Na'Vi: The struggling champions Na'Vi is under pressure. Yes, they just won GosuLeague, but that was one first sign of hope again after a series of troublesome events. Since DreamHack Winter 2012 Corsair Vengeance Cup, where the team lost against Evil Geniuses, they also lost at the ASUS Final Battle of the Year against two contenders of these StarLadder StarSeries finals: Both Empire and Virtus.Pro defeated the TI2-runner-ups.
Just on Tuesday, Na'Vi also lost against fnatic in The Defense round 3. This means although Na'Vi won GosuLeague Season 5, the latest matches against the SLTV contenders have not gone well for them. Na'Vi is the defending champion: All three previous SLTV Finals in Kiev have gone their way in April, in July and in October. Na'Vi has not lost a tournament at Kiev in 2012 - until last week.
Puppey said that the 6.76 playstyle with many 5-man teamfights doesn't quite fit them yet, but if this metagame is going to change already at SLTV finals? Slight hero adjustments have been there, but only few massive changes, especially for the captain's mode. In the team's first game on 6.77 version against Shz in GosuLeague, Na'Vi has been struggling massively again, and only won due to smart late game decision making that's not really metagame-depending.
Na'Vi goes into SLTV finals as the main round's first placed team, so they will face against fnatic, the fourth placed team, in the first round.
Na'Vi Recent Tournament Results:
The International 2: 2nd place (final against Invictus Gaming)
DreamHack Winter 2012: 5th-8th place (lost in quarter finals against Evil Geniuses)
ASUS FBOTY: 3rd place (lost in semi finals against Empire)
GosuLeague: Season 5 1st Place
Just on Tuesday, Na'Vi also lost against fnatic in The Defense round 3. This means although Na'Vi won GosuLeague Season 5, the latest matches against the SLTV contenders have not gone well for them. Na'Vi is the defending champion: All three previous SLTV Finals in Kiev have gone their way in April, in July and in October. Na'Vi has not lost a tournament at Kiev in 2012 - until last week.
Puppey said that the 6.76 playstyle with many 5-man teamfights doesn't quite fit them yet, but if this metagame is going to change already at SLTV finals? Slight hero adjustments have been there, but only few massive changes, especially for the captain's mode. In the team's first game on 6.77 version against Shz in GosuLeague, Na'Vi has been struggling massively again, and only won due to smart late game decision making that's not really metagame-depending.
Na'Vi goes into SLTV finals as the main round's first placed team, so they will face against fnatic, the fourth placed team, in the first round.
Na'Vi Recent Tournament Results:
The International 2: 2nd place (final against Invictus Gaming)
DreamHack Winter 2012: 5th-8th place (lost in quarter finals against Evil Geniuses)
ASUS FBOTY: 3rd place (lost in semi finals against Empire)
GosuLeague: Season 5 1st Place
| Na'Vi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team | Lineup | |||||||||||||||||||||||
  Na'Vi |  Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin Alexander 'XBOCT' Dashkevich Sergey 'ARS-ART' Revin Dmitriy 'LighTofHeaveN' Kupriyanov | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Signature Heroes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Puppey |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dendi |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| LighTofHeaveN |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ARS-ART |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| XBOCT |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Empire: First tournament victory is sacked, what's next?
Empire has been maybe the most memorable team of the fall season. Scandal's Templar Assassin might be a bit weakened now with the 100 MP costs of Refraction, but it still should a more than viable pick for Scandal. Funn1k said it himself: To his mind, Clinkz is broken, but he's definitely the one player in the world to let the sneaky Flaming Arrow shooting hero shine.
Lately Empire had some downsides with Wisp/Chaos Knight combination games, losing against teams like fnatic or mousesports. However, their play with this hero combination still should be expected at the StarLadder StarSeries finals. Empire has reached their goal last week, finally. They won an offline tournament. Ever since TI2, the majorly very young team has shown really good results, but never got the big points: SLTV Finals 3, DreamHack Winter, didn't play at Thor Open. It was the CIS-only tournament ASUS FBOTY to give Empire what they searched for.
Now the question arises if there will come more. They are familiar with the arena now, but that count's to Na'Vi and Empire as well. They have strong signature heroes, but the key to success for Empire at SLTV Finals 4 will be discipline: Too often the young players over-eagerly run into bad fighting positions. The 30-53 match against fnatic was hilarious to watch, bit it also showed that Empire doesn't have the strength yet which once was Na'Vi's main advantage: Never to get caught out of position.
As the second placed team of the StarLadder StarSeries main round, team Empire has to face Virtus.Pro in the first round of the tournament.
Empire Recent Tournament Results:
ASUS FBOTY: 1st place (final against Virtus.Pro)
GosuLeague: Season 5: 2nd place
Empire has been maybe the most memorable team of the fall season. Scandal's Templar Assassin might be a bit weakened now with the 100 MP costs of Refraction, but it still should a more than viable pick for Scandal. Funn1k said it himself: To his mind, Clinkz is broken, but he's definitely the one player in the world to let the sneaky Flaming Arrow shooting hero shine.
Lately Empire had some downsides with Wisp/Chaos Knight combination games, losing against teams like fnatic or mousesports. However, their play with this hero combination still should be expected at the StarLadder StarSeries finals. Empire has reached their goal last week, finally. They won an offline tournament. Ever since TI2, the majorly very young team has shown really good results, but never got the big points: SLTV Finals 3, DreamHack Winter, didn't play at Thor Open. It was the CIS-only tournament ASUS FBOTY to give Empire what they searched for.
Now the question arises if there will come more. They are familiar with the arena now, but that count's to Na'Vi and Empire as well. They have strong signature heroes, but the key to success for Empire at SLTV Finals 4 will be discipline: Too often the young players over-eagerly run into bad fighting positions. The 30-53 match against fnatic was hilarious to watch, bit it also showed that Empire doesn't have the strength yet which once was Na'Vi's main advantage: Never to get caught out of position.
As the second placed team of the StarLadder StarSeries main round, team Empire has to face Virtus.Pro in the first round of the tournament.
Empire Recent Tournament Results:
ASUS FBOTY: 1st place (final against Virtus.Pro)
GosuLeague: Season 5: 2nd place
| Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team | Lineupx | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 Empire | Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov Vladislav 'blowyourbrain' Morozyuk Airat 'Silent' Gaziev Gleb 'Funn1k' Lipatnikov Artur 'Go[blin]' Kostenko | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Signature Heroes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Scandal | / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Funn1k |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Silent |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Go[blin] |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| blowyourbrain | / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Virtus.Pro: The silent successors
Virtus.Pro hasn't caused much of a stir and still was very effective in the main round of StarLadder Starseries. Second most wins, second place, decent results lately also in the ASUS Final Battle of the Year. In that tournament, Virtus.Pro managed to defeat Na'Vi in the group phase and reached the grand final against Empire, where NS and Co. lost 0-2.
The team might go to Kiev as the underdog: Never won something big, unlike Empire and fnatic with the latest two offline tournaments. They got an intelligent captain, already gained offline experience in this composition during the ASUS FBOTY tournament, they might use the situation to their advantage.
6.77 will be a deciding factor here as well. They probably had the fewest official matches scheduled in this week between the two Kiev tournaments. In theory, they should have had the most time to prepare for the slightly changed playing conditions due to the patch changes.
As the main round's second placed team, Virtus.Pro will face Empire first in the Russian duell.
Virtus.Pro Recent Tournament Results:
ASUS FBOTY: 2nd place (final against Empire)
Virtus.Pro hasn't caused much of a stir and still was very effective in the main round of StarLadder Starseries. Second most wins, second place, decent results lately also in the ASUS Final Battle of the Year. In that tournament, Virtus.Pro managed to defeat Na'Vi in the group phase and reached the grand final against Empire, where NS and Co. lost 0-2.
The team might go to Kiev as the underdog: Never won something big, unlike Empire and fnatic with the latest two offline tournaments. They got an intelligent captain, already gained offline experience in this composition during the ASUS FBOTY tournament, they might use the situation to their advantage.
6.77 will be a deciding factor here as well. They probably had the fewest official matches scheduled in this week between the two Kiev tournaments. In theory, they should have had the most time to prepare for the slightly changed playing conditions due to the patch changes.
As the main round's second placed team, Virtus.Pro will face Empire first in the Russian duell.
Virtus.Pro Recent Tournament Results:
ASUS FBOTY: 2nd place (final against Empire)
| Virtus.Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team | Lineup | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 Virtus.Pro | Yaroslav 'NS' Kuznetsov Alexandr 'Santa' Koltan Sergei 'KSi' Kuzin Oleg 'Crazy' Kolesnichenko Ilya 'Airman' Pivtsaev | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Signature Heroes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Crazy |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| NS |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| KSi | | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Airman |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Santa |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||
fnatic: From Hontrash to Kiev champions?
fnatic looks amazing these days. Right when we thought NoTidehunter would be the new Western European team to beat, fnatic comes along, takes victory in Stockholm's Thor Open tournament against said team NoTidehunter and continues an astonishing winning streak against top teams in Dota 2.
For fnatic, the situation is exactly opposite to Na'Vi: The team comes from basically nothing (in Dota 2), as they didn't completely throw away their HoN ambitions for a long time of the year, even winning DreamHack Summer 2012 in Heroes of Newerth. The team and the players got their nickname 'Hontrash', but they have proven all critics wrong:
With discipline, training and unconventional, aggressive playstyle, you can reach the top within half a year. Na'Vi, Empire, NoTidehunter: In Europe fnatic has defeated almost any contender in December. The team is just ready for the real final battle of the year: Not ASUS, it's SLTV.
As the main rounds fourth placed team, fnatic has to start the tournament in Kiev with the match against Na'Vi.
fnatic Recent Tournament Results:
DreamHack Winter 2012: 3rd/4th place (lost in semi finals against )
Thor Open: 1st place (final against NoTidehunter)
fnatic looks amazing these days. Right when we thought NoTidehunter would be the new Western European team to beat, fnatic comes along, takes victory in Stockholm's Thor Open tournament against said team NoTidehunter and continues an astonishing winning streak against top teams in Dota 2.
For fnatic, the situation is exactly opposite to Na'Vi: The team comes from basically nothing (in Dota 2), as they didn't completely throw away their HoN ambitions for a long time of the year, even winning DreamHack Summer 2012 in Heroes of Newerth. The team and the players got their nickname 'Hontrash', but they have proven all critics wrong:
With discipline, training and unconventional, aggressive playstyle, you can reach the top within half a year. Na'Vi, Empire, NoTidehunter: In Europe fnatic has defeated almost any contender in December. The team is just ready for the real final battle of the year: Not ASUS, it's SLTV.
As the main rounds fourth placed team, fnatic has to start the tournament in Kiev with the match against Na'Vi.
fnatic Recent Tournament Results:
DreamHack Winter 2012: 3rd/4th place (lost in semi finals against )
Thor Open: 1st place (final against NoTidehunter)
| fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team | Lineup | |||||||||||||||||||||||
  fnatic |  Adrian 'Era' Kryeziu  Tal 'Fly' Aizik Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein Kalle 'Trixi' Saarinen  Kai 'H4nn1-' Hanbueckers | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Signature Heroes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| H4nn1 |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fly | | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Era | / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notail |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trixi |  / | |||||||||||||||||||||||
StarLadder StarSeries Season V: Downsizing for success
StarLadder StarSeries is coming to a close with these fourth offline finals in 2012. In some way, this final tournament is a downsized version of previous ambitions. The first three seasons had American teams in the main round, they even qualified for the finals, but never made the investment into the intercontinental travel.
The number of participating teams has also changed during the cause of the year: Starting with the first SLTV finals in April, four teams were invited, just as for the fourth season now. For season 2, it were 6 of the 16 participating teams to be invited to Kiev, only five appeared in the end. For season 3 it were even 8 teams invited, but only 7 could make the trip eventually.
Season 3 was also when v1lat somewhat promised the tournament would get it's prize money doubled to $30,000 which never got reality. Even without this prize money doubling ever happening, SLTV's main success of the year was the consisency. It takes a lot of dedication, some compromises and the right concept to really hold four offline tournaments a year with 120 online matches in advance of each finals every time.
Even though Na'Vi was responsible for a bit of a sidedness in the winner's record, all tournaments were always a success, with different casting situations. From Thursday to Sunday it will be SLTV time again now, with 6 matches of Dota 2 coming up from the Cybersports Arena in Kiev, Ukraine. Prepare yourself, the top European teams contest for StarSeries title!
StarLadder StarSeries is coming to a close with these fourth offline finals in 2012. In some way, this final tournament is a downsized version of previous ambitions. The first three seasons had American teams in the main round, they even qualified for the finals, but never made the investment into the intercontinental travel.
The number of participating teams has also changed during the cause of the year: Starting with the first SLTV finals in April, four teams were invited, just as for the fourth season now. For season 2, it were 6 of the 16 participating teams to be invited to Kiev, only five appeared in the end. For season 3 it were even 8 teams invited, but only 7 could make the trip eventually.
Season 3 was also when v1lat somewhat promised the tournament would get it's prize money doubled to $30,000 which never got reality. Even without this prize money doubling ever happening, SLTV's main success of the year was the consisency. It takes a lot of dedication, some compromises and the right concept to really hold four offline tournaments a year with 120 online matches in advance of each finals every time.
Even though Na'Vi was responsible for a bit of a sidedness in the winner's record, all tournaments were always a success, with different casting situations. From Thursday to Sunday it will be SLTV time again now, with 6 matches of Dota 2 coming up from the Cybersports Arena in Kiev, Ukraine. Prepare yourself, the top European teams contest for StarSeries title!
| Final Standings SLTV Season 4 Main Round | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| # | Team | Score | Points | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Na'Vi | 13-2 | 39 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Virtus.Pro | 12-3 | 36 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Empire | 11-4 | 33 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | fnatic | 11-4 | 33 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | NoTidehunter | 10-5 | 30 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | mousesports | 8-7 | 24 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 | Absolute Legends | 8-7 | 24 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 | 3DMAX | 8-7 | 24 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 | El.Pride | 7-8 | 21 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 | We haz Asian | 7-8 | 21 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 11 | Shz | 6-9 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 12 | dd | 6-9 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 13 | XX5 | 5-10 | 15 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 14 | Pulse | 5-10 | 15 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 15 | Ilum | 3-12 | 9 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 16 | Fubar | 0-15 | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Na'Vi vs. Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previous Encounters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ASUS FBOTY | 15 Dec | Na'Vi 0-2 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 4 | 14 Nov | Na'Vi 1-0 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| GosuLeague Season 5 | 12 Nov | Na'Vi 1-1 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| joinDOTA Masters | 9 Nov | Na'Vi 0-2 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 Finals | 21 Oct | Na'Vi 3-1 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 Finals | 18 Oct | Na'Vi 2-0 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 | 21 Sep | Na'Vi 0-1 Empire | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Na'Vi vs. Virtus.Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previous Encounters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ASUS FBOTY | 13 Dec | Na'Vi 0-1 Virtus.Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 4 | 19 Nov | Na'Vi 1-0 Virtus.Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 Finals | 18 Oct | Na'Vi 2-0 Virtus.Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 | 1 Oct | Na'Vi 0-1 Virtus.Pro | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| NaVi vs. fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previous Encounters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Defense 3 | 17 Dec | Na'Vi 0-1 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 4 | 13 Nov | Na'Vi 1-0 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 | 2 Oct | Na'Vi 1-0 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Empire vs. fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previous Encounters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Premier League | 18 Dec | Empire 0-2 fnatic] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 4 | 6 Dec | Empire 1-0 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| RaidCall D2L | 1 Nov | Empire2-1 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 3 | 2 Oct | Empire 1-0 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Virtus.Pro vs. fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previous Encounters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SLTV Season 4 | 13 Nov | Virtus.Pro 1-0 fnatic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Premier League | 17 Oct | Virtus.Pro 2-0 fnatic
Prizemoney Distribution: 1st place: $8,000 2nd place: $4,000 3rd place: $2,000 4th place: $1,000 Previous Winners: SLTV Season 1 (April): 1st: Na'Vi, 2nd: Moscow 5, 3rd: CLGSLTV Season 2 (July): 1st: Na'Vi, 2nd: mousesports, 3rd: Moscow 5SLTV Season 3 (October): 1st: Na'Vi, 2nd: Empire, 3rd: GD B-Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
