The DotA GosuAwards exist to give recognition to teams and players for their accomplishments spanning an entire year of DotA. Nominees are determined by GosuCrew editors and voting is done by GosuGamers readers. We've reached the end of the line, with miscellaneous categories to round it off.
The GosuGamers 2010 Replay of the Year
While the main purpose of a GosuAward lies in giving recognition to players who achieved remarkable things at their sub-professions of DotA, there is one more category, whose best nominee deserves a reward.
Replay files are small by size, but contain tons of joy and excitement. If RTS esports including DotA, ever had an advantage over the big businesses of football, basketball, Tennis or Ice hockey, it would be the possibility of re-watching the best teams, with all relevant data at ones disposal and available on a PC within seconds, in a digital media log of the game.
What follows are files from the five games, GosuGamers considers to contain the most nerve-racking moments, the most brilliant plays and the highest team efforts, DotA had to offer in 2010. The nominees for the GosuAward of Best Replay in 2010 are:
Played on the big stage of Damansars eCurve, this game featured two teams, playing on the peak of their level. One of LGD.sGty's offensive strategies, which brought them a lot of sympathizers over the last year, came to pass. EHOME on the other hand settled with playing v6.69c's top picks to nothing less than pure perfection. Out of this world, shall serve as the most fitting description for AAA's Morphling, whilst LGD pulled out all the stops themselves to battle against the EHOME-collective for the victory.
Featuring the, at that time, upcoming star YaphetS, who soon after this game, was hired into the roster of the later RGC and WDC champion Nirvana.cn. Days vs City Hunter showed, that Chinese DotA has a lot more to offer than just EHOME and LGD. Including a breath-taking duel between Neo and YaphetS in mid, this game was, unlike many others, played highly aggressive from both sides. Ganks occurred minutely early on, only to be replaced by minutely detailed team clashes in the end. Also in the portfolio is an aegis steal by YaphetS, which can be counted to the best plays of 2010. Downloading DotA v6.65 and repatching Warcraft 3 for this game is worth the effort!
Mid November was the time, DotA fans from around the world were able to see, how European teams would fair against their Asian counterparts. What this game offered can be considered one of the biggest upsets in DotA history. Having themselves already familiarized with the ways of 6.69c (the version was just released at that time), DTS went for an over-aggressive draft, providing countless summons and plenty of heal. EHOME, barely able to adapt, managed to fight the waves back at the choke of their base, delivering the best possible performance in mid game. The early damage, dealt by DTS was too severe for their opponents to ovecome in the end. This game evolved to a milestone in the Europe-China debate and shows that not only Asian teams can be World Champion.
Being held back for weeks, since the actual playdate, all the bigger the joy was after this replay was released. The final of the World Cyber Games - Asian Championship marked the peak for one of the most popular teams. StarsBobas, known for their interesting strategies, which brought them countless supporters from all around the world, went for it again and beat the big favourite Nirvana.my in the Final of a tournament. Mass Heal was the slogan of the unique strategy, which overcame their opponents in this thrilling game
And again its Malaysia versus Vietnam! Although this time just in a Clan War, this replay provided action of the highest quality on a grand scale. YamateH's Dagon Storm Spirit as well as XTiNcT on an Oblivion mutated to killing machines and provided show-offs against a worthy opponent
The GosuGamers 2010 Event of the Year
A fair load of events occured through-out the year providing with joy and happiness both for teams and fans. The following one are the most acknowledged ones.
Farm For Fame #2 - Online, Dota-League.
Winner: Nirvana.international, runner-up: Ducky's Dream Team
Storm the Front - Online, CM Storm.
Winner: DTS.Chatrix, runner-up: Nirvana.international
MYM PriDe #12 - Online, myMYM.
Winner: DTS.Chatrix, runner-up: LGD.sGty
Razer Global Challege - Online, Dota-League.
Winner: Nirvana.Cherry.cn, runner-up: New World Order
World DotA Cup - Offline, Wuhan.
Winner: Nirvana.Cherry.cn, runner-up: Deity
SGNDT - Offline, Kuala Lumpur.
Winner: EHOME, runner-up: LGD.sGty
The GosuGamers 2010 Break-out star of the Year
Some players have made it big this year, so to speak. Not that they were unknown newbies before, but they've improved individually, perhaps gotten into a better team or other astonishing circumstances that fueled their bonfire into a firestorm. They are now the centre of the public eye.
YaphetS - Known pub-stomper turned into a feared pro-stomper. Recognized even by IceFrog who put YaphetS as altenative name for Shadow Fiend.
ArtStyle - At the start of 2010, Artstyle probably raised eyebrows rather than eyelids even though he was known in his region. In the end of 2010, he had grown alot and had some signature "autowin" heroes of his own, like Alchemist, Dragon Knight, Night Stalker.
|3abyKnight - Like YaphetS, he's a known pubstomper, being in the top of Dota-League's SIG highscore. Played for unique-esports in 2009 and Online-Kingdom in the beginning of 2010 where he got to show his power and is now part of the european elite.
Dai - He has been in EHOME all year and prior to that aswell. But it was first at ESWC he really got noticed for his excellence in the solo mid role. After that, the EHOME ownage have remained aswell, much of that is because of previously mentioned excellence.
ZSMJ - If it's one name you think when hear the word "carry" is ZSMJ. Established himself as the hardest of all hard-carries over the first half of 2010. His epic performances in 2010 put his name on the lips of DotA fans across the world.
DeMoN - Though quite well-known to the North American scene for years, Demon only truly became an international superstar in 2010. His stint with Nirvana.int gained him a tremendous international following, and he's been pwning in style ever since.
The GosuGamers 2010 People's Choice - Player of the Year (players not already nominated in other categories)
As always when picking a certain number of nominees, some great players get sacked. The funny thing though is that People's Choice nominees is in fact also GosuCrew's Choice and not the people's choice at all. But you, as a community member get to vote for your favorite listed player for whatever reason you choose.
Dendi 357 MiSeRy- KuroKy Ferrari Shuiguo Soso Silvercross PGG Crystal
Signature Hero of 2010
Trend-picks come and go with playstyles and with nerfs/buffs. Some stay longer and some are over very quickly. We choose to focus on the heroes that been picked through-out the year while not being picked all that much (if all) in 2009.
Windrunner - Windrunner became a pick-or-die kind of a thing in 2010, both in Europe and in China (even though Americans used it prior to that). A good versatile hero which qualifies for first pick since you don't really pick a particular strategy with her in your ranks. Got especially popular with trilanes being a normality because of her ability to dominate a 1vs1 lane and survive a 3vs1 lane.
Demon Witch - Lion has always been picked, but in 2010 he got brough up from supporter/babysitter to solo ganker and has really laid down some thunder in a lot of games. When we nominate Lion to Signature Hero, it's mainly the solo Lion.
Venomancer - This little baby showed why DotA is such an interesting game, he was never picked and then suddenly, out of nowhere, EHOME makes him a part of their winning strategy. After that, he's valid choice for a trilane-support or a solo lane farmer/pusher. All of his skills works well with the current style, one team fight ultimate, two harass/gank skills and one push/counter-push/vision ability.
Alchemist - After the rework on Alchemist, he is everywhere. For a while he altered between roamer and carry but seem to have landed on carry. His huge tanking and farming capabilities were always a part of the hero, but the reworked stun is really what brought him into the game.
Storm Spirit - 2010's most exciting and flashiest hero, the blue panda dominated games for almost an entire year. Storm Spirit was truly a role built for the most gifted carries and the most daring gankers, and by himself he's probably been responsible for half the DotA video highlights from 2010.
Gorgon - Medusa 2010's ultimate carry hero. She was (and is) the definition of a right-click hero -- an invincible tank that shot painful arrows from every conceivable angle. The air of inevitability that surrounded her, the incredibly frustrating 'Stone Gaze' ultimate, and the attack-move nature of how she was handled, it all combined to make her one of the most hated heroes of all time.
Linus "Tjernobylbarnet" Staaf<p>Linus Staaf - former operations manager at GosuGamers. Started following eSports in 2009, responsible for the GGnet database 2009-2015. Film and music enthusiast and a firm believer that longer songs are better. Always finish what I sta - follow @Tjernobylbarnet</p>