With the beginning of Farm 4 Fame (F4F) we have loads of good replays on our hands. This game between a veteran team forever in the dota scene The Elder Gods (TeG) vs the team that once ruled every tournament Meet Your Makers (MYM). A fairly short game but action packed, gank-oriented, and most important of all fresh heroes almost never seen before.
The Picks:
 TeG |  MYM |
| Bans | |
    |     |
| Picks | |
 |   |
  |   |
  |  |
| Lanes | |
| Sentinel neXt!S0ny (Bot) TeG-Hyperion (Mid) freezer1905- (Top) TeG-RMP (Jungle) TeG-Coco (Top) | Scourge MYM|MaNia- (Bot) MYM|PusHer (Bot) MYM|KuroKy (Mid) MYM|miGGel (Jungle) MYM|AngeL (Top) |
GameMode: -cm
Length: 30:18 Minutes
TeG gets Sentinel side and first ban/pick and begins with banning . The main reason with banning a hero that rarely is seen picked comes from the recent version mix which gives Doom a good carrying role (his ultimate is also the best anti-carry shut down tool on any hero ever created). From there the bans progress with MYM banning early game support/gank heroes (, , , ) and TeG banning good early/mid gankers with the late-game carry as addition. After the bans TeG begins with
(PotM), which is a standard and overplayed safe strategy of picking a hero. Potm is a great hero but after being in the game for over 1 year teams have adapted playing against it and it is hardly the key hero to win a game. MYM decides to go for a early focused game and grabs and the first being the best mana battery/support ganker and the latter being a great gank/support hero. TeG continues with usual picks getting and , both extremely popular due to their ability to inflict terrible amounts of damage in very short period of time. MYM next picks another two very early-potent heroes 
and with Slardar being a good carry (an excellent just in case late game option in synergy with their early gank strategy). TeG concludes their picks with getting a support/gank oriented hero in their lineup, and the carry/gank a multi-purpose pick. At the end of the picking phase MYM decides to take a creative leap and last picks . This hero never seen before, in the right hands with his ultimate can be the perfect ganking tool, which gives a clear idea what MYM guys are planning to do.Don't let them take a breath.
This is probably the motto MYM had playing this game. Game begins with TeG soloing zeus mid against Lanaya(Templar Assassin), both trying to level fast with zeus only being able to do damage if get high level and Lanaya really shines after she gets traps.
Bottom TeG puts Viper to solo the easy lane to get some early farm and pose a treat later on. Chen is put in Sentinel woods for fast support or gank if the need arises. MYM thinking the same thing that Viper is going to be bottom gets 3 heroes bottom CM, Demon, and Slardar making Vipers life miserable, and the easy kill chen if they ever catch him off guard.
Top we have TeG's ganking lane with SK/PotM combo never giving the opponents an easy game against solo Puck who always poses a tough kill, with his good escape skills.
From the lanes we can see TeG's idea is to farm up Viper with Chen acting as his bodyguard, PotM/SK freefarming a lane with powerful spell combo that makes farming against it hard and last Zeus getting fast level mid so he can do his lightning show later in any lane needing it. MYM on the other hand has the idea of making them cry very early in the game playing as aggressive as possible against bottom lane and Puck/Lanaya fast level so they can join the kill mode only a few minutes later.
We can see the power of a 3-lane immediately killing Viper with a ease the second he leaves tower range. Lanaya mid with refraction skilled has immunity against Zeus and freefarms the lane. Top Puck doesn't seem to have too much trouble against PotM/SK and has ok creep stats. Minutes later Viper dies too fast for Chen to come and aid, but Chen gets the same fate when Lion, and CM and Slardar start chasing him like bunch of maniacs catching/killing him pretty fast as well. With CM skilling briliance aura Lanaya gets all it need to become untouchable with endless mana for Refraction. Top seems a bit passive PotM/SK farming more than harassing puck.
Only 4 minutes in the game viper manages to die twice again which makes things sad for TeG, and finally top grabs a kill on puck although their cs stats are mediocre at best. Lanaya has cs of 18-8 in just 4 minutes which gives a clear picture how indifferent she feels about Zeus being in the same lane.
Building an advantage
The second Lanaya hits level 6 Lion joins the hunting party and Zeus falls prey mid. Puck dies again top, a problem that needs to be tackled soon and TeG will be completely helpless. Short time later TeG trying to exploit their only advantage go for another puck kill but a couple of TP's from prepared Slardar and Lanaya destroys their idea and manages to get 2 kills in the process.
Viper tries to farm mid but scourge heroes get there fast enough and with the help of trap range viper is caught and killed. Lion and Slardar have no rest and go straight for bottom lane where they welcome a seemingly freefarming Zeus and kill him. Continuing the game scourge heroes roam around picking fights killing enemy heroes whenever they can find one, while sentinel are in defense mode desperately trying to hold their tier 1 towers. 19 min in the game the kill score is 7-15. Few notable item purchases are phase boots by Lanaya, phase boots and Ogre Axe by Slardar, and phase boots by Zeus. Item wise scourge is clearly winning and they are using this fact to run around across the map not allowing sentinel back in the game.
Keeping the advantage
Scourge reduces the ganks a bit focusing on towers, with the top and bottom towers falling quickly. Soon enough they try to push mid tower, Lanaya farming blink dagger, she engages in a fight with her new toy and starts picking off sentinel heroes. Things don't go as planed, and scourge being overconfident scores Viper double kill, and hope is restored in sentinel. 17 minutes in the game after a push try by sentinel scourge defends, and starts chasing the misfortunate sentinel heroes. Here is probably the best move in the whole game where a leaping PotM dies by Lanaya's hands blinking from SK's stun 0.001 seconds before it hits her. Not much after the first attempt sentinel tries another push on mid tower which results in getting 4 of their heroes killed. The aftermath of the fight is a GG from sentinel only a few minutes later with the final score being 14-32.
Conclusion
The game is won by the very early aggressive strat scourge employs. Their bans are brilliant denying heroes like abbadon/shadow priest who are capable of keeping allied heroes alive under extreme pressure. Without spells like shallow grave, aphotic shield, and heal spells scourge had clear path in doing what they wanted shutting down any hero that can be significant later on. Lanaya fitted perfectly in this strat with her ulty being a huge factor in both map control and ganking fast enough before the opponents can aid their misfortunate mate.
I highly recommend anyone who likes gank-oriented play to watch this replay it has great teaching potential.
Links
GosuGamers - Download the replay
