Escapist News Now: Dota 2 Finals With $5 Million On the Line

[Escapist News Now]

Dota 2 Finals With $5 Million On the Line

Newbee takes home the prize of $5 million from DOTA 2 The International finals.

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[Airon]

Finals were quite neat.

Destiny and Sims, those segments look like ads. Not something I enjoyed.

 

[WashAran]

Finals were quite neat.

I found these to be the most boring games in the tournament. First game ends after 23 minutes, the second after 24 minutes, third after 15 and fourth after 13, the games ended with most, if not all, tier 2 towers on the losing site still standing. Newbee played really good, but this games were onesided and pub stomps. This was not a finale fitting a 11 mill. doller tournament.

 

[Vigormortis]

The final for The International 2014 was good. A bit of a blowout in Newbee's favor, but still good. However, some of the best matches came out of the semi-finals. Notably, some of Cloud9's and Evil Genius' matches.

EG, though eventually losing to Vici Gaming, had some amazing team fights and sudden come-backs in game 2. Just one perfect Chronosphere + Blackhole after another. T'was really exciting to watch.

In the end this year's tourney was a blast. So much fun overall. Definitely better than the last TIs.

Still, I really wish Cloud9, Alliance, and/or Evil Genius had been able to make it to the final.[footnote]Though, the teams that did make the semis and the final did wonders for my fantasy league teams. ;D[/footnote] Maybe next year...

 

[SomeLameStuff]

I found these to be the most boring games in the tournament. First game ends after 23 minutes, the second after 24 minutes, third after 15 and fourth after 13, the games ended with most, if not all, tier 2 towers on the losing site still standing.

That's mainly because both Newbee and Vici favour the early 10 minute deathball that Na'Vi.EU actually ran in the entire of the first International. And since both teams drafted for the early game, instead of mid to late game, the team that got the early advantage and towers came out on top with no chance of a turnaround.

What I find annoying is how most people are complaining about the games. The strategy used to be "farm for 60 minutes before pushing", then it was "Splitpush to victory", now it's "non stop fight deathball to victory". If anything, we're getting better.

 

[gamerguyal]

The problem with the grand finals was that there were only about 20 heroes picked or banned in the entire series, in what has been called the most balanced and versatile patch yet. Vici did not even try to get creative or adapt their strategy, they just picked nearly the same exact team and hoped that doing the same thing over and over would yield different results. All Newbee had to do was keep outplaying Vici in the exact same way.

 

[RaikuFA]

So they're giving money away to whomever can be the biggest jerk?

 

[Excludos]

I found these to be the most boring games in the tournament. First game ends after 23 minutes, the second after 24 minutes, third after 15 and fourth after 13, the games ended with most, if not all, tier 2 towers on the losing site still standing.

That's mainly because both Newbee and Vici favour the early 10 minute deathball that Na'Vi.EU actually ran in the entire of the first International. And since both teams drafted for the early game, instead of mid to late game, the team that got the early advantage and towers came out on top with no chance of a turnaround.

What I find annoying is how most people are complaining about the games. The strategy used to be "farm for 60 minutes before pushing", then it was "Splitpush to victory", now it's "non stop fight deathball to victory". If anything, we're getting better.

Every other international finals included strategic depths, close games, back and fourth action and whatnot, even with splitpushing or 60 min farming. This year it was mostly "We did better in the laning phase, so I guess we win now"

 

[Geisterkarle]

So they're giving money away to whomever can be the biggest jerk?

Nah, If they had done that some Apple fanboi would have gotten the money ... *duck*

The finals were a little bit anticlimatic, but overall the tournament was really great! Enjoyed myself!

 

[Traun]

Finals were quite neat.

I found these to be the most boring games in the tournament. First game ends after 23 minutes, the second after 24 minutes, third after 15 and fourth after 13, the games ended with most, if not all, tier 2 towers on the losing site still standing. Newbee played really good, but this games were onesided and pub stomps. This was not a finale fitting a 11 mill. doller tournament.

Those are not the type of teams that will throw a game. Once they're ahead, they're ahead, there is no throwing. Once someone has established a comfortable lead that's it - the game is already over and the next thirty minutes will be a slow and painful death.

I kinda wished iG got into the Top 3, but alas it was not meant to be.

 

[AmberSword]

About the finals, people are complaining because Vici didn't even put up a fight. First lost, fine, second lost they should have realized that Newbee was too good at dismantling their entire deathball strategy, it wouldn't work, time to try something else. What do they do instead? Judging by who won there's no need to explain further.

Newbee's draft wasn't deathball, trust me on this one, Newbee was geared toward COUNTERING Vici's deathball, and they just let it happen, both in draft and execution.

So what I'm trying to say is, people aren't complaining because its "boring cheap/overpowered strategy win" like last year's TI. This year the complaints are completely justified.

Those are not the type of teams that will throw a game. Once they're ahead, they're ahead, there is no throwing. Once someone has established a comfortable lead that's it - the game is already over and the next thirty minutes will be a slow and painful death.

I kinda wished iG got into the Top 3, but alas it was not meant to be.

Actually, even at the highest levels, teams do "throw", quite often in fact. Dota is a game of mistakes, they happen at every level, the team that capitalizes most on their opponent's will win the match.

This is especially true when a team has a lead on the enemy due to drafting an early/mid game based strat, if the enemy has late game and can hold for long enough, the comeback is almost guaranteed.

What happened here (TI finals) was that there wasn't even a chance for a comeback (or for Newbee to throw), because the game was already thrown by Vici in the draft. The pressure was on Vici to execute better than Newbee to have a chance at winning, they failed all 3 attempts.

 

[DustyDrB]

I found the finals extremely boring, and also just frustrating (VG drafted basically the same lineup three games in a row, failing each time). I've heard some dismiss this kind of talk as people who didn't want an all Chinese final, which is just simply not true. LGD and DK were both Chinese teams that were very fun to watch: LGD with their Centaur+Invoker strats, DK with a myriad of off-the-wall stuff like support Juggernaut, IG with their aggressive early roaming. It pretty much comes down to the lack of tempo-controlling heroes other than Mu's Puck and the the one-sidedness of the games. Whereas as the TI3 finals was a back and forth slugfest between two evenly-matched teams featuring game-defining plays and great comebacks, this year's finals had one team trying the same push strategy and failing. Yesterday's finals games pretty much all blend in together.

That negativity aside, this TI as a whole was full of surprises and great games. There was a lot to improve on from Valve's side, but overall I was enthralled all throughout the event.

Finals were quite neat.

I found these to be the most boring games in the tournament. First game ends after 23 minutes, the second after 24 minutes, third after 15 and fourth after 13, the games ended with most, if not all, tier 2 towers on the losing site still standing. Newbee played really good, but this games were onesided and pub stomps. This was not a finale fitting a 11 mill. doller tournament.

Those are not the type of teams that will throw a game. Once they're ahead, they're ahead, there is no throwing. Once someone has established a comfortable lead that's it - the game is already over and the next thirty minutes will be a slow and painful death.

I kinda wished iG got into the Top 3, but alas it was not meant to be.

One of the biggest throws in the history of the game happened at TI4:

Spoiler

DK vs LGD game 1. LGD was down like 40K Gold and 2 sets of barracks vs a Nature's Prophet who was the top Net Worth hero.

Those games still happen even at the very highest level.

 

[animeh1star1a]

The problem with the grand finals was that there were only about 20 heroes picked or banned in the entire series, in what has been called the most balanced and versatile patch yet. Vici did not even try to get creative or adapt their strategy, they just picked nearly the same exact team and hoped that doing the same thing over and over would yield different results. All Newbee had to do was keep outplaying Vici in the exact same way.

This is not true. While there were some heros that saw a lot of screen time (notabley doom, mirana, Natures prophet,sandking, Wraith knight, Razor, Enigma, Skywrath, Batrider, and Shadow Shaman), only 5 or so heros were not picked overall, (ones that i know of are Nightsalker, Keeper of the light, Spirit breaker, Blood seeker, and Crystal maiden)

 

[AmberSword]

snip

What he probably meant was the grand finals itself, the BO5 of the grand finals is also know as a series, no doubt almost every hero was picked this TI, but the opposite was shown in the grand finals.

Which is why I'm so sad actually, the grand finals is something even people who don't play dota would watch, just like me not having a clue about football still watching the world cup finals. For Vici to let down both dota fans and interested new comers alike because of stubbornness was uncalled for, nevermind the fact that 5 Mil was on the line.

Valve itself messed up a lot in this tournament, it was just their first time handling something this big, so I don't really blame them. They probably only had limited days with key Arena, they couldn't rent it for a long enough time, that's why they had to come up with round robins and only having 8 teams compete at the main event in the end. The round robins were all BO1's, a very bad test for a team's skills. Vici deathballed their way to the top because teams literally had only one chance to face them. Once it came to the main event Vici started struggling much more, then got completely annihilated at the finals.

Another thing that really irked me was the lack of crowd shots, they relegated that completely to another stream, which few people actually found out about. The only times the crowd was shown were at the worst possible moments, right after the game with people exiting the arena to buy stuff/ washroom. It gave off a very dead atmosphere, VERY bad for a spectator sport like this.