sou ai ga


So I'm posting this at 2 freakin AM after 4 freakin months of inactivity because I guess I need to say that I like this better than Starbucks.


Sadly but thankfully

I thought I was going to have to endure an entire TI without ever seeing Lina, so thanks Navi and based Puppey for picking my favourite hero.

And I am so so so sorry that you lost partly because you picked her. (Eeep.)

And Icefrog, I know you've been buffing Lina since forever, but please, please, please figure out a good way to make her viable. If you really don't want to touch her horrid animation casting, then make Fiery Soul an AOE skill. 

Or make LSA's stun duration be 5 seconds.

Or give her an automatic Aegis on her inventory when selected.

Or... something. :)

Alliance and Fnatic eliminated from TI4. :(


Oh my God the thought of a TI Phase 3 without s4's mid. And no EGM and Akke support. And no Era and H4nni farm. And no N0tail quotes.

WHAT IS THIS LIFE.

Dear Puppey, s4, NS, Fly, Burning, Faith, ZSMJ, Dread, Pajkatt, Xiao8, Fenrir, DD, Silent

aka drafters/captains of the Dota Teams I actually care about, aka Na'Vi, Alliance, Virtus Pro, Fnatic, DK, IG, HGT, Relax, EG, NewBee, Vici, LGD, Empire,

Do you have any idea how sad it is to go through an entire page of DotA tournament replays at Gosugamers and not see a single Lina game? :(


Pleeeeease pick Lina. T-T


because i'm a good sport

Because I'm a good sport, thank you Bryan for your word of the week/month/probablythewholeyear and for replacing Pamanulak 2014 as the most mortifying experience of my life.


C because I already put the order in before Lawi said "It's spelled with a K ha."

Dendi Storm Spirit, Kuroky Lina, Chuan Rubick :)

DotA gif of the week is a Winner’s Bracket Game between IG and Na’Vi back in Alienware 2013 with (drum roll please) Kuroky Lina! Also featuring Dendi Storm and Chuan Rubick. :)

This was an interesting match when it happened because Alienware was one of the last tournaments before The International 2013 and this game had the 2011TI Champions Na’Vi against 2012 TI Champions IG. Practice for TI 2013 Finals? Unfortunately for IG it was not.

-o-


Personally this game was interesting for me because it’s the first game I watched that had Kuroky on Lina. I didn’t know what to expect - on one hand, she’s a hero that I never saw Kuroky play during his WC3 DotA days (and for a good reason – he played hard carry back then); on the other hand, Lina is actually listed as one of his signature heroes by virtue of having an 83% win rate on her over (a rather paltry) 12 games. I think that 12 games is too few to serve as a basis about whether a player is ‘good’ on a hero or not, so I definitely wanted to see how this game went down. 

-o-

Dendimon Anti-Noobery Lesson of the Day: if you’re playing Puck, do not Dream Coil a Storm with enough mana for Ball Lightning. If he zips away from the coil he will not get stunned because he is invulnerable while using Ball Lightning.



Can I just say that Lumi was disappoint when 430 did this and he even asked if 430 usually plays Puck because “he didn’t seem to know the match-up as well as he should have”. :( 

-o-

Kuroky gets Lumi’s seal of approval for this pair of LSA’s, which Lumi declares as “These LSA’s are just absolutely beautiful, Kuroky playing out of his mind right now!”




And how could you not agree? He caught Zhou’s Gyro and Faith’s Visage blind and basically strapped them to the dining table for Funn1k’s Alc, and later he made sure that 430’s Puck wasn’t going anywhere but down. (Additional credit where it's due - to Puppey's insane Chen micro.) All of that without taking a single kill for himself because – well aside from Lina having horrendous animation casting - all the gold and all the xp had to go to the carry. :(

Sometimes I wonder how easily or how not-so-easily Kuroky adjusted from playing position 1 to playing position 4/5 because seriously, how do you go from hogging every kill you can get your hands on to giving away kills even when they’re one mouse-click away? Hell, I would’ve said “Meh.” to Funn1k and Laguna’ed Gyro for the personal satisfaction of killing a carry.

Which basically explains why I am not a member of Na’Vi. :))

-o-

My favourite part! :) This play from Chuan made for an awesome scene where two LSA’s hit virtually at the same time. 


Note that Lina LSA has a .5 second delay while Rubick LSA (or any other spell he steals) is cast instantly. The delay is the main reason why Lina is usually utilized as secondary and not primary or God forbid, lone stunner. As Lumi says, LSA is not a stun until you have a set-up and I agree, but I think that it’s not because the stun is hard to land. If I was able to teach myself how to adjust for that delay (I am a major NOOB), then anybody else can do it. I think it’s more of the fact that if your opponent has good enough prediction and reflexes (and in a tournament setting EVERYBODY has excellent prediction and reflexes) it’s relatively easy to dodge the stun. 

-o-

So what did I think of Kuroky after watching this game? He was a good support player at the very least, and he seemed to have adjusted well to the role. He was usually on top of things during team fights and didn’t really do anything… er, questionable, as far as positioning and spell-cast timing went. There were a few team fights when I was wondering if maybe it would have been better if he focused on another hero, but then again I can never be entirely sure because as I said, I’m a noob.

All in all, Kuroky’s Lina was not as entertaining as his team mates’ (and by ‘not as entertaining’ I mean no crazy tower dives or ‘I don’t care if I have 800hp I will walk up to your team and make you eat a Laguna to the face’), but I’m pretty sure Puppey would absolutely take it over Dendi’s or XBOCT’s Lina for serious game.

Me, looks like there’s eleven more Kuroky Lina games I need to watch. :)




Akke ‘Support’ Lina + Loda Carry Abbadon = :D

So I missed DotA gif of the Week for the last two weeks (ugh I am such a fail) but I’d like to think that I’m making up for it with this extra long post about one of the most freakin’ entertaining games I’ve watched lately, Alliance vs The Retry at WEplay 2013 group stages. I knew that PGG was in a good mood when he styled his team’s name as ‘The Rereretry’ so I expected the match to be all YOLO fun, but when s4 picked up Abbadon for Loda and I saw Akke kill steal the first kill for Alliance, I realized I was watching something special. :)

-o-

You are now entering Akke Lina Kills land, and let me tell you what’s so special about this place: Akke is one of the most dedicated support players ever, and he rarely gets any shiny moments of kill glory because he selflessly gives as much as he possibly can to Loda, s4 and Bulldog. I mean, this is the guy who leveled Blood Lust over Fireblast and Ignite on Ogre Magi so Bulldog’s Spirit Bear could lop off Na’Vi heads at Game 3 of the TI3 finals. And as Draskyl said once, the reason why Lich doesn’t have legs is because “Akke sawed them off and gave them to his team.”

So when you see Akke take a legit kill for himself, that’s special.

And when you see Akke STEAL a kill for himself, that’s even more special. :))


Steal the first kill from your Solo Mid, why not?


He was just securing the kill because s4 was low and Loda didn't have Phase Boots yet. :)


The 'support' Lina steals -  I mean secures - the first three kills for Alliance. You know that this ain't your ordinary 4 position Lina, and this hell isn't your ordinary doto. :)

-o-

Steal kill or not, seeing people get Laguna Blades off always makes me happy. I seriously think that it’s one of the coolest skills in the game and anybody who doesn't agree is just in denial.




-o-

One of the three hundred sixty five reasons why I love Alliance is that as a team and as individual players, they know how to have fun during a game. Just look at Loda’s carry Abbadon.


I know that carries aren’t supposed to die for the initiator or supports, but he was in range for Aphotic Shield which could have saved s4’s Timbersaw without putting himself in a worse position, so I think he should’ve tried to help s4 out? Though earlier in the game Loda actually died trying to save EGM’s Wisp, which was not really in danger, so maybe he just felt like he’d already reached his martyrdom quota. :))


About five seconds later the entirety of TR decides that they want Bulldog’s Bounty Hunter’s ass, and again Aphotic Shield would’ve been great here, but nope, Loda decides that he’s a troll today. So after some half-assed effort to help he basically leaves Bulldog for dead. 


And die Bulldog does, so from the dead he and s4 ping away at Loda and his abandoning Abbadon.


You know who Loda does help ten seconds later? Akke! :) Because as Godz said in the cast, “His best buddy Akke, definitely worthy of a heal, but the rest of his team mates, no.” Aw, now I don’t know which bromance is better, Lokke or Pupoky.


It’s just too bad Akke still dies anyway. But hey, that’s his second dominating streak in less than fifteen minutes if I’m correct, so if anything he’s definitely having fun. :)

-o-

Aside from steal killing and trolling your initiator and offlane farmer, you know what else is fun?


Tower diving! :) In a freakin’ pro game! (Well they were up against TR which is like a tier 2 team at best even though they have PGG… who most probably was drunk while all this was happening anyway. I’m just saying, make no mistake if they were up against NaVi or Fnatic in, say, a Dream Hack elimination match, I don’t think this would be happening.)


And what’s even more fun than tower diving? Fountain diving! And getting killed without getting the kill you came in there for! :))

-o-

But you know what’s the most fun you can get out of a carry Abbadon? It’s getting Blink + SnY so you can do this.






-o-

This post is all about Lina and Abaddon (actually, ever DotA gif of the week post is about Lina, haha!) but the thing is, I think s4 and EGM – especially EGM – did most of the hard work in this game and deserve the ultimate credit. Sure, Loda was the one who got the rampage, but I think it’s fair to say that s4 and EGM set him up pretty good for it. Bulldog was kinda lackluster and I’m not sure how relevant he was to the game if he was relevant at all, though maybe he just decided to chill since Akke and EGM were already on fire, one supporting hardcore and the other supporting half of the time while KS’ing to his heart’s content the other half. :))

As Lumi said, this is one of the best things about DotA - yes, money and winning definitely count, but at the end of the day the players just want to have fun and they still consider having fun as one of the most important things about a game. This match went on for over forty minutes and the final score was 68-37, but nobody from TR rage quit even if it was obvious that they were gonna lose ten minutes into the game and nobody from Alliance gloat-flamed about all the crazy throwing.

GG WP. Ultimately that's just what this game is. :)

-o-

Last one, for real. This is part of the game chat log, and gaaahd, can I just say how adorable EGM is with that 'omg'? :)


Dendi solo mid Lina vs 430 solo mid Naix! :)

DotA gif of the week is a slap to my face for saying seven days ago that there is no way Lina can win against Naix. Turns out I didn’t have to search far because Game 2 of the Alienware 2013 group stages (I gif’ed Game 1 last week) has Dendi’s Lina vs 430’s Naix in the motherfucking mid lane. IN A PRO GAME!

I almost cried when I saw the lane match-up because you have the arguably two best mid players in the world duking it out and one of them is on Lina. Both 430 and Dendi rarely ever throw so I knew there wasn’t anything else to be expected on this lane but awesomeness.


430 is one of my favourite WC3 DotA position 2 players, going back to when he was still with CCM. He knows the mid lane well and his hero control is amazing, so you can always rely on him to make great plays even when the rest of the team was getting stomped. :) IG didn’t use Lina often in their games so I didn’t follow them as hard as I followed EHOME and LGD, but 430’s Storm was so awesome that it alone was enough for me to like the team.


And then you have Dondo! :) I’ve known about him for ages because I followed his old team DTS, but back then all my love went to Dread because he was the one who played Lina often. Now I’m following Na’Vi ‘cause they use Lina relatively often too, but even if she’s usually given to Puppey or Kuroky, Dendi’s friendliness and goofiness and humility and classiness  – gahd where was all this personality this when he was in DTS??? - makes it impossible not to like the guy.


Note that Dendi actually got Fiery Soul as a second skill because that build is almost unique to him. You usually get Dragon Slave after LSA and max those two out before getting Fiery Soul (and a lot of people even prioritize stats at that), but Dendimon consistently gets this at level 2 or 3. According to Capitalist, if you get two more auto attacks from the Fiery Soul buffs then it’s worth picking it up than leveling your nukes.( Kuroky goes for the standard skill build and his Lina games are always amazing nonetheless, so I guess feel free to pick up what skill you prefer.)


Fire and ice, literally. :) When I saw Faith’s Jakiro coming in for a backstab I cringed, and when I saw 430 pop Rage I cried. Rage alone is enough to kill Lina, add another support in the mix and man, that’s just overkill. But then Dondo hit that flawless LSA and I realized he actually had the chance to kill Naix first, so I started screaming for him to right click till kingdom come.


And he did it! I think I jumped when Naix died haha. :) I’m not sure why 430 decided to run since at 88hp after that LSA he was more likely going to die anyway… maybe he thought Faith could take care of Dendi and they won’t have to trade kills? Then again 430 has always been careful about the deaths he gives up, which IMO is the right attitude for a midlaner since I doubt suicidal semi-carries win games.


Lina of course doesn’t escape death by auto attacks from Jakiro, but if it’s any consolation Puppey’s Visage did try to rotate to… er, provide support? Though me thinks he actually left Lina for dead already and headed to mid to defend the lane.

Ultimately NaVi lost this game pathetically – like 8-23 or something close to that (Hey five of those kills were Lina’s!) – but I’d like to think that you can’t automatically conclude that Lina can’t take the 2 position midlane role in a pro game just because Dendi himself couldn’t do it. I mean, I think NaVi got outpicked by IG to start with (entirely to IG’s credit) and then there’s the fact that XBOCT didn’t have his A-game on because he was on support instead of the carry position apparently because he was lagging and didn’t want to carry with lag. I’d love to see a Dendi solo-mid Lina again, with Kuroky’s support Wisp and XBOCT’s carry Alc.

Given that NaVi’s captain is Puppey though, I really wouldn’t count on it. :D


I love this guy. :)

DotA GIF of the week is care of this crazy crazy crazy but awesome guy named XBOCT and his crazy crazy crazy but awesome Lina at Alienware 2013’s Group Stages.

XBOCT (Nebu1a once said it’s pronounced something like ‘I’m the boss, bitch’, but it’s actually ‘ha-vost’) usually plays the hard carry for Na’Vi,  which made for a really fun game when for some inexplicable reason Puppey put him on support duty against Alliance. I don’t know if this is really just the way he ganks or if he just has too much carry-aggression and it shows in his supports, but either way, XBOCT’s Lina is definitely something. :)


Can you feel how much this guy, on a support, wants a kill? This is a 700-hp support, Lina of all things, inches away from a Radiant tower that Zhou’s Lifestealer is defending and she’s dropping spells trying to find Faith’s full-health Silencer juking in the trees! That’s baller. (Or suicidal.)


So he retreats temporarily to the jungle where Funn1k’s Viper and Kuroky’s Windranger are waiting…


But then he goes in again, on his own 700-hp lonesome, doesn’t even take Funn1k with him. (As LD said in the commentary, “Even if he’s Lina, that’s not gonna stop him from strutting up to your team.”) I mean, if he was on Alchemist and he strut up to trees against five heroes, I would be cheering because I know he can get at least a triple kill out of that. But since he was on Lina I just hugged my pillow.


Now this is what gets to me. He knew that Silencer was somewhere in the trees. He also knew that Lifestealer was coming for him. And he also knew that Viper and Windranger were in the jungle nearby. So why did he turn back to the trees instead of running for the jungle where Funn1k, Kuroky and maybe even Dendi could help him?


Lina vs Lifestealer – I don’t care if this is Vigoss Lina vs a pub Lifestealer – it’s just not gonna happen. Lina of course dies, no help from Silencer needed.

***

I’m not really sure why XBOCT went back to the trees. But the thing about his plays in this game is that while he is so aggressive that he gets caught out of position so many times, he does try not to die if he can help it. I think it’s just that between surviving with half of his team dead and dying but taking at least one other enemy hero with him, he’d rather go down. He was second in kills for Na’Vi in this game (and first in deaths) which is pretty crazy considering Lina was supporting.





(You know what LD said about this play? “XBOCT throws out a VERY ANGRY Laguna Blade –”)

Thankfully XBOCT rarely plays Lina during pro games (or I’d have to be scared for Na’Vi) but I’m definitely looking forward to some XBOCT Lina hard carry games. :) After all, we’re talking about a guy who said in his DreamHack interview that Lina is not a support but a carry. 

To which AdmiralBulldog grinned adorably. :)



SUCK IT UP.

Me pag ayaw ko ang food that I'm supposed to eat: 

I earn my keep and I don't deserve this! (Buys some other food.)

Me pag mahirap sumakay ng bus dahil madaming tao: 

I work my ass off and I don't deserve this. (Brings car to Caloocan.)

Me pag umupo sa mainit na place sa Cafe San Fernando:

I pay my tab and I don't deserve this! (Doesn't get to do anything because - )

Mike: WELL BUY ONE TAKE ONE YUNG FRAPPE SO SUCK IT UP.

:))

***

Dota GIF of the Week, because I've decided that yeah, I'm going to make one every week.

This is M5 vs aL in The Defense 2, cast my LuminousInverse and LD. Fun game with aL going for Level 1 Rosh, failing, and turning to a 5-man push down Bot; PGG building triple wraith band vanguard Chen; and most importantly for me, Vigoss' SK laning with Silent's Lina. :)


Gahd. I love how Dragon Slave and Sandstorm just melted that Pugna. :)


SK at just a third of health vs almost full health Lone Druid? I can name one person who doesn't care and that person is Vigoss.


1. There is just no other ultimate in Dota more beautiful than Laguna Blade. :)
2. I have never played Invoker before so I really don't know the answer to this question: Is it really hard to hit a sun strike? Because Admir is a great player and his sun strikes missed like 80% of the time in this game.


 At a third of health I love how Vigoss pulls out of the fight and then charges at Snoopy and Godat again when he sees them stunned. Silent missed a handful of LSA's in this game too but he was stunning people when it mattered so it's okay. :)


I-want-you-dead-and-I-don't-care-if-I-or-my-lanemate-dies-trying-to-kill-you. :) FYI, after killing Veno Lina gets to like 90 hp but Vigoss still tries to go for Enigma and Silent supports him to death. Lina dies to the Eidolons and that's the only time Vigoss decides to let it go. 

Too bad Pugna's waiting for him with a Netherstrike so he dies too. :P