How does OG dominate The International 2019 — Macro Strategy and Draft Analysis
Really sorry for the very late article, the hype may be all gone but still worth to review it after the amazing True Sight. Let's review this victory of the last tournament this legacy of OG.
It is very different from last TI in 2018, OG was called as “Fluke” for a whole year after TI. It was due to the break of ana and the under-performance of OG in the DPC season. But in The International 2019, OG was dominating from the start, went 14–2 in the group stage, and did not lose a single series, had a stunning 23–5 record overall.
The Meta
Because of the double Bounty Runes every 5 min and the increase of overall map resources, the meta worked around how you take map control and apply pressure in a timely manner. Once you did it, you either snowball to victory very early or just scale much faster in economy and eventually win. The following list is the meta heroes who were contested a lot.
Alchemist, Leshrac, Kunkka and Ember Spirit were the high-tempo cores, they would run at you if the lane did well. Especially Alchemist, his 20-min timing with Radiance, Black King Bar and Assault Cuirass was something impossible to deal with in that patch.
Chen, Elder Titan, Mirana, Tiny are similar, but they were strong supports at the early game, helped to secure the lanes and early team fights.
Tidehunter, Enchantress, and Omniknight were the most popular offlaner, their job was to solo the lane and allow the pos 4 support to roam early.
Magnus was a special one, his Empower let many carries to hit their timing earlier, and be able to join team fight early, which was crucial in the fast-paced meta.
Very different from last year, OG was able to play lots of meta heroes, causing the enemy team to ban meta heroes too, besides the respect bans.
The OG Dota
Run at you face
OG played extremely aggressive in this TI, They had the lowest average game time amount all teams and had the highest Kill + Assist per min. Their style of playing was the peak of the meta.
Trump Card
Everyone knows today, OG had a Trump card in their hands, the carry Io, they had the full planning to let ana to hit the 20-min timing, getting the Aghanim’s Scepter and the level 15 Spirit talent, and then they rolled over their opponent, in fact, this is similar to how Alchemist worked.
The craziest part was that, no other team had the training to reproduce the dominance, Team Secret was the only team tried it when facing VG and Team Liquid, they destroyed VG. But Team Liquid crushed them with fast-paced heroes like Chen, Leshrac, and Meepo, even though Nisha had got the Aghanim’s Scepter at 17 min, his team was falling apart due to the 4 vs 5 situation.
As a result, every team facing OG could only ban it, they could not pick it for themselves even with first-pick.
Despite the Io, OG was also very good at top meta heroes like Alchemist, Chen, Magnus, Enchantress, Tiny and Elder Titan, all of these were first phase material, caused huge trouble to draft against them.
OG had also some signature heroes they are comfortable with, they either never banned or always get a respect ban. Grimstroke was played by Notail and JerAx, but he was never banned. Respect bans mostly went for Invoker and Monkey King, 2 signature heroes of Topson.
And as I have said last year, if a team has more than 4 heroes you want to ban, even with first-pick, you can never take them away from their comfort zone. They will always have a draft advantage.
Lots of Flex-pick
OG had 13 heroes that could be played by 2 players, and many of them were first-pick material, meaning OG’s early picks were mostly protected, it was very annoying to counter pick.
Examples will be shown at the draft review below, it is so beautiful that sometimes you cannot even tell the roles of OG’s lineup until their enemy revealed the last pick.
Here is also a list of flex-pick of other top teams, all of them had less flex-pick than OG.
Killer combo
OG had some very strong combo that many other teams had not tried.
Io — Elder Titan (3 times), especially for core Io, it solved multiple laning problems. Elder Titan gains a lot of movement speed and damage from Astral Spirit, but he don’t have the attack speed nor tankiness to secure a kill. Io solves both of the problems, and the movement speed of Elder Titan also solves the movement speed problem of Io.
Chen — Alchemist (3 times), Chemical Rage already make Alchemist very tanky, with the Divine Favor aura, He is even more difficult to be killed. And the teleport also helps Alchemist to farm faster.
Tiny — Faceless Void (2 times), it does not seem to be a combo at first glance, but OG has demonstrated how strong a Toss to Chronosphere can be. And Chronosphere into Tree Volley is also a team wiping combo. An active ganking Tiny can also make space for Faceless Void to farm.
Grimstroke — Pugna (2 times), a crazy killer combo since level 6. With a well placed Soulbind, Grimstroke will catch 2 enemy heroes, and silence them with Phantom’s Embrace, they can only remove the silence by attacking the Phantom. Then Pugna can disarm both of them with Decrepify, and double Life Drain. Since they are bound together, they have a high chance to both be hit by Ink Swell and Nether Blast, which is insane amount of damage.
Grimstroke—Tiny (2 times), you can Toss any right clicker with Ink Swell to get a kill, it is a strong combo since level 1.
Before going into the drafts
Key points of winning TI, being difficult to ban against or counter pick
And now you find that OG in TI 2019, fulfill this condition more than enough. I truly believe that they may even have more strategies in their pocket.
Going through the draft
Winner’s bracket round 1
Newbee did not believe in core Io in game 1, they banned some meta heroes like Enchantress, Chen, and Magnus at the first phase, allowing OG to pick their Elder Titan — Io combo, which they won twice in the group stage(Team Secret had also succeeded with it). And OG kept the high tempo with the Bristleback and Omniknight pick. That was how the fountain farming began.
Game 2 was similar, Newbee banned Io this time and first-picking Enchantress, but they were more afraid of Topson’s Invoker, so they let OG pick Magnus, which allowed OG to pick ana’s carry much earlier. Next phase Newbee decided to ban OG’s support, end up giving Topson a very free last pick and his Monkey King toke over the game.
Winner’s bracket round 2
EG had the same bans in all 3 games, which may be the best bans against OG. In game 1, with first pick, EG had also taken Enchantress. On the other hand OG banned Elder Titan, and picked a defensive support combo without flex-picks. And OG had picked ana’s hero too early, allowing EG to plan for the trilane and the Lina counter-pick, end-up OG lost all three lanes from the start.
Game 2 OG had first-pick, of course they picked Enchantress and they got their Faceless Void — Tiny combo, that Chronosphere into Tree Volley team wiped EG at the late game.
The game 3 draft is a work of art. OG picked Enchantress, Invoker, Rubick, and Juggernaut, EG strongly believed that they would be played by Ceb, Topson, JerAx, and ana accordingly, so EG banned Notail’s Oracle. But the Sand King pick of OG messed up everything because EG thought that Enchantress might be going pos 5 support and Sand King would be played by Ceb, so they went for Anti-Mage to counter Sand King in lane. But OG changed the line up again, Ceb was still playing his Enchantress with JerAx’s Sand King, EG had successful dodged that lane by putting Arteezy at the offlane, but he had a rough start comparing to ana. On the other hand, Ceb and JerAx had a great start, with Topson they fought all around the map, disrupting the farm of Arteezy, and started to push all lanes from 15 min. At 25 min, after OG pushed 2 lanes of barracks, Arteezy finally finished his BKB and joined the fight, but it was way too late.
Winner’s bracket finals
LGD saw how important was Enchantress in the EG vs OG game, they chose to ban it and letting Alchemist out. It was very interesting that LGD had never played Alchemist in this TI, that’s why OG did not need to ban Alchemist in all games.
In game 1, OG was pretty confident about Elder Titan and Faceless Void, first-picked them, LGD directly knew it was the pos 5 support and hard carry, they proceeded with 2 very valuable ban, Tiny and Invoker. But OG’s hero pool was deep enough they got themselves a comfortable draft, LGD’s last pick is a nice counter to the Zeus. The game went great for OG, they lost because ana had got caught without buyback.
Game 2 OG secured 2 very valuable picks for themselves, Chen and Tiny. And since LGD did not ban the Alchemist, OG picked him up and support him with Dark Seer, Surge and Ion Shell are great on Alchemist to chase enemies down. The 10 min Radiance and 13 min BKB of ana’s Alchemist was not possible to deal with, it was a very one-sided game.
Game 3 shows that LGD was not an Alchemist believer. After OG first-picked Chen, they picked Elder Titan and Tiny and ignored Alchemist. OG went all-in to the Alchemist strategy. After LGD banned Dark Seer, OG picked Tidehunter which looked like an offlaner, but after LGD picked Shadow Demon and Sand King, OG was sure that Tiny would go mid. So they chose to put Tidehunter mid and picked Legion Commander to buff Alchemist with Press the Attack, it was also an important skill to dispel Soul Catcher.
OG’s lane was hard, but they successfully secured ana’s farm, and he finished his Radiance, BKB and Assault Cuirass at 23 min and go for Roshan. With Aegis, OG started the high-ground push, since Ceb had the early Pipe of Insight, LGD don’t have enough damage at this point to defend the push. Topson had also bought Solar Crest to buff ana’s sieging power. After the mid lane push, OG did not stop their push, Ceb bought Drum of Endurance to give more attack speed to ana. Even though OG lost the teamfight afterward, but they had 2 lanes done. LGD tried to fight in the late game, but after Topson gets the 25 level +250 damage talent, they just could not defend the push. By the way, the armor reduction build on Topson’s Tidehunter is very interesting.
Review of Team Liquid
Team Liquid loved Templar Assassin, Elder Titan, and Tidehunter a lot, Leshrac and Gyrocopter was their highest win rate carry, Meepo was also their trump card. They had gained lots of confidence on Tidehunter and Templar Assassin after the LGD series.
Grand Finals
Liquid went for the standard ban against OG in game 1, OG seemed not very sure what to ban after the Leshrac and Ancient Apparition and they went for Sand King which opened the Chen pick for Liquid since they were first-picking Enchantress. OG had chosen a late game line up with Spectre and then tried to counter Templar Assassin with Pugna. But Liquid went for the Meepo last pick, so OG switched to Tiny mid, but since Liquid can switch lanes, Miracle- still went mid and won the lane.
The fast-paced line up of Liquid tried to snowball, and they succeeded since OG’s plan was to stall the game until ana gets his core items, like last TI. After losing the mid lane barracks, OG finally won a huge teamfight and the game was back to even. ana had got caught and died, Liquid started Roshan, but OG decided to try avoiding ana’s buyback, end up it cost them the game.
Game 2, Liquid banned Ancient Apparition, meaning that they might go for Alchemist, OG banned Alchemist and Chen because Liquid had first-pick. Liquid went for Tidehunter and Templar Assassin again, and OG went for Grimstroke and Tiny. In fact the Avalanche-Toss-Ink Swell combo is pretty good against Templar Assassin, multiple damage instances with stuns are very dangerous for her. Liquid picked one more physical damage hero Lifestealer after OG’s Omniknight was strange, and picking Enigma into OG’s fast-paced line up was super greedy.
With Topson’s Monkey King, OG started teamfight very early, did not give Liquid any chance to farm, Liquid was just throwing bodies to survive, OG won the game definitely.
Same bans in game 3, Liquid went for the same dual, OG was back to the Enchantress pick with Tiny and Grimstroke. They had also got themselves the Faceless Void—Tiny combo. With the Pugna last pick to counter Templar Assassin, OG just rolled over Liquid, this game was even more one-sided.
Game 4, originally it was just a typical Io core game of OG, but True Sight revealed some very interesting detail during the drafting process.
Team Liquid was done with Tidehunter and Templar Assassin, and they was trying to change the draft, they finally decided to open up Io for OG. OG had also read Liquid very well, they banned the Dark Seer — one of the better heroes of Mind_Control. Liquid had also banned Io’s best lane partner Elder Titan, but opened up Tiny for OG.
In the 2nd ban phase, OG banned all the fast-paced heroes that Liquid likes, Liquid banned Topson’s hero and picked the Bristleback, which OG dominated with Io when they fought Newbee. OG went for 2 more flex-pick, Abaddon and Timbersaw, Abaddon is a great lane partner with Io, Timbersaw counters both strength cores of Liquid. Liquid believed it was a mid Timbersaw, and then they banned Ceb’s Nature’s Prophet.
But the Gyrocopter pick confused Liquid, they thought it was a support Io with carry Gyrocopter which is a very common combo, Timbersaw was going mid and Abaddon would go offlane, which was totally wrong.
Liquid still went for trilane and won the lane, they tried hard to apply pressure, but OG did great on securing ana’s farm. The rest is history, when Liquid tried to push high ground at 20 min, they lost the teamfight hard due to level 15 Io with Aghanim’s Scepter and the Diffusal Blade of Gyrocopter. Like every OG core Io game, there was no return after that.
Behind the stats, there are more factors to be considered, Team Liquid said they were so tired after all the lower bracket run and the 3 game series with LGD, and they did not really have enough preparation to fight OG. How OG enjoyed the game with all the memes and taunt made the next level of mental warfare. How OG kept their morale after losing Game 1 amazed everybody too. The Dota 2 scene will learn from their legacy, and I expect more to come.
Thanks for reading, see you next time after the ESL One LA major.
