Damn, that was a sad exit for Team Spirit. Thought they might have something after the miracle comeback in game one, but realistically they were a step behind all series and that game three was a stomp. It’s sad to see because Spirit at their best are amazing to watch - and it’s always sad that the reigning champions aren’t even on the main stage - but they did this to themselves with that terrible performance against Nouns, and today they were clearly second best.
Nouns are out and the jury is in, I think on balance they were the worst team at this TI. A team can’t be measured on the merit of their best games, but on their consistency. They seem to lack any sort of mental fortitude and completely crumbled under pressure both yesterday and today. The match against BB Team was complete humiliation. Yes, it was a bad matchup but they completely messed up even on fundamentals. Stuff like giving away 4 Bounty runes against an Alch team despite having stuns and forgetting about Wisdom runes just shouldn’t happen.
It’s a shame they couldn’t replicate their best performances when it really mattered, but at the end of the day that’s what separates the good teams from the bad.
Have mostly watched Liquid, GG and Talon so far. Still rooting for Liquid a lot. And yeah, it’s looking good so far :D but we’ll see
Falcons vs Tundra Game 2. Such an insane game. This is why I love Dota
Absolute cinema. Finals worthy game, and insane to almost see the Luna solved. Ammar is going to have nightmares about that mirror shield.
Gave me big TI8 upper bracket finals vibes. A 2v5 ancient defense is perfectly viable as long as you have the right heroes and use them correctly. Also, isn’t it crazy how Topson finds himself in these kinds of games?
This game is beautiful.
Well into the playoffs now and C9 continues to impress. I love a team doing their own thing and picking unique heroes when the meta is otherwise looking fairly stale and calcified. Liquid also looking very good, unsurprisingly.
Big talking point is of course Spirit bombing out vs Nouns. Going to be very interesting to see if they can pull off a lower bracket run, they did look very strong in the group stage.
I didn’t get a chance to see the earlier matches, but I think Cloud9 could be a sleeper to win it. I was very impressed by Watson in the qualifiers and the rest of the team is playing incredibly well too.
And I really love seeing teams that ignore the meta and just do what they think is strongest. I think that makes the most fun and interesting Dota, and blindly following the meta makes it really boring. I’m cheering for them most, personally.
Cloud9 has definitely been my sleeper hit so far. Picking stuff like Bane, Nyx and Winter Wyvern has been great to see and worked really well for them. I’ve also been impressed with watson, but their supports have been absolutely insane. Fishman has been terrorising teams with wisdom rune plays and Kataomi has looked fantastic. He had a clinic on Tinker today, basically showing everyone what Spirit tried (but failed) to pull off yesterday.
That game 2 of Falcons vs Tundra was absolute peak Dota. Luna has been the hero of the tournament so far, but Falcons almost solved it. Doom has looked pretty bad so far, but that 25 talent is still a powerhouse in the late game and it was so close to paying off here. In fact, the game was arguably a throw as Ammar didn’t realise Pure had a Mirror Shield and got Doom reflected on himself in the critical fight. What an epic game that was.
