| Picks and Bans: |
| 25cm with the first pick, banning a lot of the common solo heroes, all of which are heroes that are commonly seen in GG.net's line-up. GG.net then straight up ban's three carries, a rather safe move, since not much can be done against a farmed Spectre or Syllabear, while Nerubian Weaver is a decent carry and a very versatile hero. Its important to point out that a lot of first-pick heroes are still in the pool. 25cm goes with  Ancient Apparition as their first pick, usually an auto-ban hero, and for the right reasons too, so clearly he is a good first pick for them. GG.net takes advantage of the hero pool, picking both  Pugna and  Doom. Not much is needed to be said about both of these heroes; they can wreak havoc against any line-up, not to mention they are both good counters to the AA. 25cm picks  Morphling and  Visage, adding a lot of nuking power to their team, and with a lot of the stronger carries banned, Morphling can't be out-carried easily. GG.net then answers with  Windrunner, a powerful hero, and her Shackleshot can be very effective on the Morphling.By this point, 25cm knows that GG.net is lacking supports, so they start off by banning the CrystalMaiden. GGnet then bans EarthShaker, who - other than having all his great qualities - has great synergy with the Sentinel tri-lane heroes, because each stun from him could almost always ensure a kill in a tri-lane with so much burst damage. 25cm bans the Enigma, a scary hero to play against, especially in the hands of Puppey. GG.net then bans the Broodmother, a standard ban.  Tidehunter is picked by 25cm, not the most reliable support in the game (Vengeful Spirit is still in the pool), but has a great ultimate, which could be game deciding. GG.net then decides to pick a  Venomancer, adding a lot to their AoE and pushing potential. 25cm then picks  Obsidian Destroyer, not the best hero going against a Doom, Pugna and Windrunner, but with decent farm can be very effective, and with Astral Imprisonment, can dominate almost any lane. As a final pick, GG.net goes for a  Shadow Shaman, a great ganker and pusher.Despite having a strong line-up, the Sentinel team will still have a major problem with Doom, because too many of their heroes can be nullified with his ultimate, meaning, a lot of this game depends on how well the Doom plays. As for GG.net, they have a lot of choices when it comes to laning, since all their heroes can be played as solos, and can all function well in a tri-lane. As far as team fights go, both teams are fairly equal in terms of AoE and nuking power, but the Sentinel can rely on Morphling's eventual DPS output, while the Scourge has their Nether Ward to give them an edge in team fights. |
| The early game: |
| The scourge tri-lane ended-up including Rhasta, Windrunner and Venomancer, since a farmed Pugna/Doom could be more effective in a late/push strategy then the Rhasta/WR/Veno. The Sentinel tri-lane consisted of Morphling, Visage and Tidehunter, leaving Obsidian and AA to solo. The laning seemed to be pretty standard at first, having the tri-lanes go against the solo's, leaving the tri-lane carries farmed, and the side lane solos suppressed. 1:30 The beginning of the action was sparked in mid, when the Sentinel tri-lane supports decided to gank Pugna with a Smoke of Deceit, which was effective in netting them a quick firstblood, and allowing their AA to get some free farm and have a leg-up going against Pugna. 2:50 Moments after getting first blood, the ganking squad of Sentinel were able to find an invisibility rune, and with no ward to spot them out, they headed bottom to grab themselves a kill on Rhasta. By this point 25cm decided to send the Morphling bot, and OD top to go against the Doom. The lane switch was a great idea by 25cm, knowing that a level 5 Morphling can easily dominate a tri-lane with three barely leveled squishy heroes, while the OD would have no problem going against a Doom, even if he was a little under-leveled. 4:52 Right after teleporting bot, the Morphling's level 3 waveform crushed through scourge's tri-lane, netting the Visage a double kill. 7:06 Turning level 6, the AA shows his effectiveness by being able to help his tri-lane get yet another two kills on the enemy tri-lane; the combination of his ultimate and a Waveform was almost enough to kill both Rhasta and Venomancer instantly. |
| Scoreboard: (10 min) | |||||
 25cm | Towers: 0/1 | Score: 6/0 |  GGnet | Towers: 1/0 | Score: 0/6 |
| 25cm.Tzar | 46/8 | 1/0/3 | GGnet.Puppey | 24/2 | 0/0/0 |
| 25cm.PHAN | 28/11 | 1/0/2 | GGnet.AZEN | 43/8 | 0/1/0 |
| 25cm.Chiuahuaa | 32/6 | 1/0/0 | GG.net.Pajkatt | 28/3 | 0/0/0 |
| By this point, each team's carry heroes farm seems to be similar, but 5/6 death's for the Scourge team was on their support heroes, so they were very under-leveled and under-farmed, but the one tower lead helped them out greatly. | |||||
| The mid-game: |
| The game transitioned fairly regularly into the mid-game, with a few kills and towers traded by both teams early on, but 25cm still manages to hold on to their lead over GG.net, but the mid-game saw a series of back to back team fights. 12:30 The scourge finally manage to grab their first kill; Pugna and Doom dropping all their skills on the Morphling, but killing him with no problem. 14:24 The first team fight of the game occurs in bot, when GG.net decides to go for a push on Sentinel's tier1 tower. The team fight begins with both Tidehunter and Doom going down in the beginning, but with Doom wasting his ultimate on the Tidehunter right after using his; the team fight then goes on, and ultimately results in 3/2 in favor of the Sentinel team, meanwhile, all this time Morphling made it his job to pick off the Windrunner and the Scourge's top tier1 tower while the fight was still in progress, fortunately for the Scourge, a midst the team fight, the Sentinel's tower also goes down. Both teams begin to cool off after the first fight, Rhasta and Venomancer doing some ancients pulls to fill up their wallets. 18:50 Minutes after the first team fight, the second one was already underway. The fight started with both Tidehunter and Venomancer dropping their ultimates, Venomancer was able to hit almost the whole Sentinel team with his, while Tidehunter wasn't as successful; the Venomancer who was initially in the center of the whole fight, was able to juke his way out of trouble, making Morphling waste his time trying to kill him, while his teammates were able to pick off the Sentinel team without too much hassle, credit goes to Kuroky's Rhasta who completely disrupted the fight for the Sentinel with a well placed Serpent Ward. The fight resulted with 1/3 kills in favour of the Scourge, and a good sum of gold for Rhasta, thanks to his double kill. 21:48 The Sentinel team then finds themselves an out of position Doom; they pick him off and quickly transition into a push, taking the second tier tower on bot and quickly retreating before a team fight could occur. 23:20 In an attempt to gain an advantage, the Scourge team decide to kill Roshan, but with no wards to spot the Sentinel team. While killing roshan, the Scourge get hit by an AA blast followed by Tidehunter's ravage, eventually killing all but Pugna, but losing Tidehunter to Rhasta's wards and OD to Roshan; the Doom then decides to buy back and jump back to battle all on his own, just to get killed in an instant, Sentinel then finishes off Roshan for themselves, giving the aegis to Morphling. The most crucial point of the team fight by Roshan was Doom being killed, and killed again after he bought back, losing almost all his gold, further delaying his Radiance. The Sentinel then goes ahead and quickly destroys the first tier tower mid. |
| Scoreboard: (30 min) | |||||
| 25cm | Towers: 4/3 | Score: 19/7 | GGnet | Towers: 3/4 | Score: 7/19 |
| 25cm.Tzar | 170/19 | 3/1/5 | GGnet.Puppey | 81/3 | 0/4/1 |
| 25cm.PHAN | 86/18 | 3/1/7 | GGnet.AZEN | 110/9 | 1/2/5 |
| 25cm.Chiuahuaa | 114/21 | 6/2/3 | GG.net.Pajkatt | 110/12 | 1/4/3 |
| Even though the Scourge heroes were beat down pretty hard in the early game, they still managed to survive the mid-game. The Sentinel's carries aren't much more farmed than the Scourge in terms of creep kills, but unlike the Scourge, the Sentinel carries have a lot more kills and have a gold advantage with their one tower lead and Roshan kill; not to forget the doom lost a lot of his gold during the team fight at Roshan. On the other hand, Rhasta managed to get himself farmed through stacking ancients, and without taking too much farm off his carries. | |||||
| Important Items going into late game: |
| -In this high nuke/AoE game, both teams decided to get a Mekansm and a Khadgar's Pipe of Insight. Although Mekansm is a very popular item, the Pipe isn't as popular, but in this situation, a Pipe is almost mandatory. OD is the one holding the Pipe for the team, which means he will be a lot tougher to kill when going against the Doom. -Force Staff/Dagger of Escape: In a team fight, one of the deciding factors is Positioning, the better positioned team will be able to cast their spells more effectively, and both items are great for escaping/initiating, and the attack speed/Intelligence gain by the force staff is especially good on OD. -Linken's Sphere/Eye of Skadi: An ultimate by Doom on Morphling can be devastating, this is why the Linken's and Skadi build Morphling has decided to go for is very effective, because with so much strength from both items combined, and the spell block from Linken's, Doom should not be too much of a problem. -Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse: By this point in the game, we see the Pugna/OD/AA start working on their Guinsoo's. The hex is very important for the Scourge with dealing with OD and Morphling, since none of them opted to go for a Black King Bar. As for OD, Guinsoo is a great DPS item, because it greatly increases his damage output and makes his ultimate so much more powerful.  The Obsidian destroyer was saved by a Force Staff after being trapped in Rhasta's wards |
| The late game: |
| After the major fight at Roshan, both teams take their time to farm up those crucial late game items. 31:00 A smoke gank attempt by the Scourge on the OD results in an exchange of a Rhasta for the OD, but the Scourge manage to take the Aegis off the Morphling. 35:20 Shortly after losing the Aegis, Roshan was back up, and with their extremely high DPS, the Sentinel manage to take Roshan in an instant; with an Aegis to give them an edge, they attempt to destroy the creep barracks in mid, which is unsuccessful since Venomancer was putting too much pressure on the Sentinel's top lane. 40:45 More farming by both teams, then Sentinel goes for another push on the mid barracks, which results in a team fight, the fight results in a 2/2 exchange and the tower going down, but ultimately the scourges mid barracks are still intact. 44:50 The third and final attempt by Sentinel is successful in taking down the melee barracks and resulting in a 3/4 team fight, but due to a buy back from both Rhasta and Windrunner. The scourge were able to successfully defend their barracks twice thanks to a blinking Doom using his ultimate on the Tidehunter before he could use his own ultimate. 46:00 The Scourge team decide's to go for a push on bot, but killing Roshan on the way, to get the Cheese and an Aegis. This time, an initiating Tidehunter managed to land an ultimate stunning 4/5 Scourge heroes, and the sentinel were quickly crushed by the full set Morphling. 50:00 After winning the team fight, 25cm goes for the top barracks and then for throne. |
| Conclusion: |
| It seems that GG.net managed to stand their ground after being beat down for so long, and though it seemed that GG.net could make a come back, the game was really almost out of their grasp by the end of the early game. GG.net might have been caught a little off guard by 25.cm picks, thinking that they would play a passive farming game until both their Morphling and the OD were as powerful as possible, while they play a mid-game push Strategy with the powerful pushing squad consisting of Venomaner/WR/Rhasta/Pugna. Unfortunately, the scourge tri-lane hero's were too weak to pull off a push. Towards the mid-game GG.net tried to try and switch the game by forcing team fights out of 25.cm while they aren't prepared, but too many were unsuccessful, all the while the Sentinel carries are getting stronger and stronger, and by then most of the game was dictated by 25.cm. A big factor of the game was the lack of map control by the scourge, and they were picked off way too many times, and a lot of these kills went to the sentinel's carries; lack of map control was also the main reason behind the roshan incident. Good play by GG.net managed to prolong the game as long as possible, but not much can be done against a farmed Morphling or OD, let alone together. 25.cm played a great game as well, constantly keeping the enemy tri-lane down, not to mention the lane switch that played a crucial part in winning the early-game. The Morphling's solo pushes made the scourge's pushing squad be much less effective, by constantly trading towers, meaning the scourge did not give themselves much of an advantage by spending all that time pushing one tower. |
