Round One... Success!

A personal account of the prelims of the NUS DotA Competition
(ok ok also posted to Yahoo Groups)




Coin toss, chose heads, came up tails, opponents chose side (Sentinel)

All prior planning went out of the window as TPK picked Doombringer. Opponents chose Vengeful Spirit.

Final lineups:
Doombringer, Omniknight, Morphling, Rhasta, Lich (our side)
Vengeful Spirit, Nightstalker, Silencer, Rogueknight, Bounty Hunter (opponents)

Early game:
Morphling (Jenming) took the top lane against VS and Sven. Two stuns, but no fear! Stats build Morphling can survive.

Doombringer (Weichung) and Lich (Pengkian) in middle, facing Silencer and Bounty Hunter. Doesn't look like too much trouble here. They're not exactly feared early on. Silencer isn't really that feared at any time without backup, but that's another story.

Rhasta (Zhengyu) and Omni (me) went bottom lane, to face Nightstalker. Denial, with Rhasta getting hits on Balanar, while he had problems getting near anyway with Degen Aura, and Purification if he initiates combat.

Zhengyu had the good fortune to have his screen broadcast live on TV to an adoring audience just outside the gaming area. Since that means that all our allied messages are visible, we provided some warm-up entertainment. Jenming suggested we go for Roshan, TWC requested we go take down the tower, and I helpfully directed the spectators to look out for the pro Rhasta.

First blood took some time, but by twenty minutes we were 6-1 up in hero kills. I had two Circlets, a Mantle, Boots and a Void Stone, and 1200+ gold in the bank. Was running back to base to get a Staff to build Euls soon when suddenly out of nowhere... d/c!

Thought this only happened at home.

So while the game was paused, we were reminded that since 10 mins had passed, no restart was allowed, it would be 4v5. Even worse, my goodies were out of bounds to the other heroes. At least I hadn't spent my cash, so everyone got a small ~300 gold boost. Game continues.



Midgame:
Looked pretty down for a moment with BH getting some kills and starting to get fed. Omni was relegated to garrison duty hugging towers, but Doombringer at least had a good time with his Dooming. Chain Frost stopped the big pushes, while Rhasta disabled as usual.

Thankfully the other opponents weren't really playing up to potential. Balanar had a quiet first night, while VS was never too impressive, swopping with Morph beside a tower in a highly questionable move earlier on.

Morph began to get fat too. Blink + Morphing stats to Strength ensured that it was next to impossible to kill him, while allowing him to get the jump on fleeing heroes. Doombringer's Refresher Orb proved deadly against their lower-life heroes, especially BH, whose effectivity was severely reduced by some wards and general overconfidence in trying to attack out of windwalk 4v1.

Despite having a numbers advantage they elected to defend, and often got wiped out in the large scale battles. Chain Frost stealkilling became prevalent, although there was a pretty nice double kill when two opponents tried to ambush by the side of the middle lane.



Lategame:
Never really looked like losing after Morph gained two levels in one skirmish and began to get uncontrollable. Eye of Skadi was completed, and then it got insane. With a Level 3 stun stolen early in the game, Morph could just stun, walk in and attack, still with Blink if things ever got too nasty.

Some sieging with wards razed the middle barracks, and then Rhasta got both the Scepter and Refresher. Twenty-four Level 3 Serpent Wards at the bottom. Bye-bye, two more barracks. Certainly a worthwhile sacrifice to get killed for.

By this time the creeps were flooding in and demolising the Tree of Life, a rather clear GG.