| First Ban Phase | |||||
 | .... Well, this is awkward. No bans from iceiceice? No calls for pause imply that Zenith isn't experiencing any issues. An idealist would think that iceiceice is playing mind games and staring iG down after their defeat in game 1. No bans also means that the pool is bigger; iG can only ban so many heroes and Zenith has first pick. A realist, however, might simply think that iceiceice is trolling. He does that sometimes. | ||||
  | Two very understandable bans from iG. Dark Seer is known for his power in teamfight control, while Nyx is both a devastating initiator and a solid hero killer. | ||||
| First Pick Phase | |||||
   | Zenith uses their first pick to grab the Lifestealer, a carry which has recently risen into a very solid position in the competitive scene. Despite winning just under 50% of his recent games, he's been picked or banned in 76% of the last 170 games. This is due, in part, to the power behind his Rage which destroys the ability of supports to disable him. Feast lets him tear through meatier heroes like the ever-popular Magnus and Lone Druid and Open Wounds is a fantastic ganking skill. Their second and third picks snap up Shadow Demon and Juggernaut. Shadow Demon (±50% winrate) is a versatile, hard-hitting support hero with a powerful arsenal of skills. Purge is a great counter to magic immunity, so it's in their best interest to keep him out of iG's hands. Juggernaut (40% winrate), representing a semi-popular pick for the pushing power his Healing Ward bestows, gives Zenith good pushing power and another hero with magic immunity, making Zenith very difficult to gank. The Juggernaut-Lifestealer combination gives Zenith the ability to hold their mid-game while N'aix does what he can to get farmed. | ||||
   | With no bans from Zenith, iG scoops up an armful of their favourite heroes. All three have higher win rates than Zenith's selection (Magnus at 57%, Batrider at 56% and Lone Druid at 67%), and are far more popular in the scene (all have been picked or banned in more than 75% of recent games). All three have the ability to solo lane, and both Batrider and Lone Druid can also level in the jungle. | ||||
| Second Ban Phase | |||||
| | *coughs* iceiceice continues to stare iG down as three more bans go untouched. In a world where Zenith wasn't playing mind-games, bans would have been used to take out support heroes that iG is short of, such as Lina, Keeper of the Light, Rubick or Jakiro. | ||||
   | Keeping the power of a mid-game Juggernaut and a late-game N'aix in mind, iG bans to strong early pushers (Leshrac and Chen) and Lina. Leshrac and Chen would both have the ability to keep an offensive early game for Zenith, putting iG under pressure and giving the space to Lifestealer for farm. Lina and Leshrac are also worthy of a ban due to their synergy with Shadow Demon, preventing Zenith from running a scary trilane with either carry. | ||||
| Second Pick Phase | |||||
  | Zenith takes another mid-game powerhouse, Queen of Pain. She has a win rate of 46%, but she fits well into Zenith's lineup. As a level dependent hero it's likely we'll see her solo, but her Blink allows her to take almost any lane. Shadow Strike is another strong lane controlling skill. Bane Elemental, on the other hand, is the king of disables. Highly item independent, Bane totes an arsenal of disables, and may pose a danger to iG. His win rate of 62% evidences his strength as a support hero. Enfeeble represents a devastating counter to Lone Druid's Spirit Bear, sapping its damage and taking away that tower-crunching power Lone Druid is picked for. Nightmare has the ability to fully remove a support hero from a battle, or to protect an ally for a brief period of time. Finally, Fiend's Grip provides a long disable that penetrates any magic immunity iG might obtain. | ||||
  | In their fourth pick, iG takes Rubick. With spells like Rage, Sonic Wave, Blink and Omnislash on the table, Rubick has the potential to steal some powerful skills. He adds another disable to iG, which can be used alongside Magnus' ultimate to chain stuns, possibly even to outlast the magic immunity of Lifestealer and Juggernaut. His magic resistance will also assist the team against the Queen of Pain's arsenal. At 47%, Rubick has the lowest winrate of iG's lineup, but provides a very important support role that iG is lacking, especially after banning three of the more popular ones. | Analysis | | |||
| Top | |
vs. Middle
vs. Bottom
vs. Jungle/Roaming
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| Early Game 0:00 - 12:30 Zenith 0 | 0 iG | |
|01:00| Magnus and Queen of Pain start off to an aggressive lane, getting some decent hits on each other. Queen of Pain seems to be dominant, using Shadow Strike to great effect so as to slow the Magnus down.
|02:30| The blood-sport kicks off with a precise gank on Ferrarri in the middle lane. xFreedom gets an invisibility rune and waits mid, just outside the truesight range of the tower. Instead of instantly attacking, Bane leeches experience until level two for the extra 90 damage. It works: a Nightmare stops Tinker as Juggernaut moves into position, and they run him down for first blood. It's a Phyrric victory, though: Juggernaut dies to the tower. It still gets Juggernaut his boots and allows Bane to grab some quick levels.
|04:30| Bane and Shadow Demon flank the top tower and net a kill for Lifestealer. Zhou almost looks like he's going to get away, before the bursting, slashy sounds of Open Wounds pull his dreams apart, much like what N'aix did to his hero. This is a crippling blow to the Lone Druid, who has to wait 100 seconds after respawn before he can re-summon his bear. Zenith have put a stop to Lone Druid's farm while simultaneously opening the lane up for Meracle, which he uses to push the lane and flatten the first tower of the game.
Needless to say, the words "Up top!" were unwelcome in the iG camp for a while.
|06:00| Batrider chases Shadow Demon back over the river, after being driven from his own jungle by some poking around by Zenith. With his safe big camp warded, his jungling is going to run into trouble.
|07:50| Queen of Pain nets an important kill on Magnus with the help of Shadow Demon. Zenith now has three kills to iG's two. Zenith has, however, targetted the three vital heroes; Tinker, Magnus and Lone Druid, all of whom now have a delayed core. They've also spoiled the Dire jungle for Batrider. iG is just lacking their trademark aggression, and Zenith is capitalizing on this by going on the offensive.
My worst nightmare: badly chained stuns.
|10:00| Magnus and Rubick stumble upon a Bane Elemental in the woods. Easy kill, right? Not even slightly. Thanks to those early levels he scooped up, he has a level 3 Brain Sap. This, combined with a full wand, lets him flash-heal 370 HP. A Nightmare on Rubick holds him in place as backup arrives; Disruption, Soul Catcher and a Scream of Pain bring him to his knees, before those asshole Hellbears decide to take the kill.
"Mmmm, brain slurpee. Nutritious!"
Neutral shenanigans aside, this is a big loss for iG. While the death of Rubick won't leave them in tears, they spent a lot of energy on this gank, including putting Reverse Polarity on cooldown, at no gain.
|12:30| We have our first proper multi-hero clash. Batrider tries to jump on Lifestealer, but wastes the ultimate and is cut down by the Shadow Demon. The Shadow Demon is then singled out and cut down as reinforcements arrive from iG. iceiceice's Juggernaut tries to secure a cleanup kill, but the Magnus arrives and dashes his dreams with a Shockwave.
|15:10| The mid-phase doesn't start swimmingly for iG. Smoking up and teleporting across the map, Bane and Shadow Demon surprise the Lone Druid, teaming up with the Lifestealer in order to kill him. At the same time, the Queen of Pain and Juggernaut jump on Magnus in the middle lane. Deploying her Orchid to great effect, they hold off the Reverse Polarity and get a kill before drawing back. iceiceice almost gets himself into hot water, but a Sonic Wave ravages the health of the chasing iG and convinces them to lay off.
Zhou falls to the heavy disables and anti-tank power of Zenith.
|16:00| Magnus gets caught at the second Dire tower in the top lane. Cancelling Reverse Polarity once lets him line up and catch Lifestealer and Bane in the ultimate, but an incoming Tinker gets quickly Disrupted and can't provide follow-up. Both Magnus and Tinker die one after the other, and Zenith continues to concrete their lead by taking the tower.
|16:30| Lifestealer finds himself out of position and retreats, with Lone Druid, Batrider and Rubick in close pursuit. With a slurp and a squish, he gets inside Juggernaut and looks to be making his escape. iceiceice decides against that, and heads back into the fray. Meracle bursts out of his chest and they take down the Batrider before Juggernaut pays for his bravery with his life. Bane comes in to help alongside Tinker, but dies in a stampede of angry machines and magnoceri. Lifestealer escapes, but barely. Zenith must be careful to not sacrifice these kinds of kills to iG, who is renown for being able to slowly inch their way from a tight spot to victory.
Too much #YOLO, not enough #TROLO.
|18:45| Zenith focusses aggression on the middle tower, reducing it to 300 HP. iG cruises in to defend after Juggernaut wastes his Omnislash, and trade kills with Zenith, losing Batrider while killing Bane. Zenith is pushed on the defensive, though, and iG continues the momentum, taking out the Shadow Demon. As they threaten the tower, N.W.P feels like he can take out the Rubick, and foolishly jumps into a 4-strong cluster. Splat. The rest of Zenith scrambles, however, and manages to stop iG from getting their first tower by retaliating and killing the Magnus. iG is working hard to narrow the gap, and Zenith needs to make sure they don't slip up and lose their advantage.
|21:00| Lone Druid picks up a Maelstrom. It's taken 21 minutes for him to get any core item up, a testament to how well Zenith is controlling the farm dynamic. Magnus is still just short of his Blink Dagger, while the Batrider literally has nothing, with the lowest net worth in the game.
|21:25| Bursting out of a team-wide Smoke, iG initiates on Zenith near the bottom Radiant tower. Disruption saves Bane from the Flaming Lasso, while Queen of Pain and Juggernaut skilfully kill Magnus before he can get a Reverse Polarity off. iG loses a lot of initiation power here, as a Disruption saves Bane from the Flaming Lasso. Queen of Pain falls to the Marching Machines, followed quickly by Batrider. Bane manages to hold the Lone Druid with his ultimate before falling to a combination of Firefly and the Spirit Bear, and Zhou makes his escape as he knows Zenith has no disables. Rubick dies to Lifestealer, despite the use of a stolen Omnislash, and Tinker snipes off Shadow Demon. Both sides have lost three heroes, with both keeping their most important ones alive. The fact that iG didn't have the Reverse Polarity there was critical. If he had caught two or three heroes in the stun, it's very likely that Zenith would have been wiped out.
Magnus gets dismantled before the teamfight, denying iG their critical AoE stun.
|23:45| Magnus manages to farm his Blink Dagger in the jungle. iG now have an opportunity to force a teamfight and drop a big Reverse Polarity to swing the game in their favour. A few seconds later, Juggernaut hacks the Batrider apart with his Omnislash, but ends up on a cliff. He has a TP scroll to get out, but is instead saved by a friendly YYF and his Skewer. Reverse Polarity is wasted and iG gets no kind of retaliatory kill.
|25:30| Zenith takes Roshan uncontested, and uses their momentum to take another tower in the bottom lane. iG now have no outer towers, and risk being boxed into their base and denied farm entirely.
|26:50| Deploying his Blink, Magnus jumps on Shadow Demon and destroys him before he can Disrupt anyone, robbing Zenith of their Gem. N'aix gets pissed and tears into the Tinker in response, evening the kill score before pulling out.
|29:40| After a lull in the game, iG pulls off a tight gank on the Juggernaut, killing him milliseconds before a successful TP escape. While still behind on kills, iG have started to assert themselves more confidently; the Spirit Bear now has an armlet, and even Batrider is getting a modicum of farm. Scarily enough, however, Lifestealer has a net worth almost 6,000 gold greater than the Lone Druid, and poses a massive threat at the moment, as they prove by killing Zhou in the counter-attack.
|30:40| Zenith pushes up the middle ramp and lays into the tower, with Juggernaut rushing past the barracks to keep iG at arms reach. A stolen Omnislash almost takes the Queen of Pain down, but a quick Blink saves her and leaves her to the mercy of the fed N'aix, now toting an Abyssal Blade. Queen of Pain leaps into a Dagon blast, but she's just stalling iG for time as the rest of her team takes the tower and pulls back.
"I'm a nerd, and a ninja. Deal with it."
|31:44| iG takes their first tower of the game as Zenith draws back to recover. It's a hollow victory though, and iG pulls back to avoid getting caught in a fight they don't want.
|33:00| Lone Druid falls to a N'aix-bomb; it's interesting to note how quickly Queen of Pain lost health to the bear. Even in his underfarmed state, the combination of Armlet and Maelstrom hits hard.
|35:00| As Zenith clusters to push in the middle lane again and go for the barracks, a Telekinesis and a Lasso force their hand and let YYF land a killer Reverse Polarity.
A fantastic Reverse Polarity locks three of Zenith's heroes down, but it's a day late and a dollar short (Ayesee, 2013)
It's for naught, however. Momentum is disrupted as Magnus is Nightmared and Juggernaut gets Disrupted, and Zenith has the tankiness to survive the initiation and turn the fight around. An Omnislash goes off and Rubick and Lone Druid fall, which results in the GG call. Zenith have taken Game 2 of the G-1 clash and forced iG through to a third game with a convincing win!
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Zenith really performed this game, and it started with their brilliant use (or lack of use) of the bans, baiting iG into greedily grabbing all their favourite heroes. This set Zenith off to a great start, with lanes that were stronger in most cases. Their only weakness was the Juggernaut in the mid lane, which was remedied quickly by the roaming Bane Elemental. Getting off to a great start, they continued taking advantage of the weak jungle-Batrider and the delayed Blink Dagger on Magnus, baiting out initiation attempts before shutting heroes down with long disables and items such as Orchids and the Scythe of Vyse. The Lone Druid, unable to farm, fell off as the Lifestealer only got stronger. Unable to secure gold through heavy pushing, iG is forced out of their comfort zone and suffers accordingly. Unable to adapt due to how underfarmed their heroes are, they lack the ability to strike out, and as they are forced into their corner they need to divide less and less farm between hungry heroes. The fact that Magnus, Batrider and Lone Druid all took more than 20 minutes to get their first big item shows how well Zenith kept them down. As we transitioned into the late game, Zenith dominated the leaderboards for net worth and kills, and simply started to push over iG, even ignoring massive spells like Reverse Polarity. iG crumbled to a well executed, well coordinated Zenith killing machine.  We grabbed iceiceice, the drafter, after the game. Our question: what was the plan? Let iG grab imbalanced heroes with no synergy, or leave the pool open to get the heroes you want? His response? [2:20:29 PM] iceiceice: ?
[2:20:29 PM] iceiceice: no [2:20:35 PM] iceiceice: there wasnt a plan [2:20:35 PM] iceiceice: just play And there you have it, folks. All the analysis in the world, and iceiceice was basically trolling. Who would have guessed? |
