ESL One Genting Preview — Three takes on the first premier LAN of the season.
The three-day $250k extravaganza will serve as the battleground for some of the world’s top teams as they seek supremacy early in the spring season.
7.00 arrived three weeks ago.
While WCA, China Top and ROG SEA Cup already popped its LAN cherry, teams had yet to adapt to the massive scale of changes that came with it. The matches featured largely rehashed picks/bans and macro strategies from the previous patch. No team really understood DotA at these events, and the eight attendees come into Genting Highlands with only early reads on Icefrog’s latest entree.
Patch metas often start to take shape at LAN events, and teams will be relying heavily on their mechanically skilled superstars as they wade through the unpredictable drafting waters. Expect a lot of safe 6.88 picks at the beginning with cheese sprinkled in here and there.
Still, it’s been 21 days of intense scrimmage & pubbing for some of the world’s biggest fiends and it’s a given that fireworks will go off this weekend.
1. Early meta trends & the ghost of 6.88
Everyone’s heard it by now: 6.88 was the most versatile patch the game has ever seen. It was the Coachella of patches — a multitude of playstyles & heroes that headlined previous patches individually seemed to coexist in peace. So much so that VP.Lil criticized the Boston Major winners as a team that didn’t understand DotA properly.
I watched grand finals from the audience and it was just hilarious. Neither of the teams [OG & Ad Finem] had a proper understanding of dota. […] My eyes were bleeding, I was facepalming the entirety of grand finals, especially the third game.
It is hyperbole and it is how Lil rolls, but that’s beside the point. The important part is several schools of thought prevailed in 6.88, enough that one player was unable to comprehend the other team’s gameplan completely.
As a sequel, 7.00 has a lot to live up to. Will it rival 6.88’s versatility? It’s way too early to say, but the games look promising.
Let’s take a look at some early regional trends.
- Shadow Demon has relinquished its hold, and so has Outworld Devourer. Luna remains highly contested without being paired with Shadow Demon. Timbersaw has dropped to the #10-30 range in all three regions.
- Alchemist remains unpicked (or banned) in NA and was barely picked in China, while European teams still love the hero (#14 rank — one down from #13 at boston). Naga Siren has experienced an even higher drop-off.
- Mirana is being played as a support more and more, especially in China. The reunited duo of Fy & Fenrir put on an absolute cracker with an old school SD/Mirana combo this past weekend.
Overall, the 7.01 columns are heavily populated by heroes that can play more than one role.
The patch is new and teams are often drafting reactively to avoid a outright draft loss. Captains are picking heroes that can switch between the 1/4, 3/4 or 1/2 roles to keep lanes open, bait the opponent captain and hide their gameplan as the draft progress. The rise of Weaver & Underlord, plus the continued presence of Slardar & Batrider is a testament to this.
Side note, remember the 8k MMR Spectre spammer Badman? Well, he’s switched allegiances and has been grinding Necrophos lately with an absurd win-rate. The hero was added to Captain’s Mode recently and he’ll be a potential sleeper pick at the tourney. His kit has been revamped and the new skill “Ghost Shroud” only makes the survivability/healing aspects better.
There’s definitely some regional flavor going on here too — NA with the Undying, EU with Meepo and China with their Ember Spirit picks.
While the latter will likely become a staple pick everywhere soon, Meepo is exclusively a player special — you either excel at the hero or you don’t play it. Digital Chaos have one of the best Meepo players in the world and the hero will probably eat up one of their opponent’s bans this weekend.
2. Newbee: The Unlikely Favorites
Newbee finished 9–16th at Boston, a worse result than four of the other five attendees present at ESL. At WCA they failed to make it out of groups, finishing last again. They were then swept by EG in the China Top finals. In a strong playing field with two (ex) Major favorites Virtus Pro and Wings Gaming, they’re a tough sell as event winners.
Their DPL finals performance, however, would sway the best of us.
They faced up against IG.Vitality — a Top 5 Chinese team who were the winners of the CN regional qualifiers for Boston. The BO5 was expected to be a close tussle between the two evenly matched teams; instead it turned out to be a blitzkrieg.
Newbee demolished IG.V in straight sets, winning 3–0. And during the 82:32 mins of total gameplay, IG.V never led the net worth chart even for a single second. It was utter domination.
Still, the net-worth is only one metric. The more impressive part is how Newbee went around doing their opponents dirty.
Game 1 was, in addition to being a slight outdraft in favor of Newbee, a classic throwback to old ricing days of CN dota. Both teams dodged fights, traded towers and almost amicably farmed on opposite sides of the map till their carries felt ready. When was the last time a Timbersaw had a 0/0/0 stat-line at the 12 min mark?
Nevertheless, when the teamfights ramped up, kpii (it’s not k-phee grant, please) looked like Universe out there and landed one 3-man chronosphere after the other. uuu9/Sccc were much more efficient than their counterpart cores (dire lead was 7.3k gold at 20 mins with the score being 5–1) and the teamfights were one sided henceforth.
Newbee employed a roaming duo of Rubick-Sand King in Game 2, and their supports racked up 9 kills within 9 mins.
They went with a very similar draft in Game 3, but switched up their strategy — Faith played rubick in the hard 5 role, and Kaka roamed on the Sand King. Sccc carries a reputation of a monster mid-laner, and this game showed exactly why he was deserving of it.
In a mid-matchup versus Shadow Fiend, which at best is a wash in his favor as a Juggernaut, Sccc solo-killed Sakata three times within the first six minutes. He also had two additional kills with the help of the Sand King, increasing the tally to five kills on the enemy mid-laner within six mins. The series was all but in the bag at that point.
Newbee thrashed IG.V using three different playstyles, and all of their players stepped up in the series. There was a sense of comfort in how they played and executed in those three games. If they can keep playing at this level, they will be the team to beat at Genting Highlands.
3. All the Newcomers — Who are they?
The Spring Shuffle was quite tame compared to the usual spicy transfer seasons DotA gods bless us with. 13/16 teams present at the Major have decided to stick with the same starting five, and it might very well be a byproduct of the single elimination format. As Envy mentioned recently, many teams aren’t quite sure how good they really are in comparison to their competition.
Still, two teams attending ESL have gone major roster overhauls, bringing in fresh blood and veteran wisdom alike.
Fnatic.InYourDream
The new carry player’s nickname perfectly describes Fnatic’s chances of winning ESL One Genting.
Alright terribly lame jokes aside, Muhammad “InYourDream” Rizky is another entry in a increasingly long list of pubstar pickups. The Suma1l experiment has paved the way for aspiring players to be trialed by established teams; and adding green, but highly skilled players has also paid off well for teams with strong leadership.
InYourDream’s only experience as part of a professional DotA 2 team comes with a Jakarta-based Indonesian squad called The Prime. They finished 3–4th in the SEA Open Quals #2, losing out to Filipino squad Rave.
His current MMR is 7856, and a quick look at his pub profile reveals a love for Leshrac and support Earthshaker alongside the typical mid heroes.
Hopefully Mushi doesn’t pull a Kecik Imba on InYourDream, and lets him blossom as a core-player properly. Remember the ugly hot-swapping between support-carry roles that Kecik did within a series? No more of that please.
Standin.YamateH
The ‘-God’ moniker is frequently used today in the community to describe a great player. It has its origins from China all the way back in DotA 1. YamateH was one of such first-generation gods anointed alongside Loda. He’s a legend; but he’s also gone far too long without showing that he still has the chops to keep with the vastly different Tier 1 scene of today.
The last time YamateH performed on the world stage was at TI4 when Titan finished 9–10th.
He’ll be taking on the role of the hard support alongside ex-MVP star Febby for Fnatic at ESL, a departure from his long standing mid role. It’s also an interesting team-up, since both Mushi & YamateH have expressed their unwillingness to become teammates in the past.
Q: There have been rumors going around that you and YamateH will not play on the same team due to a personal conflict. Can you tell us more about this?
Mushi: That is true — we can’t be in the same team. YamateH is a very nice person, a good friend and also a good leader. It’s just that our point of view in eSports are very different. Full Interview
Q: How is your personal relationship with Mushi? Many people say you do not get along — why would you say this is? Would you ever consider playing on a team with him in the future?
YamateH: When we meet we’d still nod and say hi to each other, just that on the “battlefield” perhaps we’re still pretty determined to prove who is better. Full Interview
Courtesy: /u/_fmm.
Still, YamateH has only been contracted on a standin basis — Fnatic’s roster isn’t finalized just yet. ESL Genting might just be a trial run for them to see if the two old heads can put their differences aside and perform together at the highest level.
The SEA squad will only have a day after the LAN concludes to find a suitable replacement for YamateH if they choose to do so, since the rosters lock on January 9th for the Kiev Major.
Execration.Nando
Nando is no stranger to the Execration tag. He was part of the team (alongside Abed) that made it to TI6 wildcards. They sent complexity packing 2–0, before losing to Escape Gaming and were unable to make it into TI6. Dissatisfied with their performance, Nando departed the team to play with another filipino squad in S1 Lykos.
S1 Lykos had no significant success domestically, and they were quite middling in their tournament finishes.
Abed’s departure from the team came as a bit of a surprise after Execration notched their first series win over Faceless in the finals of the ASUS SEA Cup. The rumor is that the 16 year old star is headed west, but his previous organization wasted no time in securing the services of their old-carry player in Nando.
Gabbi originally replaced Nando as the carry when the latter left for S1 Lykos, but now will take over as the permanent mid-player. Nando will reprise his role in the familiar safelane for execration once more. Gabbi played the mid-lane interchangeably with Abed depending on the hero before — his Puck won several Plays of the Year honors for 2016.
Abed did a lot of the heavy lifting for this Execration squad, and it will be interesting to see if the kim0-Nando reunion can make up for the loss.
Quick Notes:
- Wings gaming haven’t played many officials since their disappointing first round exit at the Major, but that hasn’t deterred y’ from reaching in his bag of wack drafts. In their only online series before ESL, Wings gaming pulled out a support Death Prophet versus Braveheart. While, the skill difference between the two squads was apparent, iceice absolutely crushed on the hero — utilizing the slows & silences to crowd control the dire lineup and also functioned as the primary pusher from the position 4 role.
- WarriorsGaming.Unity are another team to look out for at Genting. They won versus Execration 3–0 in the finals of the SEA Kappa Invitationals quite convincingly, and also netted another first place in Kings Cup. The team is also not afraid to experiment, as Ahfu drafted an offlane bloodseeker in one of their wins versus Execration. They are also riding the momentum of an unexpected 8th place finish at the Major.
- In general, SEA/China teams have played a lot more officials compared to the western squads (many have zero games on the new patch). While these teams have been scrimming away from the eye of the public, the seriousness of an official is often lacking in such games. Expect the SEA & China teams to do well, as they will also have a slightly better grasp of the patch from the sheer number of games played.
- Hopefully teams don’t pick Batrider against Newbee — Kaka knows exactly how to ruin that hero’s life and often times Batrider is the lynchpin of their opponent’s drafts.
ESL One Genting begins in less than 24 hrs and the audience will have Redeye’s seasoned voice to guide them through the three day event. The format is unfortunately sub-optimal — BO1 GSL groups straight into single elimination semi-finals, but should still make for some entertaining matches of DotA 2.
The games begin Friday at 10:30 AM MYT / 4:30 AM CEST / 9:30 PM EST (thursday) and you can catch the action live at ESL_Dota2 Twitch channel.
