Alliance and Fnatic eliminated from TI4. :(
WHAT IS THIS LIFE.
WHAT IS THIS LIFE.
Digesting a Heartbreak
6 years ago
WHAT IS THIS LIFE.
Dear Puppey, s4, NS, Fly, Burning, Faith, ZSMJ, Dread, Pajkatt, Xiao8, Fenrir, DD, Silent
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.
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. :)
