Replay Analysis: Tribal.fr - UBLI

This is an analysis of the game between Tribal.fr and Umbrella for Dota-League Cup where Umbrella showed something more innovative than the regular, and it’s especially refreshing compared to the 6.64 strategy of mass farming with three carrys.

Tribal.fr	UBLI
Bans
Picks
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First we start with the bans, where Tribal.fr decides to ban Rhasta and Broodmother to avoid facing a strong push strategy. They then go ahead to ban Nerubian Assassin who isn’t banned that frequently anymore, but he can still take one hero out quickly and he is a very good team gank initiator. After that they ban Crystal Maiden, which probably spoils that they wanted the control of early game, since she isn’t really a threat late game.

UBLI puts a ban on Tidehunter, his ultimate can be really devastating and he is a good roamer early on, so it’s always a relief not facing him. Next we see a ban on Ursa, who is very strong early and midgame, if you dont have a fast disable (like Hex) he can take out one of your heroes very fast, not something you prefer when you are going to pick lots of intelligence-based heroes. A routine-ban on Dark Seer follows, nothing you want to face no matter what you pick, he is too annoying and saves in too many situations. For the final ban, UBLI decied to take Sven out of the pool, he is a good roamer and with Black Kingbar he can really turn around a clash if you rely heavily on nuke damage.

Proceeding to the picks then, where Tribal.fr have the first pick. They go for Vengeful Spirit which can fit into alot of strategies, but it’s generally more of a ganker than a babysitter but it shows aggression at least. UBLI picks Furion and Pugna to follow it up, revealing a heavy push strategy. To counter it, Tribal picks Beastmaster and Earthshaker, to turn Furions pushing treants into a devastating downside while facing an Echo Slam. UBLI follows up with Lion, a good hero both for ganking and babysitting with two disables, a strong finish and an irritating mana drain. They also pick Akasha, being the 4th int-hero, showing that they are going to rely on nuke heavy damage and roaming power. Akashas blink and Furion’s teleportation can cause Tribal danger wherever they are on the map.

Tribal finishes the picks off with Admiral as their carry, a good and easy farm with useful abilites for ganking and clashes, and Puck that will make sure UBLI heroes will stay in place (with the Dream Coil) and go nowhere before Admirals ship crashing upon them. Puck’s silence is also very useful versus the spell based picks of the opposite team.

UBLI then goes for Anti-Mage as the last pick, having another hero with the ability to blink into a clash and also making sure someone will deliver physical damage.

Lanes
Sentinel Tribal.Margeta (Bot) Tribal.Ph0eNiiX (Top) Tribal.Todo (Mid) Tribal.Neosia (Top) Tribal.YoYa (Bot)	Scourge lapiz (Top) noertti (Jungle) Gazhag (Bot) maarGee (Bot) Matkatavara (Mid)

The lanes aren’t that complicated. We have a Beastmaster solo mid for fast exp, and he can hold the lane with a bottle, since his hawk will grant him vision of which rune will spawn. Kunkka goes with a babysitter/roamer toplane to grant him farm, and Anti-mage goes with his babysitter/roamer for farming. We also have solo Akasha on top for UBLI for fast exping since all of her skills are useful, she should also be able to grab some farm at this lane, especially with Furion farming in the woods nearby for possible ganks. UBLI’s bot lane (Magina, Lion) can really drain mana away, although maarGee doesn’t pick his mana drain, he probably wants to focus on the disables.

The first five minutes doesnt show anything extraordinary, all of the players are just trying to do their thing on the lanes, getting farm and exp and Furion farming up the woods. But just seconds after the 5 minute we stamp, we see first blood on lower lane. Lion and Magina is picking off Puck but a nice clean Fisure keeps them locked outside and Puck can walk away with just about 90 hitpoints. However Furion teleports into the situation, sprouting him and dealing the damage needed, resulting in first blood for UBLI.

After this we see Furion starting be more aggressive, with the aid of Lion and Akasha they keep the top lane ganked while Magina farms bottom lane. Pugna prioritize Nether Blasts and then Decreipify to increase damage from Lion and Akasha, the Nether Ward will have to wait. The farming situation after 10 minutes is in favour of UBLI, since they have 3 heroes grabbing farm on lanes and Furion killing neutrals without any problems. Akasha’s farm is less than of the other farmers though, but the ganks have scored some hero kill gold her way. Plus if you go solo versus two heroes your farming gets a bit limited.

At 12:30 Furion teleports to bottom lane to help Anti-Mage take out Vengeful Spirit, while there is a gank going on midlane. Furion uses his Wraith of Nature on Vengeful, but it’s bounces scores him a double kill, killing of those two heroes midlane. And seconds after he makes it a triple kill by taking out Vengeful Spirit, giving him a total of 900 gold, granting him the gold needed to finish his Dagon.






At 15 minutes, the tower score is 3-1 to UBLI, the semi pushing power of their heroes is giving them early gold which grants them a tighter grip of the game at this point. The score is currently 11-2 to UBLI.

Tribal manages to take out Akasha’s 6-0 streak after 15:40 when she runs into 3 heroes deep into sentinels mid lane, but she has her Dagon finished. With both Furion and Akasha with Dagons they can pretty easy initate a really quick kill on any sentinel hero.

At 18:30 a big ganks in the sentinel woods near midlane happens, not ending in to many deaths, only 1-1 but lots of heroes in the mix. Rexxar gets picked off quickly with Furion teleporting in there using sprout and Dagon while Akasha also strike him with her Dagon.

At 20:25 we see the dreaded double dagon in action, the observer wards spot Vengeful Spirit in the sentinel woods, Akasha follows her while Furion teleports and sprout her. And both of them only use their dagon and maybe a regular hit and Venge is dead. However, the rest of Tribal is around and picks off Lion and Pugna who are lurking around in the woods too. Akasha sneaks in a kill on Earthshaker and Magina grabs the second top tower for sentinel.

So far the game is going UBLI’s way, with Furions teleganking/pushing and Dagon power quick kills goes their way, putting pressure on the entire map while Magina can farm away. Tribal haven’t finished building one item, Admiral have abandoned his Battle Fury and started to build Black King Bar with his perseverance ready.

Tribal takes down the top tower at 26 minutes without any UBLI heroes there trying to defend it, instead the minute after UBLI takes down Roshan and provides Anti-Mage with an Aegis. Pugna is also carrying a Dagon and Akasha’s is upgraded to level 3.

A clash goes down right before the 30 minute stamp. Beastmaster’s Necronomicon level 3 forces return damage upon Akasha in clashes due to her area damage. It’s now 5-3 in towerscore in favour of UBLI. The clashes results in some deaths on both sides and Magina drops the Aegis. Tribal’s Earthshaker gets his dagger at 31:30 and can now start countering the pushing forces of UBLI as well as taking out their low health point heroes with his dreaded Echo Slam. The dagger probably arrived later then Tribal expected due to the heavy global ganking., and now for the scourge, Magina carries a Vladimir alongside a Butterfly and is dealing lots of damage in the clashes.

The pressure from UBLI continues, with Pugna also carrying a dagger now, at 33 minutes they pick a kill in the woods, resulting in a big clash in favour of UBLI and their huge nukes plus Maginas physical dps and they proceed to take down the barracks in Tribal’s mid lane.






At 36 minutes Furion got his Orchid and Lion got a blink dagger, now all of scourge’s heroes have the ability to blink into clashes (with the exception being Furion’s teleportation) and three of them carry Dagons (and Lion his Finger of Death). Plus two damage amplifiers in Orchid and Decreipify. The strategy is completed, and now they can easily blink in and quickly take out anyone and they demonstrate shortly after by picking off three sentinel heroes at different locations.

Some hasty decisions after that result in Pugna and Akasha dying inside the sentinel base, Magina grabs a kill and a tower and blinks away. He then proceeds to take down Roshan at 38 minutes, with great help of his basher. He drops his Aegis shortly after, while pushing bottom lane.

Tribal are getting tougher to gank now, Kunkkas BKB making him only vulnerable to Anti-Mage. They try ganking Magina while he is taking down the ancients on sentinel side, but unfortunate timing fails it, Earthshaker blinks in and casts Enchant Totem at the same time as Vengeful Swaps Magina out of the aftershock and Magina can quickly blink away before getting disabled by Puck. Magina then builds a BKB, making him close to unkillable.

Within two pushes, the game is over. After Magina and Akasha managed to kill 4 sentinel heroes, they broke their defenses and created the opportunity for the last and decisive rush. There was nothing more Tribal could do to stop them.

To wrap it up, UBLI went for an innovative push heavy strategy that also relies heavy on quick ganking and going Dagon on 3 heroes for easy killing. They proceeded to roam the map, pushing and ganking while Anti-Mage was free to farm items enough to carry the later phase of the game. 4 mages and 1 anti-mage did the trick. Maybe one an argue if going dagon 5 on Akasha was really worth it or not, perhaps going Hex or Shivas after Dagon 1 would have been more useful. But one can not deny that Dagon 5 together with Orchid's or Pugna's amplify really hurts. Hoods would have really helped Tribal's heroes but no one went for it, only Puck and Rexxar carries a Planeswalkers Cloak at the end.

Link to end game scoreboard.