.A July 2014

DOTA 2

A

MAGAZINE ISSUE 01 JULY 2014

.ESL ONE

.MATCH OF THE MONTH .BREAKING THE META .THE META .COSMETICS

.LETTER FROM THE EDITOR .H

ey there, thanks for clicking the link and welcome to the first issue of .A. This is what will hopefully be a successful Dota 2 magazine.

The EU West Server knows me as LEG. Gamwise Samgee but my friends call me Jannis. I‘m a 20 year old aspiring graphic artist from Germany and I hope to make a living off design and art one day. Enough about me: This is what the Magazine will be about.

The focus lies mainly on eSports articles, event recaps and game analysis while also providing interviews and fun theorycrafting like „Breaking the Meta“ in which I test unconventional ways of playing heroes or team compositions with my friends. I‘m also really into music so you might find a lame photoshopped joke about Dota and Music in here every once in a while.

‘The Rogue Knight Unmasked‘ by Kunkka

LEG. Gamwise Samgee

@

This is all still very much work in progress - if you have any ideas or constructive criticism or want to help with content then send me an e-mail or add me on Steam.

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jannis_szeder@web.de facebook.com/theredbearded

.CONTENT 03

01

PAGE 21

The Meta

PAGE 03

INTRODUCTION Rat Dota 2.0 Letter from the Editor

1

F OURprotect

02 PAGE 05

ESL ONE

Teams Location Activities Interviews

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04 PAGE 23

Breaking The Meta

05

Dazzle Carry

PAGE 30

MATCH OF THE MONTH ESL ONE ROUND OF EIGHT

06

vs

PAGE 36

Column Cosmetics

.03

.ESL ONE

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.LOCATION .A football stadium for Dota 2.

The plan seemed borderline suicidal from a financial point of view when I first heard about it.

But 25.000 people over two days made the event possible and financially viable.

Arriving at the site was an amazing feeling. Seeing all the people in line to get their wristbands gave us an idea of what waited for us inside.

Besides the amazing 400m² screen and the many seats set up on the field, you could see quite a lot of activities. The Community Stage had signing

sessions in between and during games and there were many places to play against others to win prizes. Sure, you could not win 84.000$ for getting first place, but keyboards and headsets for placing first in the HoN remake of Warlock, an awesome wc3 custom map, made a lot of people happy. You were also able to play Evolve, but the queues for that were so long that I didn‘t want to risk missing a game. You could also participate in twitter games by Red Bull: taking a selfie with a guy dressed up as a donkey courier gave you the chance to win a goodie bag for example.

.06

.The Stadium proved to be a

decent location for an eSport event over the weekend, but not everything went flawlessly at first. After the opening was delayed due to last minute security concerns, the matches started with a delay. This made it impossible to play all Best of 3s on Saturday. Na‘Vi versus EG had to be played on Sunday morning, earlier than the first match was scheduled.

could be a little better for the prize. Those things didn‘t ruin my experience though, I can see past them. All in all me and my friends had a blast and would definitely go again. Being part of a crowd of over 12.000 people and hearing the roar for amazing plays made it all worth it. It‘s an overused phrase but witnessing the Axe double First Blood against iG by Mousesports seriously gave me Nerd Chills.

Another annyonance were the prices for drinks: 4,50 Euro for a Softdrink and 3,50 Euro for a cup of water added up quickly over the course of 10 hours of watching Dota. If Red Bull is the cheapest thing at 2,50, something is going wrong. Or right, depending on your affinity towards energy drinks. The food was okay but nothing more than that. For future events, drinks need to be cheaper and the food

.06 .07

.INTERVIEW .He calls himself NigmaNoName but he certainly isn‘t a noname in the Dota 2 community. I had the pleasure of meeting the likeable videocreator for an interview at the ESL ONE pre-event meetup.

Who is going to win the tournament?

Fnatic for sure!

Because of XCalibur or despite XCalibur?

Nigma and the Gang at ESL One

Hmm, I‘m not sure. But Fnatic are HoN-Trash just like me so we are like blood brothers. I really hope they finally get a first place so I can say that the ex-HoN players are better than the Dota players.

Oh yeah, I was really happy when they won. It really sucks that Era is not feeling well but I‘m also happy they found a high caliber player to standin for a while, I‘m excited to see what‘s going to happen.

They managed to get one first place in the captains draft tournament against Na‘Vi.

It‘s impressive to see teams first banning Meepo and Tinker against Fnatic just because of him.

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You have to love Fnatic for their crazy picks.

Kunkka Skywrath Dual lanes for example I love Skywrath! I exclusively played Skywrath for a while, I‘m at 70% winrate now.

Mid or Support

I have been playing Dota for ages, since it existed. Later I switched to HoN and then to Dota 2.

I‘m at 4000 MMR, nothing special.

How much money do you spend ingame?

I haven‘t bought much lately, except the compendium.

Server?

The russian speaking players? I guess they want shorter queue times. But if you queue for English you should speak English aswell.

It‘s not as bad as people make it out to be in my opinion.

As long as they don‘t

„YOU HAVE TO LOVE FNATIC FOR THEIR CRAZY PICKS“ Skywrath?

Mid. I win mid pretty often with him. I just spam my Q and bring them to about 60% of their health and then I just spam everything at once.

What level do you play at? And for how long?

When the game first came out I bought more stuff. I spent more than 75 Euro in two years I believe.

That‘s still moderate compared to those 5000$ screenshots you see on reddit every now and then!

What do you think about the situation on the EU West

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just run into the enemy mid tower I don‘t care.

I feel like there are just as many people who don‘t communicate at all as there are russian speakers. If not more. Atleast on my level. Does it get better?

(laughs) No. I try to queue with as many people as possible usually.

What do you think about the toxicity of the Community?

It‘s a natural thing in teamgames. When people have to rely on each other to win, they start to be shitty.

Getting a full 25 pounce damage was really satisfying. It‘s weird that Valve puts so much energy into Team Fortress but not Left 4 Dead. It‘s no fun playing alone but no one is playing anymore.

I never really touched Left 4 Dead 2 for some reason.

Dota 2 and Hearthstone. But for some reason I‘m the only one playing it in my circle of friends (laughs).

I played it for a bit and I liked it but it didn‘t really catch me.

I like to play Magic The Gathering aswell,

„WHEN PEOPLE HAVE TO RELY ON EACH OTHER TO WIN, THEY START TO BE SHITTY“ It was the same in Left 4 Dead, too. In Team Fortress, nobody cares if you just run into a Sentry blindly.

Oh I loved Left 4 Dead. It‘s a shame the game died.

Yeah, we played it a lot. When we started playing, the Zombies were so much fun.

Downloaded it when it was free but never even started it.

I bought it but it wasn‘t really innovative. It felt more like an expansion pack than a full second game.

What other games do you play at the moment?

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maybe that‘s why.

Oh yeah, I used to play a lot of Magic.

Still waiting on a decent Magic The Gathering game.

There‘s a decent Magic game on Steam. You can‘t build your own decks though. Some people don‘t like that.

.IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU ARE READING SO FAR:

Follow Nigma on Twitter!

@Nigmanoname Subscribe on Youtube! .com/Nigmanoname .11

Yeah I have the 2013 version. I really didn‘t like the lack of deck customization though.

too confusing for us.

I felt like I won a lot with that one deck but all the others were kind of bad.

What annoyed you with HoN? Why did you switch?

I played that white Aura deck where you just buff one or two creatures.

If you get the rules, Blue and Red is a really fun combo.

What really annoyed me was that you had to buy heroes right after they came out.

All heroes were free after four weeks but if

pretty often: for a period of time they released a new hero every two weeks. I also liked the balance better in Dota. That, and a couple other small things made me switch.

When can we expect the next Shittier Dota Digest?

When Techies are out for sure. I have a lot

„WHEN TECHIES ARE OUT I‘LL TAKE A VACATION FOR A WEEK AND PLAY NONSTOP“ I hated those white decks. White is super overpowered in that game.

Green Black was my favourite combination.

That‘s kind of unusual. I play Red and Blue.

When we first started playing Blue was way

you wanted early access you had to pay. If that hero was totally overpowered it was really annoying.

Were those heroes always overpowered when they came out?

No, not always. But sometimes. They also released heroes

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of ideas floating around. For example I saw a big red button on eBay that you can connect to your PC and use as a hotkey.

It‘s 14 Euros though.

But yeah, when Techies are out I‘ll take vacation for a week and play nonstop.

Oh I never thought of Venge. That‘s evil.

who walked right behind him would?

Have you seen a Blink Dagger rush Techies?

Max Suicide. blink in and even if you kill only Supports, it‘s worth it. It‘s not about winning, it‘s about psychological warfare, to make them scared.

Techies hero best hero.

Nigmas friend: When Techies come out, the

Speaking of quirks, is there anything that annoys you in Dota 2?

There are quite a few things that annoy me.

The balance is fine, but for example the camera for making videos is really bad.

Especially compared to HoN where you were able to hide the

easier and faster. This really frustrates me, especially since it was so awesome in HoN. Your 11 Million Stretch Goal would be a better camera then?

Yeah but unfortunately nobody cares except for me.

What are your thoughts on Cosmetics?

„THE CAMERA FOR MAKING VIDEOS IS REALLY BAD“ world ends. You won‘t be able to play pubs for a few weeks.

Nigmas other friend: You won‘t be able to play with Nigma for a few months Nigma: (laughs) Do you remember that wc3 engine quirk where flying units such as DK in his ultimate form wouldn‘t trigger the mines but the support

UI with one button.

You were also able to freely float in all angles. You basically had total control over the camera. In Dota 2 the camera is really limited which makes it really fucking hard to make videos sometimes. You have to create a config file for making recording

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I really liked the Compendium and the Immortals. I generally like Cosmetics, I‘m glad they don‘t have to do other stuff. It‘s worse in other games I feel like. In HoN you don‘t even know who is who if you don‘t follow the game for a while.

Who is your favourite hero besides Techies?

I really liked Rubick as a mid. You can‘t do that anymore unfortunately. The fade bolt nerf really hit him. 30 damage or so less doesn‘t sound like much but it is.

What do you think, how many people will be at ESL ONE?

Every game has to die. But yes, the apprehension was there. I knew that it was going downhill for HoN and playing a game a lot of people play is a lot of fun.

There wasn‘t really a single reason for the switch though, there were multiple small reasons.

Thank you for the interview!

The soccer field will be full for sure. There are no official numbers yet I think but the facebook event had 10.000 people attending.

The interview was held at the ESL One pre-event meeting in German. I translated it to English afterwards.

It‘s going to be my first LAN event, have you been to any before?

I was at TI1 at Gamescom even though I didn‘t really care about Dota 2 back then. I was actually kind of annoyed with Valve because I thought the time and money would be better spent on a project that isn‘t an exact copy of Dota 1 but rather a Dota-Style game that isn‘t a complete copy.

Did you see Dota 2 as more of a threat to HoN? Did you feel like the death of the game was near?

Nigma and I during the interview

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INVICTUS GAMING ESL ONE CHAMPIONS

Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

Luo Ferrari_430 YYF ChuaN Faith

Invictus Gaming dominated the tournament with a very entertaining mix ofganking and pushing. They drafted Lycan, Pugna, Shadow Shaman and Earthshaker consistently and translated early roaming into relentless pushing to pressure their opponents into making mistakes. Something that stood out to me was their use of Invoker as a solo safelaner as a replacement to Lycan when he was banned. This kind of flexibility proved to be too much to handle for the rest of the teams as iG beats Mousesports

RECENT PERFORMANCES 1st Place

STARLADDER

4th Place

2-1 in the Quarterfinals, wins against Alliance in the Semis 2-0 and 2-1 against EG in the finals, beating the North Americans with a perfect 22-0 score in Game 3.

With their dominant performance at ESL One, iG quickly became one of the favourite teams for The International 4 top spots.

Not that they were not seen as a very strong team before that, but crushing such strong teams at ESL One put them on the radar of everybody who didn‘t follow the chinese scene aswell.

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EVIL GENIUSES A NEW HOPE Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

Mason Arteezy Universe zai ppd

EG‘s secret weapon: 84,2% winrate for Zai‘s Enigma

RECENT PERFORMANCES 6th Place

STARLADDER

1st Place

3rd Place

Zai after their win against Na‘Vi

EG played some impressive Dota at ESL One. Beating Na‘Vi 2:0 and Fnatic 2:1, they once again proved they are here to stay. The style they showed relies on strong teamfight heroes such as Engima or Faceless Void. If the enemy team tries to outsmart them by picking big teamfight themselves, they like to answer with a Doom pick. Their support duo showed some really good play this tournament with Zai‘s Wraith King remaining at his ridiculous 100% winrate (10-0) and ppd‘s Bane showing some awesome plays.

After playing 5 instead of the planned maximum of 3 games on sunday, they faced iG in the finals.

EG won game 1 with their trademark teamfight oriented lineup. iG threw their bodies at the mid rax and did manage to take them down finally after losing their whole team for the T3 tower and some rax damage the first time they tried.

Universe played an absolutely perfect Faceless Void and the team followed their gameplan of fighting with their ults and farming in between perfectly to ensure the victory after 47 minutes.

Game 2 was iG‘s game from the start. EG did not have an answer to the perfect execution of the Chinese team. A roaming Earth Shaker Mirana combo with Invoker adding sunstrikes was too much pressure for the Americans to handle.

Maybe due to fatigue but certainly because of the once again absolutely flawless execution they lost game 3 in a crushing fashion. 22:0 in favor of iG made it clear who is the better team right now. EG sent Mason on the safelane as a farming Sand King and tried something new with a Io Tiny dual mid lane. Unfortunately their experiment did not work out and iG won after 29 minutes of getting kill after kill.

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mf dOoM JUST REMEMBER

ALL CAPS

WHEN YOU SPELL THE MAN NAME

FNATIC DOTA‘S BOYBAND

Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

Era H4nn1 Trixi N0tail Fly

RECENT PERFORMANCES

STARLADDER

From left to right: H4nn1, Era, N0tail, Fly, Trixi 1st Place

5th Place

5 -6th Place

4th Place

2nd Place

Fnatic played a good tournament - beating Vici Gaming 2-1 in the Quarterfinals and losing 2-1 to Evil Geniuses in the Semifinals after some entertaining matches.

Excalibur proved that he is a strong player on LAN aswell after overcoming some possibly nerve related positioning mistakes in the beginning. Unfortunately his success with Meepo was very limited (0-2) in this tournament. EG showed that they understand the way Fnatic play around the hero and countered accordingly

with huge teamfight lineups.

I got the chance to talk to the team very briefly after the games against EG and while the rest of the team seemed to be happy about their result (“At least it‘s not another second place“ N0Tail), H4nn1 didn‘t look to happy.

With Era rejoining the team for TI4, no real prediction can be made about their chances or playstyle. They definitely have what it takes to make it into the top 8 but the lack of training as the original 5 in the past couple of months might take a toll.

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Rare sight: Meepo in competitive Play.

Fnatic makes it work with a 58% winrate

The

lliance

COMEBACK KINGS

From left to right: Loda, Akke, S4, EGM, Admiral Bulldog

RECENT PERFORMANCES

STARLADDER

STARLADDER

1st Place

4th Place

5 - 6th Place

4th Place

1st Place

4th Place

2nd Place

1st Place

Loda after winning 2:0 against Cloud 9

Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

Alliance started strong with a 2:0 over Cloud 9 on day 1. Game 1 being a convincing win - Shutting down Eternal Envy‘s Tinker in the early game and baiting Cloud 9‘s big teamfight ultimates in order to be able to push highground ended the game after 33 minutes. Game 2 was a real thriller. 83 minutes of back and forth action and the best splitpushing we have seen in a long time made this the best game of the tournament. Cloud 9 had the better lategame potential with Faceless Void, Ember Spirit and Mirana but Alliance had the better mobility. Natures Prophet and Io plus Wraith King made pushing out a lane a nightmare for Cloud 9. Alliance fell to iG 2:0 in the Semifinals and

-

Loda S4 Admiral Bulldog EGM Akke

therefore placed 3rd/4th in the tournament. iG won convincingly in two 30 minute games, playing very active roam and push lineups. In game 1 Alliance went for a greedy Phantom Lancer and Lone Druid pickup that never really came online. iG managed to utilize their pickoff potential with Nyx Assassin and pushed their way to victory with their very successfull Shadow Shaman and Ember Spirit.

Game 2 was dominated by iG‘s heavy push once again - this time Invoker played a heavy pusher with Forge Spirits and Necro Book while getting kills all over the map with a very active long range initiation roaming duo consisting of Earthshaker and Mirana.

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CLOUD 9 GREEDISGOOD. sometimes

RECENT PERFORMANCES 2nd Place

7th Place

2nd Place

2nd Place

Cloud 9 got knocked out in the Quarterfinals already after losing 2:0 to Alliance.

Eternal Envys Tinker was shut down very hard by Alliance‘s aggressive trilane and got nearly no farm at all (25 last hits at 10 minutes) and the team wasn‘t able to bounce back from that early deficit, even though Envy did manage to catch up in farm later in the game.

In game 2 they managed to hold Bulldog‘s perfect splitpushing for 80 minutes but made a crucial mistake in overcommiting on the throne after killing 4 people.

The team looked really beaten afterwards, especially Envy‘s spirit seemed to be broken. Which is understandable because he announced people to expect nothing but first place out of Cloud 9 after their second place in the Dreamleague Finals in early June.

Even though they lost in the first round, they showed a really strong second game. Cloud 9‘s chances for a good TI4 finish are still decent.

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SingSing after the loss against Alliance

Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

Eternal Envy SingSing Bone7 Aui_2000 Pieliedie

MOUSESPORTS CAT, MOUSE OR DOG? Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

Pajkatt FATA MSS MiSeRy paS

RECENT PERFORMANCES 4th Place

from left to right: paS, FATA, Pajkatt, MiSeRy, MSS

Mouse were the clear underdogs (heh) in the tournament. They lost 1-2 in the Quarterfinals against iG who went on to win the tournament. All three games were short and action packed - iG played a very push and roam oriented strategy with Lycan and Pugna in Game one and three which Mouse could not hold for longer than 35 minutes. Game two was dominated by Mouse from the very

beginning with Bane, Ancient Apparition and Mirana just roaming around and setting up kills left and right. They were able to carry their momentum into the midgame and finish after 37 minutes.

Mousesport look decent going into TI4. They might not be a contender for the title but they have what it takes to make it to the main event if they play their best.

A true Nightmare for his enemies: MiSeRy on Bane

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NA‘VI

NATUS LUDERE

Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

XBOCT Dendi Funn1k Kuroky Puppey

From left to right: XBOCT, Funn1k, Kuroky, Dendi, Puppey

RECENT PERFORMANCES 4th Place 2nd Place

Born to win (when it counts) would be the most fitting addition to NaVi‘s name. From what we saw this tournament, Na‘Vi are not in top shape. They went out in the Quarterfinals against EG 0-2 in two relatively long matches (45 and 55 minutes). Game One was under EG‘s control the whole time but Game 2 looked a lot better in the beginning for NaVi: They drafted an oldschool style draft with Chen, Antimage and Puck but good lategame decisionmaking with Tiny and Io won EG the game. Going into TI4 it is impossible to predict how NaVi are going to do. They seem to only be able to play their best under pressure and when there‘s a lot on the line; this year‘s prizepool and

STARLADDER

STARLADDER

5 - 6th Place

1st Place

1st Place

more importantly prestige will hopefully motivate the team to do so.

Na‘Vi fans after their recent performances

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VICI GAMING Carry Mid Offlane Support Support

-

Sylar Super rOtk Fenrir fy

RECENT PERFORMANCES 3rd Place 3rd Place 3rd Place

from left to right: Super, Fenrir, rOtk, fy, Sylar Vici Gaming underperformed this tournament.

They lost against Fnatic 2:1 in the first round and were knocked out of the tournament, winning $10,500. They played an aggressive push heavy style and put their focus on their Shadow Shaman and Earthshaker support duo played by fy and Fenrir. They did however not respect Fnatic‘s Wisp Tiny combination and let it through three times in the draft. As you can imagine, they were punished for that. Fnatic‘s use of Tiny‘s toss paired with Centaur‘s huge burst damage dominated the early game and made it really hard for Vici to find into the game. They lost game one after only 34 minutes. Vici decided to let the same combo through in game 2 but had an answer this time: an

aggressive trilane with Super on the offlane and Sylar in the midlane changed things up. After a pretty even early and midgame they managed to win some decisive fights to gain mapcontrol and pushed their way to victory with Lycan. Game 3 was again dominated by Fnatic‘s trademark Tiny Wisp duo. Vici Gaming‘s very push oriented lineup with Pugna aswell as Shadow Shaman was never able to get the momentum they needed in order to get the push train going.

Even though they performed a bit poorly at ESL One, their chances going into TI4 are good. Vici Gaming is one of the best teams in the world and I‘m confident they will show it at TI4.

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.THE META

1

F PROTECT R OU

An article by z_mann9

With Era not being able to play due to health problems, Fnatic have needed to change their play style significantly. They called upon Excalibur, a pub star, as their standin. Because of his extensive pub experience, Excalibur knows how to wreck face with a lead and push his advantage. He also fully understands recovery and overall positioning.

Because of this, Fnatic are playing to his strengths; instead of making their standin adapt to the team, they are adapting to their standin. As such, Fnatic drafts are quite close to the classic 4 protect 1 strategy. They choose 4 high impact heroes who don't need a lot of farm to dominate (Doom, Earthshaker, Silencer, Skywrath Mage) and give Excalibur a hero that works well with farm. With this, they are able to always take fights with their fantastic

team-fighters and can rely on Excalibur playing a hyper-carry.

However, there are some overall differences between this and the classic 4 protect 1. Fnatics strategy is highly offensive and actively searches for engagements where the classic 4 protect 1 is a much more passive approach. Also, Fnatic have been drafting carries for the mid lane (Tinker, Meepo) whereas classic 4 protect 1 usually drafts a right click based late game carry for the safe lane. Other teams have figured out the strategy and are toying with how to counter it, with the obvious choice being to ban asnowball hyper-carries. Empire even went to the extreme and banned Tinker and Meepo with a first pick Wisp (effectively stopping the Tiny Wisp combo), but Fnatic still had a trick up its sleeve with a Shadow Fiend pick.

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FLY ON SKY The slightly annoying lovebird is back This exemplifies the potential of Fnatic, as they are able to completely overhaul their style in the face of a seemingly terrible situation. So while Excalibur does deserve props, destroying DK in his 1st ever professional match, the rest of the team deserve praise too, adapting to and supporting his strenghts. EG seem to understand the innards of this strategy, as they 2-0'ed Fnatic out of the upper bracket in DotA 2 League Western Challenge with seeming ease. EG drafted strong teamfight of their own in the likes of Void and Jakiro in order to deal with the offensive potential of Fnatic.

Fnatic then lost to Na'vi in the lower bracket even though they were able to win against Na'vi in the upper bracket. They too drafted teamfight

(Void one game) and were able to secure a victory. Since the first use of Excalibur, Fnatic‘s winrate has only gone up. Their winrate with him was shockingly low, well below 50%. Yet they still seemed to be able to take games from top tier teams like Alliance, Na'vi, DK, and Empire.

While getting 5th/6th at The Summit was expected, they also recieved 3rd in the D2L Western Challenge and 2nd in D2CL. This definitely shows comfort level with the standin strengthening. Even with a deceptively low winrate, Fnatic are looking strong going into ESL One Frankfurt, still receiving many bets, and we will see how teams continue to deal with this unique play style coming out of Fnatic.

.22

.Breaking

Meta

the

meet Dazzle the Carry

Shadow Flame Set by Anuxi

.23

„Heal or Harm“

.D

azzle is one of the most fun Heroes in the game. It‘s one of the most satisfying feelings to get off that last second Shallow Grave or Shadow Wave. The Hero quickly became one of my favourites. After getting more kills and farm than I should in one game, I decided to go for a Desolator as a fun pick up. I noticed that I hit quite hard: Dazzle‘s focus on reducing armor make his right clicks a serious threat. The idea of Carry Dazzle was born.

Items

.When I started theorycrafting I

got to the conclusion that Dazzle is quite item dependent. Especially his weak strength gain needs to be balanced out with smart item choices. Luckily the synergy between Dazzle and Armlet is amazing: His Shallow Grave makes him (almost) unkillable for a full 5 seconds duration. Usually you would heal yourself with Shadow Wave, an Urn charge and Mek in this time but Armlet lets you gain a lot of additional HP in a

very short amount of time just before Grave runs out without needing to spend gold on those additional slot consuming support items. Since you will be quite squishy in the early and midgame, pulling off this combo is the most important thing in fights.

After Treads and Armlet I go for either the risky Desolator or for the safer Sange and Yasha for added survivability and mobility.

This decision depends on the amount of pressure the enemy team applies. Being able to enter and leave fights quicker because of the movement speed from S&Y really benefits Dazzle.

However, in any game of Dota the rule of adapting your item choices to the enemy lineup also applies in this case.

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At level 10 you start to farm really efficiently with your Shadow Wave. Once you pick up your Desolator, you start to become a real threat to towers, making you a decent splitpusher.

My little trick for both farming and pushing is to stack the Easy Camp on the safelane twice or thrice and then using your creepwave to farm it quickly with Shadow Wave. Play with the creep equilibrium to get two big waves together and then start pushing down their offlane Tier One tower.

Pushing

.Dazzle is a strong pusher.

Being able to both heal and damage creepwaves is huge.

Using your Ultimate preemptively on your allies makes it a lot harder for the enemy to harass you and lets you tank towers quite easily, even early in the game. If you manage to hit both the enemies and your team with Weave, the tower kill should be guaranteed.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

If you are facing a lot of silencing abilities, getting a Manta Style is a viable choice. Save your manta and dispel the silence right before you need to use Grave on yourself.

Your attackspeed will be decent with Treads and Armlet but if you want even more, Maelstrom and Mjollnir are your best choices.

The lightning shield from Mjollnir is another amazing addition to Dazzle since you will deal a lot of AoE damage to the enemy team if they do focus you. If the enemy team doesn‘t have a silence or doesn‘t use it on you, getting a Scythe of Vyse is a strong alternative to Manta Style.

Assault Cuirass and Shiva‘s Guard are a possibility too, AC having great synergy with your ultimate. Shivas gives you a bit more utility and chasing power.

An early Mek can work too but I usually let a support buy it to focus on more attack damage.

Crystalis and Daedalus are also strong choices.

I usually only go for a Crystalis after getting my attackspeed up.

Like I said before, only go for straight up damage items if your team is not getting pressured too hard by the enemy, otherwise go for utility items.

Skill Build

.For chasing and killing

potential, max your Poison Touch first. Depending on the pressure your lane is under, get your first level in Shallow Grave as early as level 3 or 4. Max your Shadow Wave second for farming, splitpushing and general sustain.

Level up Weave at 6, 11 and 16.

You can get away with leveling it at level 9 and 11 if you don‘t plan to join fights at all or if the enemy team is playing passively. I generally think it‘s a better idea to get it early though since Dazzle is a great fighting hero.

Doing so also helps a lot with fights in the Roshan pit and tanking Roshan.

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Teamfights

.Start the fight with a Weave on

as many heroes as possible.

Dragging out the fight favors you a lot, especially against lineups that rely mainly on physical damage. As mentioned earlier, pulling off your Armlet and Grave combo is essential since it makes you really hard to kill. If another core is getting focused down, feel free to use Grave on him though: Don‘t give up on saving your team alltogether just because you are playing a Carry Dazzle.

Using your Poison Sting on someone who has the potential for a strong channeling spell is a good idea since he will get stunned after 3 seconds. The recent nerf did hit Dazzle a bit but the slow and DoT are still as strong as before.

Spam your Shadow Wave and try to get into close range of your enemies to maximize the additional physical burst damage of Shadow Wave.

If the enemy team focuses you, try to leave the fight for a few seconds and heal yourself. Wait for Shallow Grave to almost get off cooldown and then enter the fight again with a lot more HP and armor than before. If you cannot leave the fight, Grave yourself and start attacking a target. You should at least be able to get a kill or two in every fight by doing that. Heroes like Naga or Omniknight on your team can help you a lot by interrupting or prolonging fights

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Friends

Any Hero that helps you hit harder or prolong teamfights is your friend Lane Supports:

Other Lanes:

Disruption and Soul Catcher are an amazing combo with Shadow Wave.

Drow‘s aura makes you hit a lot harder making a mid Drow a strong addition if you can get away with it and might let you skip a damage item in favor of more utility.

Illusions and Net are a great setup for a huge Shadow Wave Healbomb, combined with a Riptide for even more armor reduction

Similar to Drow, Battletrance buffs you up a lot and lets you skip attackspeed items in favor of more damage and utility.

A strong stun, even more armor reduction and buffed up autoattacks are Dazzle‘s best friend for a strong dual lane.

Teamfights: Even more healbomb potential, magic immunity and dragging out fights with Guardian Angel make Omni a strong fighting companion.

Song of the Siren initiation and Weave on top is a strong combo. Even using Song midfight to heal up and get Grave off cooldown is a good idea.

One of the strongest auras for Dazzle and the ability to disrupt and delay the fight with Echo Stomp make Elder Titan a good combo pick.

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Beastmaster gives you more attackspeed and good killing potential since his Wild Axes deal composite damage and are therefore buffed by your armor reduction.

Foes

Any hero that prevents you from doing autoattack damage or using your spells at the right moment is your foe.

A large AoE silence and a DoT that can kill you when you mis-toggle your Armlet make Disruptor a strong enemy.

Black King Bar becomes a viable choice against lots of silence and disable. A Pipe of Insight on a Support helps you a lot aswell.

Culling Blade kills you through Shallow Grave, a strong DoT and disable make your life harder.

Maybe the strongest pick against a Carry Dazzle.

Not much helps against Axe other than quick fingered stuns and disables when he blinks in.

Sven can negate a lot of your armor reduction with his AoE Warcry. if you don‘t get off your Grave quickly when he‘s attacking you you are in big trouble.

Assault Cuirass lowers the impact of Sven‘s Warcry and a Blademail helps you out against his right clicks once BKB runs out. Shadow Demon is a strong ally for kiting.

A potential 17 seconds of not being able to heal anyone (including Armlet toggling) is a tough task for Dazzle.

A Pipe of Insight or a purge can help you a lot against Ancient Apparition‘s Ice Blast.

8 seconds of Silence, huge movement speed and a slowing Nuke spell big trouble in the night from early to mid game.

Omniknight is the main counter to physical damage, making you useless for the duration of his ultimate.

Vision and TP rotations are your best bets against Nightstalker early on.

Manta dispels the silence.

If you want to focus down one enemy really badly, a purge can help you remove Guardian Angel.

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.SYNOPSIS An article by LEG.MemoryOfYeah Originally we wanted to present you the Dreamhack finals as our Match of the Month. At the time of planning the magazine, they were arguably the best matches of June. But even they do not compare to this 83 minute back and forth thriller played in the Ro8 of ESL One. It was the second game of the series after Alliance had won in a convincing fashion after 33 minutes.

Alliance‘s aggressive trilane pays off early as Tree and Wisp are able to kill Enigma only 30 seconds into the game.

With his own jungle being warded and not safe to farm, Aui switches to the enemy jungle.

While [A] is able to secure themselves another kill on the top lane, C9's offlane void is free farming. 8 minutes in, Alliance starts to five man push top lane and are able to take the T1 from C9 without resistance. With Wisp and Tree preventing Cloud9 from getting kills in skirmishes for a long time, SingSing claims the first kill for his team at 11 minutes, finding

prophet in the jungle. A quick rotation by Alliance brings down Ember and Bane in the process though. Alliance‘s defensive lineup works out for them as they outlast C9 in the fights. A few minutes later, PieLieDie manages to deny himself in the Roshan Pit. 19 minutes into the game, Cloud9 find three clean pick offs, resulting in their first tower aswell as an uncontested Roshan. After 30 minutes, C9 has to stop their second Roshan attempt in order to defend their base. They manage to do so succesfully and then return to finish the job.

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„BULLDOG IS SIX SLOTTED“ 42 minutes into the game, Alliance is able to get their first melee barracks on the top lane with a teleportation from Prophet together with Wisp and Wraith King. Only two minutes later they claim their second barrracks, this time the ranged on bottom lane. Shortly after, Cloud9 wins a teamfight but only with the use of buybacks. On the back of that successful fight they secure the third Roshan. C9 are winning teamfights left and right, but Bulldog splitpushes successfully and forces Cloud 9 to spend buybacks or lose towers. At 58 minutes, Alliance

stop Cloud 9‘s 4th Roshan attempt by buying back on Loda and using Nature‘s Prophet to continually splitpush. Alliance take Roshan themselves and take the Aegis and Cheese.

Bulldog is six slotted at this point and buys a Necronomicon 3 together with his own personal flying courier to hide the item in the trees when it‘s on cooldown.

Meanwhile, Cloud9's heroes are farmed enough to defend two lanes at the same time, which is something they need because Alliance‘s splitpush is putting a lot of pressure on all of their lanes.

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„PIELIEDIE MANAGES TO DENY. HIMSELF IN THE ROSH PIT“ 69 minutes into the game, the god of split pushing, Admiral Bulldog, replaces his Orchid with a Manta Style. Cloud 9 break out of their base and push the mid, taking the T2 tower and trying to go highground. They are forced back to by s4‘s Puck who pushed top and is joined by Prophet, Wisp and Wraith King.

Alliance outmanouver Cloud 9 and are able to secure the next Roshan for themselves. Cloud9 show great effort to stay in the game, despite not controlling the map at all. At 78 minutes we see them placing a total amount of 8 sentries in their own jungle to prevent Alliance from getting extra farm aswell as to catch Akke. Alliance push Cloud 9‘s base once again but get teamwiped - But a buyback from

Bulldog allows them to get the middle barracks as a trade. In full desperation after the long siege that was bringing down their base slowly but surely, C9 storm down the mid lane. They skip the middle baracks and try to go directly for the Ancient.

Bone7 catches three people in his Chronosphere but the team keeps focusing the throne.

Alliance manage to turn the fight around as Cloud 9 lack the damage to bring down the Ancient quickly enough. Alliance respond instantly, using their global presence and start to push Cloud 9‘s base. Alliance win the game despite being down in EXP and gold. Their ability to use the space they gain, even from losing fights ensured their victory.

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.ANALYSIS This game was a clash of styles between excellent teamfighting versus absolutely flawless splitpushing. Alliance used the mobility and global presence of their lineup perfectly and outmanouvered their opponents heavily. Cloud 9 showed their fighting potential when they were given the chance and crushed Alliance in most teamfights. Mirana offered them a good way of initiation but Alliance were spot on with keeping track of the cooldown on Moonlight Shadow and played cautiously around that.

Bulldog was able to use all the space that was given to him, keeping multiple lanes pushed at all times with the use of his treants and his ultimate while also farming his own jungle whenever possible. Later on he added a Necronomicon (portable on his own courier) and a Manta Style (as a replacement to his Orchid) to

maximise the amount of chip damage dealt to Cloud 9‘s towers and barracks. Even though Cloud 9 did manage to catch Bulldog a couple of times, he was always able to buyback when his team needed him to either join the fight or take a big objective while they were fighting. This threat made Cloud 9 stay in their base and defend for a big portion of the game, opening up the map for Alliance to farm. Cloud 9 made some mistakes in their item choices in my opinion. Bone7 used his good amount of farm to go for a Satanic as his first big item. He had to counter Bulldog‘s Orchid with a Manta Style of his own which left him with a second big item that didn‘t increase his damage output by a large deal.

He got both a Crystalis aswell as a Maelstrom but could not upgrade either of the two without risking his buyback.

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.BUILDINGS DESTROYED 07:30 15:00 15:45 16:20 19:30 26:00 29:45 31:40 39:00 42:00 43:20 44:00 44:10 49:30 62:40 70:45 71:10 74:30 80:30 83:00

T1 TOP T1 BOT T2 BOT T1 MID T1 MID T2 MID T1 TOP T2 TOP T3 TOP RANGED TOP T3 BOT RANGED BOT T1 BOT MELEE TOP T3 MID T2 MID T3 MID RANGED MID MELEE MID MELEE BOT

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The lack of damage on Void was made up for with Sing Sing‘s items - two Battlefuries and two Daedali sliced through Alliance‘s supports aswell as Bulldog‘s zoo very quickly, but Bone7 wasn‘t able to use his expensive Satanic efficiently most of the time. It‘s not a good farming item and since Alliance successfully dodged teamfights most of the time, it didn‘t fulfill its purpose as a good fighting item. An earlier Mjollnir would have been a better choice in my opinion. Cloud 9 probably thought that SingSing‘s damage output would be enough and went for more utility on Void - a thought I can get behind on paper. The logical conclusion of lacking damage on Void would be to play safer and take smaller objectives first and not go directly for the Ancient though. If Cloud 9 had taken the middle barracks first or had used the 3 man Chronosphere

by Bone7 to fight, their chances of winning the game would have been far greater. I feel the need of saying that I understand that both teams are under immense pressure in situations like that

and that it is easy for someone like me to point fingers at mistakes made. I do feel like Alliance are able to keep their calm a lot better and Cloud 9 have some work ahead of them dealing with super lategame decision making. Cloud 9‘s curse against Alliance continues as they are now 8-13 (38% winrate) against them and have never won a Best of X series against them.

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.COLUMN I LOVE COSMETICS I LIKE COSMETICS I DISLIKE

COSMETICS

I HATE COSMETICS .36

.Playing Dota 2 is an aesthetically pleasing experience to me - but for how long?

.W

hen I first started playing Dota 2 about two and a half years ago there weren‘t many cosmetics in the game compared to today.

Getting an item drop was super exciting and a rare was worth bragging with for atleast 2 games (Hey guys I dropped a rare axe for Axe last game! Check it out!). When I dropped my first Mythical courier (I still love you, Yak) me and my friends were amazed by it and I insisted on buying the courier every game.

I have reached a point where I‘m no longer excited for item drops though. Getting more and rarer items over time through trading or buying of course raised my standards but it‘s not only that. The Workshop seems to have lost some of its magic. Or atleast the items that actually make it into the game did.

The competition is fierce: Every item creator wants a spot in the game and everyone hopes to make the new sought after Legendary set. In order to stand out, cosmetics rely more and more on things like particle effects, altered spell visuals and casting animations. This leads to the game being more and more visually confusing and cluttered.

The addition of the Arcana item quality was a step in the right direction. Modifying spell visuals, particles and icons seemed to be unique to the Arcana items. But the things that are truly unique to Arcanas are decreasing - the new Earthshaker set „Bindings of Deep Magma“ for example could be mistaken for an Arcana if you see it for the first time. All of Earthshaker‘s spells get visual alterations.

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If you‘re still with me at this point you might think I‘m an egoistic asshole that hates on everything that doesn‘t fit his understanding of aesthetics. That is partly, but not entirely true. I do understand that a lot of people actually enjoy the more flashy cosmetics and that is okay.

I‘m more concerned for the future of cosmetics than their current state. While there are some sets I can not stand at all, they are not ruining my experience playing Dota... yet.

.A

slightly pessimistic but mostly realistic view into the future reveals that cosmetics will have to keep one-uping one another to have a chance to get into the game which will lead to an overall decline in design quality. Soon every item that hopes to get Legendary rarity status will have to come with custom animations and particles, a well designed that convinces through coherence might not be enough.

My hope is that Valve either puts more restrictions on what Workshop artist are allowed to change ingame or gives us the option to remove cosmetics from other player‘s heroes.

Unfortunately I don‘t see either of the two happening because it would limit the incentive for people to create and buy items, both undermining the business model that makes Dota 2 successful.

Which leaves us with the status quo - Valve regulating what items do and do not get into the game. In my opinion Valve have to enforce stricter rules in order to ensure a good level of balance between the amazing original look of the game and the sometimes a little too excessive cosmetics. I do think Valve are aware of this and really hope they find a creative way to satisfy both ends of the spectrum.

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RED BULL GAMING GROUND DOTA 2 WORKSHOP IN COLOGNE The Red Bull Gaming Grounds will take place in Cologne from the 11th - 17th of August at the ESL Studios. I will hopefully be able to attend the event with two of my teammates and bring you coverage in the form of interviews and photos aswell as a report about the success of the event. A total of 30 Dota players will be coached by 20 professional players over the course of two days.

Other games include League of Legends aswell as Starcraft 2, FIFA14 and Hearthstone. Players will be given tasks tailored to their ingame role and the team

captain will also learn about drafting.

The event will be streamed from the players POV during the training sessions and there will be daily showmatches between the pros aswell as the attendees after the training is over. The ESL Studio will open its doors to all visitors on the weekend to have a BBQ aswell as fun game challenges such as a Mario Kart tournament or a public viewing of the LCS. I hope you will tune in to the event as it looks to be an awesome opportunity to learn a lot of things from pro players even if you can‘t attend in person.

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W E I V E

PR

RED BULL GAMING GROUND DOTA 2 WORKSHOP IN COLOGNE

TWO DAYS OF DOTA 2 COACHING WITH 20 PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS FOR 30 ATTENDEES - POV STREAMS - SHOWMATCHES BETWEEN ROOKIES ASWELL AS PROS - OPEN DOORS AND BBQ - eSPORT TALKSHOW - LOTS OF REDBULL

TI4

THE INTERNATIONAL RECAP: THE BEST MATCHES - THE BEST MOMENTS - THE BIGGEST UPSETS - THE METAGAME - THOUGHTS ON THE TOURNAMENT

INTERVIEW

WITH THE ONE AND ONLY

KUNKKA .40