GosuGamers is back again for yet another round of predictions. It's the semi-finals baby! And this week we've got MYM taking on the Chinese Nirvana and NWO taking on youBoat.
Last Week:
MYM > Nv.my (2-1)
NWO > LGD (2-0)
Nv.cn > DTS (2-1)
yB > XctN (2-1)
What we learned:
“I think we can agree, the past is over.” -- G.W. Bush
We suck. “O” for three should say it all, but we also predicted pretty much the reverse score of all three of the matches we covered, an unfortunate fact that very painfully seasons our proverbial wounds.
Now there are some who may think that the DotA geniuses we have working at GosuGamers could not have possibly predicted so blowfully, that surely we were surreptitiously conning our readers into increasing the payouts for our own Gosubets. We would like to ensure you, the public, that no such thing has occurred, and that, though we’re flattered by your high opinions of us as DotA masterminds, we aren’t geniuses necessarily – we’re really just super, super smart – and yeah, what can we say, we had an off week.
But fear not, for we have emerged from our self-destructive week of binge drinking and cutting ourselves, and are now more motivated than ever. We are determined to lead you, the huddling mass of societal cast-offs, i.e. the viewers/gambling addicts of GosuGamers, to overwhelming glory and historic heights, and, uh, picture an eagle flying over a mountain-top(!), and beautiful women! And yes we can!
U-S-A! U-S-A! – err, uhh – G-G-Net! G-G-Net!
Who here doubts our future success? Only communists and HoN players dare undermine us this week, that’s who! Let us forget the failures of the past administration and move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!
100% prediction accuracy and tangos for all! Who’s with us?!
This Week:
We’ll be joined by our resident GosuBet guru Tjernobylbarnet who has, by now, reclaimed a good portion of his previous wealth, and German member of the events crew, IRC troll, The Legendary Wind Runner (not), Nincompoop. They’ll form our pundit panel, or as we are want to call them, the 'Peanut Gallery', for all the heckling they do when we write these weekly reviews.
Finally, it should be noted that this week’s matches will be in best of five format.
yB vs 
NWO -- Thursday (2010-10-28) 18:00CETThe Swedish team youBoat have done remarkably well to get as far as they have, though certainly they’ve had the easiest path to the semi-finals out of all the teams. NWO on the other hand faced LGD, of all teams, and lo and behold, NWO remain standing, and poised to go through to the finals judging from popular opinion. It’s not a well-kept secret that many of us here at GosuGamers are massive fans of LGD, and so we are incredibly cheesed that Puppey’s Ks.int 2.0 knocked our boys out of the tournament. (How can we possibly RR a game if ZSMJ doesn’t kill 300 creeps?) We can only hope that they suffer the same fate as LGD did, as they now face their own David in the form of youBoat.
*Evil laughter*
youBoat have had some very impressive performances lately, namely some of their performances at the DSRack LAN (though they ultimately lost to A-Team) and last week’s victories against XctN. The Swedes have shown to possess a very high level of individual skill and great teamplay, with Wall-Eater standing out in particular as a rising star for Europe. The team’s ganker Pinoy deserves a lot of credit for his excellent play in the XctN series: in particular, we were very impressed by his Sven in the final game. We love the way the team plays and the way they pick, and we would love to see them overcome the West European high-level oligarchy of former KS.int, fnatic, and MYM players.
NWO have arrived it seems. They demolished LGD in a way that had us sulking for about a week, and have, at least temporarily, shown their doubters they have what it takes to be an influential and enduring force in the European and even internationl – we’re looking at you, potential sponsors! – scenes. We can only heap praise on the performances of the players (Azen and Kuroky in particular) and the genius picks by the Estonian iconoclast, Puppey.
In game one of the series, NWO gave us a remarkable take on the damage aura strategy by combining it with the massive minus-armor capabilities of Dazzle + Vengeful Spirit. The picks gave NWO a huge early game damage boost and allowed them to vanguard- up and push/gank the hell out of LGD’s more standard lineup. LGD simply didn’t have an answer for the strategy, and then were subsequently outplayed in game two, in which Azen and Kuroky gave two extremely memorable performances to gift their team with its most famous victory to date. It was a magical week for NWO.
Players to look for: Wall-Eater is our favourite player to watch on youBoat, though, due to the flexibility of the rest of the team we expect eye-catching performances from everyone. Pinoy, Bentzer, Bonjajajaj and Fishbone have all impressed us at one point or another, but Wall-E is surely their ace player, and we expect to see him at the center of all of youBoat’s successes.
We’ve said all we need to say about these players, so we’re sure you know the drill by now. Kuroky, Azen, Pajkatt will be the players to watch for NWO, though like every team left in the competition, proper attention should be paid to every player. However, if you’re only going to watch one or two players, you’ll usually find the three listed handling the most important heroes for the team.
Peanut Gallery:
Tjernobylbarnet
-“YouBoat: one YouBoat-Movie. NWO: zero YouBoat-movies. Bet yB.”
Nincompoop
-"A wild YouBoat appears! NWO uses Routine. It's super effective! 3:0 for NWO"
Our Prediction: As much as we want to see yB do well, we just don’t see them defeating NWO at this stage. Between the two teams there will be a skill difference and experience gap that we simply cannot see youBoat overcoming, and you’d have to be a crazy and biased (or both, or Tjernobylbarnet) to think youBoat have a chance, given what we’ve seen of the two teams. As good as yB are NWO are better, and they’ll take this series rather easily should they avoid the pitfalls that the favourite teams sometimes encounter.
NWO > yB (3-1)
MYM vs 
Nv.cn -- TBDEach week we’ve predicted against these two teams, and each week they’ve mocked and humiliated us. We’re not sure which team we resent more for their ritual defiance of our oracular verdicts, but we’re at least happy one of them will be knocked out this week.
MYM, the loveable Danes that require no introduction. Last week they surprised everyone with their resounding victories against Nirvana.my, the EHOME slayers of not-so-long-ago. What can we say, the Malaysians did not play very impressively at all, but MYM really showed their stuff – which, coincidentally, might be what dreams are made of, should they go on to win this tournament.
Last week’s games featured a not-so-loveable, though remarkably gifted, Dane, Misery, who has since become a permanent addition to the team. The acquisition seems to have worked out well for the team, as Misery’s performances in the final two games of the series were very impressive. Special mention should go to Demon, the über-talented American, who abused his 15ms to its full extent and basically outplayed every single person on the map in that entire series, including Mushi, who was made to look somewhat foolish against the low-latency wonder.
Nv.cn certainly surprised us last week with their display against DTS. While we’d always known they were capable of beating any team on their day, Loveen’s Chinese contingent had always shown a rather a startling inconsistency – we figured there was a high chance they would underestimate DTS, or fail to cope with some of the Ukrainian team’s non-standard picks.
We feared the worst when Artstyle and co. demolished them with a Lich/Night Stalker pick in game one, but Nv.cn gave as good as they got in game two after banning the perpetrating heroes of their nightmarish first game. Nirvana very smartly stole the Lich pick in the final game, leaving DTS with a somewhat weak draft, and took the series comfortably and convincingly – Dendi’s drop notwithstanding. We were very impressed with Zhou’s stable and smart play, and his ability to farm extremely quickly even after a rough start. Dgc’s Enigma in game three stood out, as we expected, and Yaphets had a field day with his Storm in game two, and once again showed us his incredible Puck in game three.
Players to look for: You should know them by now. Whichever combination of Demon, Misery, Lacoste, and Playmate MYM decide to field will be the primary players to watch, as the four players will handle the most active and mid/late-game intensive heroes in the draft. While Mania, Maelk, and Pusher always deserve credit for their high class and stable play, the previously mentioned group of four will handle the high-risk heroes that will make or break the game.
With Nv.cn, always look for Yaphets and Zhou, as their performances will have the greatest say in whether their team wins or loses. Again, with high-level match-ups like this one, near-flawless play is expected from almost every player, and for a supporting cast, Banana, Insence, and Dgc are some of the absolutely highest-skilled players of their kind. We expect to see epic swaps, torrents, and blackholes, but we expect that it'll be Yaphets and Zhou who light up the event log.
Peanut Gallery:
Tjernobylbarnet
-“MYM are on a hunt for Nirvana. One down, one to go. 3-2 for MYM.”
Nincompoop
-“Nirvana will avenge their Malaysian bros. With their current shape they are able to win 3:1.”
Our Prediction: We tend to side with Nirvana.cn on this one, should their internet not interfere too much this week, as they have been a stable team for quite a while. MYM on the other hand have a seven man roster, and we’re a little bit unsure of how they’ll continue to perform with Misery and Demon, or if they’ll choose to go with Lacoste and Playmate this time around. We think that in a pure comparison, the best of Nirvana.cn is stronger than the best of MYM, and so we predict it’ll be a close series, with Nirvana.cn edging out MYM to move to the finals.
Nv.cn > MYM (3-2)
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Wrapping up:
We’d just like to take a moment and remind everyone that this round of RGC games will receive great coverage in the form of shoutcasts and streams. Already the boys over at DotACast have announced their coverage of NWO vs yB, and as soon as Nv.cn vs MYM is scheduled, we’re likely to get a similar announcement.
Make sure you keep track of the match-dates via either DotA-League’s RGC section or our GosuBet so you don’t miss a beat. Happy viewing!
Links
DotA-League - Your source for news and match times for RGC
GosuBet - Our own match-ticker and betting system
