Game 5: The final game of Dream League Season 3
The Drafting Phase
The final series had five games in which the drafts revolved around 53 heroes. Dark seer, Io, Undying, Drow Ranger and Queen of Pain were the most banned throughout the five games. Earthshaker, Shadow Fiend, Winter Wyvern, Puck, Leshrac, Shadow Demon and Centaur Warrunner were the most picked heroes while Gyrocopter was the most contested. Many heroes were repeated throughout series hence the drafts revolved around a certain set of heroes.
In the final game, VP and Navi drafted for a team-fight oriented line up with no natural pushing hero who has bonus damage against towers. With the Second pick of Winter Wyvern, VP decided to use Navi’s most comfortable hero against them. Later they picked Bane as their fourth pick and surprisingly they had never picked Bane in any competitive matches before. Bane helps in the lockdown of Puck and reduces the attack of any enemy hero which is a great counter to teams relying on one hero for right-click damage.
The last pick of Navi, Sand King was a huge risk because they lacked in right-click damage and they had already picked Earthshaker and Puck who rely on blink-dagger heavily. But it was understandable that Navi needed an offlaner with good early game escaping abilities against easy kill setup from Bane. In spite of being a risky pick it was not a bad pick as Sand King offers good AOE damage.
Coming to the final game, the series was tied by 2-2 and victory in this game would result in tournament championship. In this game Navi decided to go for a team-fight line up with high AOE damage whereas VP decided to go for a team-fight line up with good healing abilities. Both teams had a good draft but VP had a slight lead as they had a good tanker, Centaur.
Breaking down all aspects of the draft
Navi had good early game heroes like Earthshaker and Shadow Demon who are good at ganking but the warding of VP was perfect and because of that Navi lost the mid lane. Unsuccessful ganks secured Shadow Fiend’s farm and throughout the game he was at the top of the networth graph. Even though the kills and deaths were almost equal in the early game, Navi didn’t find the momentum they were looking for and had a slow and passive early game. Everything added up to a slow start for Navi and they couldn’t put pressure on the enemy as they didn’t have core items at the desired time.
Coming into the mid game, Navi heavily relied on blink dagger for 3 of their heroes, Puck, Earthshaker and Sand King. A delay in those items led into a defensive gameplay.
Navi had many good disabling spells such Sand King and Earthshaker’s AOE Stun and Puck’s AOE Ultimate. Whereas VP had Bane, one of the strongest single target lockdown hero and AOE stun from Centaur Warrunner.
Navi had a clear intention of taking big team fights while increasing lockdown abilities whereas VP focused less on disables and more on healing.
Overall nuking abilities were equal and both the teams had good nuke damage to burst down a single target.
The only major difference was that VP had Bane for a high single target lockdown and damage, and Navi had Earthshaker, Sand King and Gyrocopter for huge AOE damage.
Navi and VP both didn’t pick any natural pusher or an efficient split pusher but both of them had heroes with good defensive skills. Pushing would be tough for either side and they must fight first in order take down towers. VP had Shadow Fiend who can split push but it would be very risky against Puck and Sand King.
The only advantage Navi had was that VP didn’t have any natural pusher otherwise they would have taken all tier 2 towers by 25 minutes and Navi wouldn’t have been able to recover from the bad start.
Both the teams were extremely dependent on their ultimates. They also required huge precision to use their ultimates to cause maximum damage.
Shadow Fiend’s ultimate has a large AOE but it has less impact if the enemy is far. Bane can cast his ultimate from a long distance but he has to position himself very safe as it is a channelling spell. Phoenix also has a larger AOE but he has to be precise in using at the perfect moment when the enemy is closing in and not when the enemy is going away. If the ultimate is used when the enemy has high HP and they have an option to focus on hitting Phoenix in his ultimate form then also it is a bad time to use the ultimate.
Further ahead, Centaur Warrunner’s ultimate also needs to be at the precise moment. After buying the ultimate scepter, Centaur’s ultimate becomes one of greatest spells in the game that reduces any incoming damage by 60%. It can then be used precisely during the peak of the team fight to allow allies to become more durable and make enemy waste all their spells for very less impact.
On the other hand Navi had Sand King that needs to channel his ultimate at the perfect time otherwise it would cause very less damage. During the game Sand King failed to cast a successful ultimate three times and Navi lost all those fights. First when VP were pushing at Navi’s tier 1 tower and the channelling of the ultimate was disturbed, second when Navi were pushing at VP’s tier 2 tower and Sand King didn’t find the time to channel it and the same thing happened when VP were pushing at Navi’s tier 3 tower at bot. Whereas whenever Sand King casted a successful ultimate, Navi won those fights. Hence timing and precision decides the outcome of a team fight most of the time.
Overall, VP needed more precision in the team fights as many of their heroes required a perfect moment for greater impact.
Navi had a very greedy draft as they required Blink dagger on three of their heroes, Sand King, Puck and Earthshaker. Normally when a Puck is drafted in the team, the strategy is to end the game as early as possible and Navi obstructed their own draft by relying heavily on items and playing defensive until the mid-game. This gave enough time for Shadow Fiend to farm his core items and because of that he led the networth graph throughout the game.
Surprisingly, Navi picked Puck against SF who suffers the laning stage tremendously against him. Bad laning stage caused Puck to get only 40 last hits in 10 minutes and delayed the Bling dagger.
When it comes to BKB dependency, VP relied on it heavily due Navi’s high AOE damage and disables.
Overall, VP had a huge advantage in terms of item dependency and this was the one of the biggest loss for Navi as they aimed for a snowball line-up but got greedy by drafting heroes that rely on items heavily.
Shadow Fiend, Winter Wyvern, Phoenix, Puck and Earthshaker are tough to play as they require lots of precision in casting their abilities. VP’s had a big disadvantage in Easily Countered because heroes with less escaping abilities are easier to counter hence Shadow Fiend, Bane and Winter Wyvern were easy to focus for Navi with the disables they had.
Navi had a disadvantage in terms of Range because VP had Centaur Warrunner who can boost the movement speed of allies to reach close to the enemy and Gyrocopter was the only tanker of the Navi hence he had to be close to enemy to deal damage and take hits so that it would give his allies some time to cast their spells.
The team-fight execution was hard for both the teams hence the Execution was just a minor advantage for Navi.
Both the teams had a well-balanced draft but Navi had more heroes with escaping abilities and VP had more heroes with healing abilities. Other difference are very few hence none of the teams have a major advantage here.
Shadow fiend has an armour reduction aura that reduces the armour of enemy heroes by 6. This is extremely useful against supports as their armour is around 5-10 at the mid game. Navi didn’t have any positive or negative aura hence VP had an advantage in the Bonus Skills.
Countering an enemy is one of the most essential part of the draft and Navi went for a team fight line up without picking a direct counter to any of the VP’s heroes. Moreover their mistake of not countering SF allowed him to stay ahead of all the heroes throughout the game. Even VP made a mistake by not picking any direct counter to Gyrocopter but they had SF with excellent farm hence they were able to hit Gyrocopter hard.
VP had an advantage in Items, Execution, Bonus Skills and Counter. Navi had an advantage in Stages, Disables, Individual Strength and Ultimates. VP had a 53% overall advantage but it was a minor lead. The game heavily relied on early game ganking potential of Navi and in shutting down of Shadow Fiend. With excellent wards VP failed Navi’s early ganks and with that they secured their early game.
Navi fought hard in the mid game but one bad team fight at VP’s mid tower caused a break in their momentum. Navi took that team fight very impatiently and that didn’t give enough time for Sand King to use his ultimate. The execution mistakes in that team fight were not improved in the next team fight when VP decided to push at Navi’s tier 3 tower and that resulted in defeat.
A well planned team fight would have helped Navi win the game but the credit goes to VP’s Shadow Fiend for exceptional positioning and the perfect usage timing of BKB that made team fight execution difficult for Navi. Gyrocopter would have been able to deal heavy damage against SF if Navi had an anti-bkb disable such as the ultimate of Magnus.
In the end, a little drafting advantage and excellent late game execution skills helped VP secure the series and thus won the DreamLeague Season 3.
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