Thank god this isn't a repeat of TI4 finals at least.

Fantastic games so far, that brood pick came out of nowhere.

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Well, that was a great watch. So glad it didn't turn out like TI4 grand finals.

I think the TI3 grand finals were probably better, but I honestly don't know how you'd beat that. Best overall TI so far I think.

Even though CDEC came through from the Wild Cards, they were definitely the second best team at TI this year. Their team work was just fucking amazing. EG were up 10-15k gold in multiple games, and yet every team fight they took was so close.

Game 3 was probably the best game of TI. Aggressif's Slark, Sumail's Ember... Fear and his gyro.

I love how team work was the most important part of the games. You could almost call it the meta. But yeah, team work was what really separated the good teams from the great this TI imo.

 

That deadmau5 set was weird

 

Amazing Game 3. So tense and close.

Goddam I can't wait for the majors. Watching the other teams take CDEC seriously will be amazing.

 

I think the biggest flaw of this TI was that Secret never faced EG or CDEC. While I don't think the current state of Secret could beat them, I still wanted to see that game.

 

Meh, Secret acted like douche. Really overconfident and cocky. s4 played and drafted like crap. I'm kind of glad that they got knocked off TI, perhaps it will shake them enough to review their attitude concerning tournaments and preparation.

 

More like disband incoming.

 

Not sure I agree with that. Secret was very shaky in the main event. Their drafting was consistently poor and they made very questionable plays. I'm not too familiar with Secret from before TI5, but they may well need a replacement for s4 soon, given how poorly he performed. Also, I think zai is retiring isn't he?

 

Overconfidence was Secret's main issue IMO. S4 played terribly in that last game, but I'm not willing to write him off from just one bad day. Don't forget, Secret hadn't won a single lan until S4 started drafting. Then they won 4 in a row.

RTZ also made a great point in that every team would of studied secret, and figured out how to play against them, since they were the favourites

CDEC played a style of DOTA that we hadn't really seen until TI, 5 man team fights often, and always. Constant unrelenting aggression. Also, I don't think anyone really took them seriously until EG lost to them in the Upper Bracket finals.

After that I expect PPD spent a long time watching their games and figuring them out. CDEC did the same thing every game they played. And did it extremely well. EG figured out how they play, then countered it. They even gave away Leshrac, the most banned hero in the tourney. They just made sure everyone had a TP right from the very start and counter ganked every gank, or just went and hid in the trees the minute more than 2 heroes went missing from the map.

If you go rewatch their games, they played against CDEC completely differently than they would play against any other team.

EG is definitely the most adaptable team out there, and that's why they won TI5. They also don't get cocky. (Except Sumail ) And keep themselves focused on objectives, remain positive and try to understand every team they face.

PPD is the best captain in Dota. Bar none.

 

His draft in game 4 was a thing of fuckign beauty. If you watch the Pod cams for CDEC, after he takes Gyro first pick Q is fucking shocked. They were expecting the naga pick so Agressif could take Gyro.

 

Zai's leaving dota for school, so definitely some sort of reshuffle incoming.

 

There were two things about the drafting during the grand finals that stood out to me.

Ppd realizing that they didn't have a great Leshrac player after game one. Huge risk letting them have it, but it payed off when they ran him as a soso support. To me that was really telling that they didn't have a great core Lesh player and when they ran him as a core he didn't completely stomp them. This completely freed up one of the bans for EG on every game and forced them to give up the ban on one of Aui_2000's heroes or let Sumail own them with Lesh.

The other thing was that CDEC were so afraid of Aui_2000's Techies that they first round banned it every time. Its so hard to play against that teams preferred to just ban it out every game. This pretty much gave EG a free top tier hero every draft during the grand final. There's no way CDEC would have given them Gyro every game if it wasn't for Techies.

On the topic of Secret, I hope they stick together. Zai's possibly leaving to attend school but the rest of the team are still top tier players. Not sure who they would get to replace him though.

 

Not just that - He also knew that CDEC don't play Naga.

 

Universe doto best doto. And I'm not even talking about that echo slam, Universe has been the best player on EG pretty much since it was formed with him, PPD, and Fear. So consistent, and he comes up huge when it counts. Sumail (and before him RTZ) are the flashy players, but Universe holds that team together.

 

I got wrecked by timezone difference this year.

My friend told me the final was on at 3AM our time Saturday (my fault i should have known better than to trust him). "My girlfriends away this weekend. You should come round to my place we'll order pizza, drink beer and stay up to watch it."

So I show up at his place about 10 PM with my laptop. We order pizza consume a few cold beverages and start playing Pub games together to pass the time before the match starts.

Clock rolls around to 3AM after many games getting teamed up with Pinoy stacks (the curse of the Australian server late at night). My friend fires up the stream.

"Oh game doesn't start for another hour. Oh and it's EG vs. LGD only the semi - The final won't be starting until 8 AM."

"So final doesn't start for another 5 hours - and its a BO 5? Should I go home?"

"Nah lets just play some more pubs while we wait."

Suffice to say when you have been awake for about 18 hours playing competent Dota is hard - even when you spam pick Leshrac like a proper try hard (sorry team mates for the feed). We both fell asleep somewhere around 7 AM waiting for Final to start. Today at work I was absolutely wrecked. I'm way to old to handle staying up all night

 

I just grabbed a couple of hours sleep and woke up for the semis. Ended up going back to bed after game 2 of the grand final cause it looked like it would be a rout and apparently missed the best game of the tournament in game 3.

Downloaded the replays for 3 and 4, fortunately being spoiled doesn't really affect me.

 

I missed the entirety of TI, are there any must watch games that I should check out?

 

https://soundcloud.com/thehorseandthehammock/arteezy-rap

 

There were some really good ones. Easiest way is to start here. There is a thread for each day of the main event, and at the bottom of the OP there are polls for each game Must Watch/if you have time/bad game. Just watch anything that has a really good score.

 

PPD posted a draft analysis about the grand finals

 

Important to note according to ppd: Shiki sucks compared to sumail.