18th June, 1630 hours
Brackets for the BYOC playoffs are out. Here's the link:
http://dh.playdh.com/event/dreamhack-summer-2011/heroes-of-newerth-dhs2011/144/#/brackets
1730 hours
Went snooping around the BYOC area while waiting for the 1st round to start.
[MSI] Trixi after being told that MSI would dodge KD, OK, ReS and DrDz in the playoffs: “
Feels good, man!”With his team already qualified to the semis,
[TSoG] PapaDrayich decides to pay an old friend (
[OK] H4nn1) a visit: 
"Messing with their heads. :D" - [TSoG] PapaDrayich
1830 hours
2nd round of the BYOC playoffs have pretty much all started. Watching Honcast while awaiting the next round. Matches to look out for in the next round barring any upsets: Wahl vs Nimp, ReS vs KD, OK vs DrDz.
2040 hours
Wahlin defeated Negative Impulse to set up a match against hot favourites FnaticMSI! Here's a brief summary of what happened:
| Game ID: [43912280] | |||
| Wahlin |  Negative Impulse | ||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||
  Aluna      | |||
| Picks | |||
  /   /  |  /   /   | ||
Negative Impulse decided to go for a lot of early pressure on mid, and it was effective to a certain extent, shutting down Soulstealer's early game almost completely for the 1st ten minutes. This decision however, left both their sidelanes vulnerable without support.
1st teamfight happened 14 minutes in, when Negative Impulse dived onto Soulstealer was responded with mass TPs from Wahlin. Despite catching Nimp with a perfect Tempest ultimate while they were retreating, with Soulstealer dead and Behemoth still at lvl 4 they had no AOE abilities to follow it up with. Hellbourne realised this and just cleaned the legion team up. This set the theme for the next fight as well in the Legion jungle.
With Magmus quickly farming up his Portal Key by 26 minutes, Nimp were eager to set up another teamfight at bottom lane. However, everything backfired as a perfect ultimate combo from the legion team decimated them, followed by them pushing down both bottom towers. Momentum of the match had officially swung in Wahlin's favour.
A nice Magmus initiation won Nimp a teamfight, giving them signs of hope. However, Blood Hunter player Revyy made a crucial mistake, selling off his Mock of Brilliance by accident, adding difficulty to Negative Impulse's struggle.
After mid and bottom lanes were pushed in respectively by Wahlin, there was no coming back for Nimp. Props to them for holding on til the final lane went down though.
2140 hours
| Game ID : [43923454] | |||
| KD-Gaming eV |  Regret eSports | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
   | |||
| Picks | |||
/  Aluna /  |  /   / | ||
History repeats itself KD-Gaming beats Regret eSports (former tXL) to set up a game against their former roster Online Kingdom.
KD-Gaming decided to go for massive early pressure with Pharoah but didn't focus on Madman at all. This left Madman free to farm up a very very solid early game. However, despite his decision to go for Runed Cleaver, Madman opted to begin roaming to help his team get back into the game rather than follow through with farming to carry them later. Looks like KD-Gaming's gamble to not gank him was not going to come back to haunt them.
As Honcast guest co-caster PapaDrayich pointed out, Madman's Runed Cleaver left him with no additional EHP. He melted instantly in the game's first full out teamfight, with the result consolidating KD's early lead. By 27 minutes, Drayich proclaimed the game over, with KD in the lead by more than 10k gold. True enough, the game ended about 5 minutes later.
2300 hours
MSI leads 1-0!
| Game 1 [43931192] | |||
| FnaticMSI | Wahlin | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
/ /  | /  / | ||
With both teams fielding a solo hero against a trilane, this game was pretty passive. Freshpro on Pharoah was doign significantly better than Tempest, with Tempest forced to jungle for a bit 4 minutes in. Wahlin's Flint decided to take a gamble and go for Alchemist Bones, hoping for a less aggressive mid game for better lategame farm.
However, MSI began to take it up a notch. WIth their early game leads accumulating, (they won all 3 lanes), A genocide at the 19th minute mark stretched their gold lead to nearly 10k. With Wahlin lacking any real CC, N0tail was confident to forgo Shrunken Head, opting for Riftshards 1st instead. The game from then on was routine MSI-game, with them making lots of overextensions yet eventually winning the game without difficulty.
Game 2 ongoing at the moment.
19th June, 0044 hours
2-0! MSI advances to Winner's Bracket finals!
| Game 2 [43938367] | |||
| Wahlin | FnaticMSI | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
/ /  |  / / | ||
Both teams decided to open up with 2 roamers at the start. However, with both mostly waiting for an opportunity to gank mid not much was accomplished. Wahlin shook off their first lost by having a bright start hero kills-wise. However, the pressure they exerted on MSI's underleveled and underfarmed supports left Silhouette and Valkyrie getting dangerously farmed. Deciding to farm and hope for the best, Puppet Master went for Alchemist Bones.
Realising they needed to get momentum back, Valkyrie rushed for post-haste, allowing him to switch between farming and being at fights smoothly. The game eventually moved towards a farming stalemate, with occasional pick-offs here and there. MSI decided to break the monotony by going for Kongor at the 27th minute. Wahlin responded by taking out Valkyrie followed by a tower push.
As the game dragged on eventually N0tail got to the point where he could solo Kongor. With the rest of the MSI team in position ready to pounce, Wahlin could do nothing but watch MSI get the next Kongor. MSI pushed in and took out the mid base tower. Nothing big happened next as MSI in a very slow and steady manner got their 2nd win of the series.
0245 hours
| Game 1 [43954833] | |||
| KD-Gaming eV | FnaticMSI | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
/ /  Aluna | / / | ||
KD-Gaming was outpicked right from the start, as Slither was forced out of his lane while Wildsoul was doing fine 1v3. As a result, Trixi's Kraken was given freefarm for a long long time. He even went for Alchemist Bones 1st instead of the usual Helm of the Black Legion.
It just got scarier and scarier. By the 16th minute, Kraken was farming around 500 GPM, while his other teammates weren't doing too shabby either. Out of nowhere, Freshpro and N0tail took out Kongor at the 19th minute. Game looked unwinnable for KD as MSI had a 13.5k overall stats lead by 22 minutes. Finally an awesome teamfight which got MSI a genocide sealed the deal 2 minutes later as KD called out the GGs.
0320 hours
MSI has made it to the semifinals! Winning the winner's bracket 2-0 almost effortlessly.
| Game 2 [43958698] | |||
| FnaticMSI | KD-Gaming eV | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
| / / | /  / | ||
KD decided face MSI's trilane this time. However, this decision if anything proved to be more costly than their previous one. In the opening moments, Era and JerAx were still barely holding their own in their lanes, while the trilane was a trainwreck for KD. With MSI comfortably winning all 3 lanes, game looked horrible for KD by 10 minutes. Game eventually ended, like the 1st one, with another genocide by MSI at the 20th minute. KD conceded.
0648 hours
With some spare time before the Loser's Bracket final, I decide to take a look at some games that both me and Honcast weren't able to cover yesterday. Here's a brief summary of the match between Druidz and Online Kingdom:
| Game ID: [43917789] | |||
| Druidz Qpad | Online Kingdom | ||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||
 | |||
| Picks | |||
| / Aluna / | / /  | ||
This game was dead even for probably the first 20 minutes. As it progressed OK got some small advantages from here and there, but it wasn't anything substantial. As lategame was settling in it seemed that the next all-out teamfight would be the decider, and it was. At the 28 minute mark OK got Kongor and a genocide with minimal casualties. They never looked back after gaining that huge lead and clinched the game.
0815 hours
With such a hectic Winner's bracket schedule to keep up with, the loser's bracket was played out with few attention or coverage. Using whatever was left of my free time before the Loser's bracket final starts, I took a look at the loser's bracket. Most matches ended up with predictable results, with the exception of one: Online Kingdom had been eliminated. Intrigued, I decided to check the match out for myself.
| Game ID: [43960819] | |||||||||||
| Online Kingdom | Negative Impulse | ||||||||||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||||||||||
| Picks | / /  Aluna / | /  | |||||||||
Ok, I can't stress this point enough, there is no typo in the hero picks. Negative Impulse actually picked that lineup. Powzilla pretty much summed up my thoughts immediately after Nimp's last 2 picks:"How the f**k you lane this?" When I saw that Nimp had beat OK, I was pretty sure they pulled out something special, but this was just a bit out of this world.
At first, I thought to myself, ok, maybe it's support Hammerstorm and Aluna. Support Windrunners are run on rare occasions by certain DotA teams, maybe Nimp are doing that. But my jaw dropped when I saw who bought the courier and wards - Gladiator, and he had skilled Pitfall at lvl 1. Awww yeah, dual roaming melee supports.
The combination caught Online Kingdom off guard for a while, with Nimp scoring some early kills, but OK eventually caught on, and adapted fairly well with cautious play. However, with 2 fairly tanky supports, somehow they were pretty successful at drawing fire, allowing their carries to farm up. Some nice teamfights and Kongor sequences eventually gave Nimp a decisive lead, and tournament favourites Online Kingdom, arguably the number one choice to the title of DreamHack Summer 2011 after their almost unstoppable form last week, were sent out of the tournament.
1140 hours
KD-Gaming is up 1-0 in the Loser's Bracket final!
| Game 1 [43986879] | |||||||||||
| KD-Gaming eV | Negative Impulse | ||||||||||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||||||||||
| Picks | / / / Aluna / | ||||||||||
The game was dead even for quite a while, but eventually KD began to pull ahead very slowly, accumulating a stats lead of near 13k. However, a clutch token steal by Hammerstorm disoriented KD, with 4 of them getting picked off while retreating. Seizing momentum, Nimp rushed down 2 towers to cut down KD's lead. Alerted by that incident, KD went into full gear, with Era making some great plays. After picking off Nimp's courier, he played a vital role in picking off Aluna and Hammerstorm at top, which enabled KD to push in the top lane. Desperate to hang on, all hope was lost for Nimp as a super farmed Valkyrie sporting a DD rune steamrolled in mid for KD's victory.
1300 hours
KD is now officially the last semifinalist!
| Game 2 [43992788] | |||
| Negative Impulse | KD-Gaming eV | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
| Aluna / / | /  / | ||
The full extent of Nimp's ace strategy is revealed. Now that I come to think about it, they were denied the opportunity to pick Valkyrie against Online Kingdom as it was OK's 2nd pick. Their combination while strong, was overcome by KD-Gaming.
Nimp's combination was certainly strong against pretty much most heroes in the current metagame, an anti-meta lineup if you will. KD-Gaming decided to pick up Armadon, who did amazingly well against Nimp's combo. After recovering from their early deficit, KD turned the game around in an epic turnaround, pushing in the bottom lane before taking out mid.
1538 hours
Reason Gaming leads 1-0 against KD.
| Game 1 [44006007] | |||
| KD-Gaming eV | Reason Gaming | ||
| Bans (Legion first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
| / / | /  / | ||
The game had an extremely passive start, with barely any kills in the first 9 minutes. Action however picked up very quick as the 15th minute mark approached. Reason's decision to field new player Black over star support player Brodholm seemed to be paying dividends as he was farming near 400 GPM on Corrupted Disciple.
Torturer and Corrupted on both sides were getting very farmed as each side tried to outdo the other. Reason eventually got the edge after a couple of sequences and ended the game around the 40th minute.
1620 hours
We have our finalists!
| Game 2 [44012550] | |||
| Reason Gaming | KD-Gaming eV | ||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
/ /  | / Aluna / | ||
Both sides decided to opt for offensive trilanes for a 3v3 face-off at top this time. However, despite the seemingly inevitable aggressive battle, not many frags were registered. The lead was passed back and forth throughout the entire early game.
Some nice kills eventually got Reason a 5k stats lead. Once again, debutant Black was on fire, getting very farmed on Electrician, sporting an item build very similar to North American player brized. With Era and co. trying their best to cut down Reason's lead, Reason wasted no time and kept knocking on KD's front door. Their efforts were rewarded in the 40th minute as they pushed in the bottom lane. The game was sealed 5 minutes later when KD's top lane was pushed in, almost effortlessly.
Meanwhile, despite being forced to forfeit a game against TSoG due to NoVa_ going MIA, MSI managed to bounce back 2-1 to book their place in the Dream Arena Extreme for the third consecutive time.
1922 hours
TSoG leads 1-0 in the 3rd place playoffs!
| Game 1 [44012550] | |||
| KD-Gaming eV | The Source of Gaming | ||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
| / / | / /   | ||
TSoG opted to run Keeper of the Forest, conceding the bottom lane to apply pressure at top with a Quad lane after he got some levels from the jungle. While this would have worked wonders against another team, it did not against KD's Tempest. Seizing his free reign over the lane, JerAx mowed down both towers by 7 minutes and secured his portal key.
Keeper's pushes in the other lanes as well were thwarted easily by some great Elemental Voids by Tempest. Things looked grim for TSoG as their whole game plan looked screwed. Some cocky play by KD and TSoG's never-say-die attitude pulled TSoG back into the game. They eventually managed to recover and get their lead. However, KD's defence proved to be rock solid, with Tempest equipped with portal key, shrunken head and restoration stone. The game finally ended at the 65th minute mark when Tempest hit no one with his ultimate, spelling the end for KD Gaming.
2048 hours
TSoG wins 3rd place 2-0!
| Game 2 [44035751] | |||
| The Source of Gaming | KD-Gaming eV | ||
| Bans (Hellbourne first) | |||
| | |||
| Picks | |||
| / / | / / | ||
If you're a TSoG fan you might want to record yourself yelling "Get the rax!" into a mp3 file for replay purposes. You're gonna need it. Insane divide and conquer lategame strategy which almost resulted in KD coming back with a massive push, only to be quashed by a solid TSoG defence.
