DOTA 2

Yeah it's typical Na'Vi. XBOCT is a weird player, on one hand he definitely plays like a fucking retard at times and throws games for apparently no purpose other than trying to get solo kills in shitty spots. On the other hand, he's by far one of the strongest technical carry, his farming in terms of mechanical skill and map optimization is pretty insane(like check how often he's actually getting outfarmed by another carry player, shit doesn't happen often even when they're shitting their early game) and his teamfight decisions are among the best if not the best for a carry player(target choice, item choice etc). But sometimes, he goes full XBOCT and just goes feed and you don't fucking know why and what he expected to do even if it succeeded. Once in a while it works and he creates a big occasion, most of the time, just feed.

The weak link of Na'Vi isn't XBOCT imo, even though having a carry that's not consistent isn't necessarily helpful, it's Puppey. His draft is still ok even if he makes weird/ancient choices, the problem is he's just not at the pro level anymore and hasn't been for a while. He only plays a handful of heroes well enough which means his draft often rotates around these heroes or he gives himself some shit he sucks at and relies entirely on Kuroky to do the support shit, which in the recent years has been as important as carries and mids. He's still strategically a great player but skill-wise, he's dragging down the team a lot. He also randomly drafts shit his team isn't good at playing.

But anyway it's Na'Vi, they'll do their Na'Vi shit and probably do fine and get top4. At the same time this tournament has the whole 6lowest elminated right away thing and Na'Vi tends to be awful at the start of a competition, so there's also some decent odds they'll just tank right away and not even make it past the prelims.

I like that no team is dominating like crazy though. DK looked like they'd win TI4 easy a few months ago, but since then they've been losing to a lot of the other high tier teams and if you look at what's going on in china lately, they've been playing Newbee A LOT and they're about on par with them so they're not even the strongest chinese team to begin with. Younger talented teams like EG are popping up too and while not in top form you can never count teams like Alliance out, the rat is strong, so TI should be pretty amazing. Oh and the hero balance is at a great point at the moment.

Yeah since that was posted, they apparently got approved. Weird that it went that fast since the announcement of them getting denied isn't that long ago and it generally takes a while, guess Valve's good word helped. Now they need to get CIS going too.

And yeah on crazy picks now you really need to go VERY far to have a crazy pick. I mean Meepo even though there were many picks lately is still there, Spiritbreaker is way out there, Pudge is still the crazy strat pick, Omniknight is very rare, Undying is outclassed on many levels, Sniper's still too squish(but was picked like today, and lost), Medusa is just too much of a gamble, Troll is still pretty much one team only, Zeus while buffed over and over is still not in favor. But for the rest I'd say they're picked sometimes to often and aren't surprise anymore. To think one day Bloodseeker would actually be a legit pick for anything but a stomp against a tier 3-4team. Not a common pick but still used and has a clear role, a role he's fucking good at.

Not that I don't expect some heroes to have 100% pick or 100%ban/pick rates during TI4, always happens during major tournaments, not long ago it was Mirana for the always picked(and still is picked a lot) and Batrider has been 100%ban/pick for like what 2years in a row? Fucking monster of a hero, and yet he still loses games a decent bit when he is picked. Hope the carry of the tournament is PA, watching PA games is always fun, never know when's she's going to erase someone from existence.