Na'Vi v. M5, the revenge

The Pick/Ban analysis

First Ban Phase

First Pick Phase

M5 has the first ban. It's worth notice that a lot of lane controllers were banned: Pugna, Invoker, Batrider. Aside from that, we see that other cookie-cutter heroes like Lich and Lone Druid are banned. All the strong carries are in the pool.

M5 first-pick is Nerubian Weaver. As he's a strong and annoying to kill carry, he surely fits into any team, specially soloing the easy lane. Na'Vi answers by picking Spectre and Venomancer, adding solid support with AoE damage and push-potential and hoping that Spectre can get superior farm and win the game.
M5 then picks Enigma and Visage. With Weaver ideally needing Scourge easy lane for himself, M5 need to build the basis of a strong lane for the hard lane. They can go for a trilane, or they can set a strong dual lane on bottom and set a hero at the jungle. M5 keeps the two options alive with Enigma and Visage. Enigma is an attempt to control initiative and set up team-fights, and Visage is that hero that can form a strong and defensive dual lane or trilane. Considering that there are lot of games where Spectre and Enigma are used in the same lineup, this pick prevents Na'Vi from using this combo. Na'Vi answrs by picking Enchantress, a solid pusher. We might feel uncomfortable with this picks, as we tend to think that Spectre fits better in turtlish games. With Venomancer and Enchantress alredy picked, there's no space for heroes like Earthshaker, commonly used on turtlish. Also, heroes like Clockwork Goblin and Ancient Apparition were ignored in this pick phase.

Second Ban Phase

Second Pick Phase

We see here that the heroes ignored on the first pick phase are banned here: Ancient Apparition, Earthshaker and Clockwork Goblin. By taking out Earthshaker and Ancient Apparition, Na'Vi denies M5 a strong combination of disables and burst damage. By banning Clockwork Goblin, M5 protects it's Enigma, taking out a hero that can compete with him for initiative. Also, M5 bans Bone Clinkz, as Na'Vi successfully used him against them at game 2 of the OSPL finals. Thus, if he fares well at the game, he can really win the game for Na'Vi.

Lina Inverse is picked, adding tons of burst damage into the game. With her nukes, M5 has enough damage to bring Spectre down in possible ganks. However, there are other heroes in the pool with stronger synergy that could be thought as alternatives: Vengeful Spirit really enhances Weaver with +damage and -armor. Na'Vi picks Furion. It's a really strange pick for several reasons. Na'Vi doesn't have lane dominant heroes, and alredy have a jungler. One can wonder where would Furion fit in this lineup. But, besides that, Furion has global mobility and the potential to pressure the lanes at will. M5 then picks Priestess of the Moon, picking up a good share of damage and lane control. Mirana needs some sort of initiation support to increase the odds of landing arrows, and M5 have this on the lineup. Because it's easy to miss arrows, this pick can be risky. Windrunner is a solid alternative for Mirana, bringing a long range nuke, escape mechanism, solid disable and a lot of item possibilities to the game, specially Pipe. Na'Vi finishes the picks with Rhasta. He brings lots of disables and pushing to the team. With no super strong solo-mid hero on the game, he has a good chance of faring well there. However, he's very fragile to damage in the long term.

Conclusion

M5 has a solid lineup with different options for laning. For example, they can use a trilane with Nerubian Weaver, leaving him very well protected, or even setting Enigma on the trilane and leave a solo lane for Weaver. The idea of meeting Spectre with a trilane is present here, and both alternatives are solid, the later being a little better in the long term. On Na'Vi side, however, things are really strange. They can't compete with M5 in terms of trilane strenght, nor they have lane dominance. All this weirdness makes you smell that the ukrainians will bring a novelty into the game, but it's hard to figure out exactly what they're up to.

Na'Vi	M5
Bans


Picks



Sentinel NaVi.555 (mid) NaVi.Ar7Style (bot/jungle) NAVI.XBOSTARIX (bot) NaVi.397 (bot) NaVi.333 (bot/jungle)	Scourge Moscow5.AA (top) M5.Garaj.G (mid) M5.Dread (bot) Moscow5.NS (bot) M5.LghTfHvN (bot)

The Game

Laning and game overview

As the game starts, we realize what is the novelty Na'Vi is bringing to this game. A novelty is a strange and different situation that you don't face often. As we said before, they don't have strong laners. If they try to compete with M5, they'll be smashed in the lanes. Na'Vi squad has a severe weakness on laning and must do something to survive the early game. That said, what Na'Vi does is bringing four heroes to the bot lane. We have a gamble here: Na'Vi gives a free lane for Enigma to farm, in exchange of putting huge pressure on bot lane. With this quick push, Na'Vi grabs a lot of things: they put a lockdown on Weaver; they protect Spectre with a lot of heroes; they get gold from the destroyed towers and steal space from M5. To get all of this, Na'Vi gives a free lane for Enigma to farm. The question to ask is: which team has the advantage on this gamble? It's up to the game to tell us. For now, let's see some options avaliable here. We know what Na'Vi gains for setting this quad-lane. What's in the table for M5? They can leave the freefarm to Enigma or to Nerubian Weaver. If they leave it for Enigma, he'll join the game as a ganker/team-fight initiator very fast, posing a huge threat to Spectre. If they leave it for Weaver, they'll be leaving the farm to their stronger late game hero. Both are valid decisions that can win or lose the game. In this case, we can discuss which decision is riskier in the long term. It is true that a super-early dagger is very welcome, but every player is open to commit mistakes with such hero. Setting up Black Holes requires superior initiative and an avaliable Blink Dagger, something you don't have with an haunting Spectre on the map. By being on the bottom lane, Nerubian Weaver is doing nothing but to offer resistance to Na'Vi push, something that Enigma can do a little better. In the long term, a full farmed Weaver can eat alive low armored heroes like Rhasta and Furion. Considering this, leaving the farm to Weaver appears to be safer.

Na'Vi offered M5 a gamble, and M5 took it. It is an excellent gamble for Na'Vi, as it allows them to survive the early game and set up the pushes. Without a strong solo-mid hero in the game, Rhasta can do a decent job at his lane and quickly join the pushes. Furion can teleport to all lanes and instatly pressure it with Force of Nature, locking M5 down even further. This kind of push is an excellent protection for Spectre: if M5 chooses to gank Spectre, the other lanes will be pushed very hard, and she'll recover the gold lost at the gank. If they stick to defend all the lanes, Spectre will be less pressured by other heroes and will have a good time at farming. On M5 side, they decided for leaving the farm for Enigma, hoping that he'll join the game early to initiate and dominate fights. Because of the push, Spectre early farm will be really small. With ganks coming from Enigma, it's really possible for M5 to lock her down.

The most important actions

Around the five minute mark, a clash on the bot lane happens, and we can see the effects of the gamble they took at the beginning of the game. Enchantress dies, but Necro'lic and Lina are killed in the process as Furion and Rhasta joins the battle. Na'Vi starts to put a huge pressure at the second tier bot tower - the first tier bot tower is long gone. M5 relieves the pressure thanks to a 6min Enigma dagger, killing three heroes. M5 is now depending a lot on this Enigma, and any mistake from him will be fatal. If we think again on how M5 would've profitted most from the gamble, there are two factors to consider: 1) which decision is better on the long term; 2) which decision is easier to execute and less riskier. Having a farmed Nerubian Weaver is definitely better and less riskier than having a farmed Enigma, as Black Hole depends on very precise play and it's necessary Dagger can be countered by Spectre. At the eight minute mark, another effect from the initial gamble: Enigma makes full use of his dagger to gank Spectre. Na'Vi has no wards on the map, and thus they give Enigma complete freedom to gank. However, Furion got a real quick Mekansm. and both top and mid lanes are being pressured.

At the nine minute mark, a big clash happens just after the first tier mid tower is gone. Na'Vi and M5 exchange heroes. But Na'Vi is definitely on the advantage here: the tower push and consequent clash has the purpose of giving space for Spectre to farm freely on the bot lane, an excellent tactical decision by the ukrainians. Right now, M5 is ahead at the death-score, but Na'Vi's game is very solid, as they took all the first tier towers without giving a single tower to M5.

Look at the mini-map: Na'Vi draws attention to mid line, giving Spectre freedom to farm

At the eleven minute mark, a mistake from Na'Vi costs Spectre her life once again, as she's ganked by Enigma, Visage and Lina. Na'Vi did conquer a lot of space by taking the towers out quickly, but they didn't set up wards to further strengthen their control, leaving Enigma free to gank. If this kind of gank continues to happen, M5 will fatally win the game by brute force, as they're gaining free levels and are locking Spectre down.

At the twelve minute mark, we see another strenght of Na'Vi lineup: Weaver retreats from farming as Furion teleports to top lane. With Furion and Spectre, Na'Vi have decent global power, thus threatening Weaver and putting a lot of pressure in his shoulders, as the risk of being killed is always present. Mirana got herself a Medallion of Courage, a good tactical decision as Weaver potential is really enhanced by this item.

At the fifteen minute mark, a victorious clash on the mid lane allows Na'Vi to destroy the second tier mid lane tower. M5 lost five towers, while Na'Vi lost only two. This puts a lot of pressure in the russian's shoulders. In normal games, we would see teams exchanging towers and waiting for better clash opportunities. By taking all these towers early, Na'Vi brings a lot of gold to their team and they take away from M5 the possibility of exchanging towers. Also, any mistake from M5 will fatally leave their base open; before, a mistake would cost a tower, but now the mistake will cost the barracks. But M5 has no choice but trying to setup and win battles, otherwise Spectre will only get stronger and stronger. Because of the tower gold, Spectre is a little ahead of Nerubian Weaver in the farming race.

At the eighteen minute mark, a big clash at Roshan is won by Na'Vi, once again an effect of the decisions both teams made at the gamble on the beginning. With Haunt, Spectre steals initiative from Enigma, rendering him useless. Na'Vi is behind on the death count, but they're closer to victory.

Lina being saved by two misses
At the thirty minute mark, we see the greatest effect from the early game gamble: M5 starts a big clash near their base, but Enigma picks only one hero with his Black Hole. This is the big mistake Na'Vi were waiting to happen. They built a great position and cornered M5 by taking out their towers. This mistake costs M5 the game, as their squad is wiped from the map, allowing Na'Vi to destroy the bot lane barracks and eventually win the game.

Items & Tactics

On the sentinel side, we see a great use of push. This isn't necessarily a push, but an effort to quickly destroy towers. Of course, there are risks involved on it. In order to push hard, eventually you surrender a lot of gold and XP to your opponent. The push will only be risky if the outcome of this gamble is favorable to the opponent. Also, if the opponent has the necessary resources to quickly jump and take key pushing heroes out - for the example, the ones capable of healing -, the push strategy is also risky. However, in this game, the push clearly favors Na'Vi: it puts a gigantic pressure on M5, it locks down their carry hero and makes their mistakes later on the game costs a really high price. The push also helps setting up Spectre, firstly because of tower gold, and secondly because pushing forces M5 to defend it, creating space for Spectre to farm safely.

On scourge size, Enigma went for Dagger and Black King Bar. This is the normal build for Enigma as you want initiative and magic immunity to use Black Hole. However, in this specific game, Enigma is not favored by this item build. Firstly, Spectre can take out Dagger with Haunt; secondly, Rhasta is the only hero on Na'Vi lineups that threatens to interrupt Black Hole. That said, Dagger is a very risky option here, as it's easily denied by Spectre, and Black King Bar is a luxury - you can always initiate on the fragile Rhasta and kick him out from the battle. An alternative here would be leaving all the farm for Nerubian Weaver and go for a tanky build, with Vanguard and Black King Bar. With this, Enigma has enough survivability to walk into the team-battle and use his ultimate.

Mirana got herself Manta Style and Medallion of Courage, to further enhance Weaver's potential. However, Manta Style didn't add to much to the game. M5 never got themselves a Mekansm. Also, Pipe would be really useful here, denying Venomancer's ultimate. But, with M5 picks, it would be a little awkward for any hero to rush Pipe - we would see this happening with heroes like Windrunner or Clockwork Goblin, but not with these picks.

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