DOTA 2

Zaphid

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I wonder whether it was wise to show something like that right from the start, but I guess that created instant fanbase in China. If that means they have something else prepared for tougher games, then I can't wait. Alliance is probably going to playoffs no matter what, Liquid is probably out, tomorrow will be interesting.
 

Pyros

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Some guy who's been watching them scrim say they have quite a few other pocket strats like this, but the big issue with pocket strats is wether you're confident enough to use them in real matches. For example during the TI3 qualifier west, Ryze from aL was telling us how they had some cool strats with uncommon heroes including a razor one to counter syllabear in lane(kinda like what DD did later on, but supposedly better) but in the end they drafted common drafts and lost, probably because they were too scared to test and preferred going for a normal gameplay.

Na'Vi is one of the few team that doesn't hesitate to test strats during matches, Kaipi is another recently. The strat might work in a scrim but it's a big difference when you have to play it against another high lvl team that's picking super seriously.

Anyway the competitive scene should change soonish most likely, 6.78 is coming and it's probably going to hit right after the end of the east qualifiers and G1 finals, maybe before superleague finals, so we might see new picks and new strats regardless depending on the changes. The current meta is pretty good though, there is as usual a core of competitive picks that most people fight for but there's a lot of viable situational picks that don't rely on gimmicky strats bullshit anymore. Like the spectre/PL picks for example which aren't "turtle for 40+mins at all cost" anymore and more like "secure 25mins of farm then fight" which is a lot more feasible.
 

Zaphid

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I'm actually not sure whether the balance needs a shake-up, the only thing that might need minor changes is the bear RNG with root, maybe finally fix the armlet and maybe some minor buffs to heroes that haven't seen competitive match in a while, like invoker, huskar or dazzle. For all the bitching cancer-lancer is causing, he is nowhere to be seen lately. If Icefrog wants to bring down the most popular heroes, then bat, nyx and gyro are probably in for some tweaking, but that's about it.
 

Soriak_sl

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Does anyone have a beta key for this? Found some friends to play with.
wink.png
 

Pyros

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Well it was restreams, the games were played like 16hours ago or whatever, you can find the vods on the BTS twitch page I assume.
 

Louis

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Yea I knew they were. Just figured they were going to cast straight into tonight's matches.
 

Delly

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Yea I knew they were. Just figured they were going to cast straight into tonight's matches.
They go down to start a fresh cast so the stream will have new vods. It is back up now, but the match hasn't started yet.
 

Zaphid

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So Alliance is in the grand finals already ? I wonder if they can win it all...

Liquid beating IG ? outdrafted so badly, no western team would let that slip by. Kotl with Aegis and shotgun Slark, this is pretty good
 

Delly

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So this International is going to be really interesting with iG doing poorly in the G1 finals. I had hoped TL would play better but hopefully TL will beat DK and move on.