Okay can I just say that Page 1 of the VODS section of GGnet is so freakin awesome right now. :)

First off, 15 of the last 30 VODS available have a Lina in the game, courtesy of 7 different teams – that’s a lot of Lina picks. :) None of them are Secret or NaVi or Alliance games, which means that unfortunately I don’t get to see Kuro or Akke’s dank support Lina (she’s almost carryish when Kuro plays her, actually) or the gloriousness that is Dendi’s Lina in midlane, but hey, considering that eight months ago I made this (x) post, I’m not complaining. I’m just gonna sit here and hope to the Meta Gods that Puppey and Artstyle are just saving their Lina strats for T15 haha!

What we do have – which is super awesome too – are:

1. FNG FIRST PICKING LINA FOR ASUS.POLAR TWICE IN THEIR Bo3 SERIES VS MOSCOW FIVE. And the only time he didn’t first pick her, he picked her second!

I mean, I know the order of picks can mean different things in different situations – like, some heroes are picked first because the drafter thinks they’re that important, while others are picked later because the drafter doesn’t want to reveal their strat early – but Lina is a hero who is rarely picked first or second so I got really excited just by the fact that FNG picked her so early. But looking at the order of the drafts, I’m inclined to think that it’s more of the first case. Seems like Captain Fabulous Hair really wanted the Axe/Lina combo (DKphobos offlane Axe and G/Illidan midlane/safelane Lina is a strat they seem to like) so he picked them together when he could.

Oh, FNG. At this rate you’re going – drafting Lina a lot and actually being great at her – you’re going to dislodge S4 as my third favourite DotA captain of all time after 820 and Puppey pretty soon. And considering how fond I am of S4, that's saying something.

2. LINA BEING PICKED BY LGD IN ALL FIVE GAMES IN THEIR Bo5 SERIES VS EHOME. Jesus.

To be honest I didn’t know who drafted for LGD – heck, I didn’t even know who the players of LGD were anymore (too many Chinese reshuffles and too few good Chinese Lina games to watch) – but it turns out that the guy to thank is actually xiao8.

I know him from his WC3 days because he was with CCM/IG.Z and they had a great rivalry going on with EHOME, who counted Lina among their go-to supports and therefore had my undying love. But I haven’t really paid a lot of attention to him in Dota 2 because the Chinese teams didn’t pick Lina as much they did in WC3 DotA until recently. But nonetheless, the most important thing I know about xiao8 is that last month LGD paid Newbee $330K to release him from his contract so he can play for LGD again. And this guy, who LGD thinks is worth $330K, thinks that Lina is worth picking five times in a Bo5 series.

Hold me I’m going to cry :’)