if you don't share their attitude.

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Im on board with that. Dota teamwork does require social skills and tact, something most basement dwellars lack.....its an interesting clash. Problem with most tryhards are their inability to acknowledge when they fail....and when they do they dont like being chastised as harshly as they do when others fail....that shit is bound to fester.

Zaphid_sl said:

RTZ might be an ass, just like EE is an ass, they are both huge tryhards, which is what makes them so good and so bad to play with if you don't share their attitude.

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As outsiders we will never really know, but I suspect they both over-value their (role) importance. The whole team is essentially focusing on supporting their mid and carry, the key is which brown boot + wand support makes the plays.

Jovec_sl said:

As outsiders we will never really know, but I suspect they both over-value their (role) importance. The whole team is essentially focusing on supporting their mid and carry, the key is which brown boot + wand support makes the plays.

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I think you are oversimplifying their roles and their understanding of the game. EE has experience playing support at least and both of them have innovated playing 1&2 positions far beyond what used to be the norm. However I think even casual viewer can see that very often the counter to dominant strats lies in winning the midlane at all costs, since that is what gives the dominant team space and map control to strangle the opposition. TI3 Alliance almost fell once Puppey let Bulldog do whatever he wanted and started focusing supports in bans and S4 in ganks. Frankfurt Major finals took this to the extreme with bane, lich, wisp and tiny trying to support the midlane with pulls and harass. In Shanghai you could see Puppey make some very interesting rotations into mid on doom, who is a melee creep at the start pretty much, leading to first bloods. Offlane has iron talon and the new hard camp, safelane has supports from the start and a well positioned tower. Mid is wide open and needs xp more than anything else, which is very hard to catch up on outside kills.