Day one of the Dota 2 International was – not to put too fine a point on it – off tap.
With close to two thousand fans (or nerds, or both) buzzing around Seattle’s Benaroya Hall to see the day’s competition, the atmosphere was actually quite impressive – the arriving players were greeted with huge cheers (and the odd heckle) as they made their way past the line to get in.
Once the doors were opened, punters flooded into the hall, bee-lining for the Secret Shop to buy out all the good merch. With that out of the way, the games got under way, via some introductory panel discussion and Gabe Newell standing on stage for sixty seconds while the audience went berserk.
First up was Na’Vi against Orange, and it was a fitting curtain-raiser.
The first game began with four kills inside the first minute – a small spat over a rune escalating rapidly into a full-blown barney – leaving each team with two kills, but Orange soon pulled ahead in an action-packed first five minutes (which then settled into a back-and-forth slugfest), and they managed to maintain the upper hand, eventually wiping Na’Vi while pushing their base and ending the game.
Na’Vi seemed to settle in the second game, and in spite of dropping to 3-1 in the early exchanges, they gnawed their way back, relying on insane Bounty hunter play from Funnik and the odd dash of outrageous aggression (particularly from Dendi’s Puck) to knock the game over in their favour.
Na'Vi.
For the third game Na’Vi sat well inside their comfort zone (four of five team members playing their most commonly-used hero), and it worked. They settled further, picking off a few handy ganks in the midlane to put themselves into the box seat. From there they were patient and structured, and Orange never really recovered from their early losses, eventually succumbing to extreme pressure in the midlane and punching out.
Set two, between TongFu (hereafter referred to as ‘PorridgeFu’ because they’re sponsored by a porridge manufacturer and porridge is brilliant and the team aren’t bad either) and Fnatic (not supported by a porridge company, sadly), was more straightforward.
In the first game, Fnatic began badly, not quite making their picks work as well as they needed – as well as being pretty unlucky in the early engagements – and PorridgeFu punished them mercilessly, halting any attempt to gain momentum and hammering them to a GG in 22 minutes.
In game two, Fnatic improved, but while they kept it closer than the first game – even seeming ahead on paper for large portions of the midgame – they still looked unsure, and in the end colossal Gyrocopter performance from Hao, as well as Banana’s crucial Bane interventions (both defensive and offensive), won the game after almost an hour of play. This game played like a statement of intent from TongFu – sure, not everyone will give them the sort of space they were afforded here, but it’s obvious that if anyone does, they’ll be punished for it. Real hard.
From there things moved into the do-or-die regions of the loser’s bracket, with the winless RattleSnake and crowd favourites Dignitas first up.
In this Dignitas picked up Io – who is apparently so good as to break the meta-game with his awesomeness – and while it wasn’t immediately apparent (RattleSnake took the first two kills and intermittently looked very good, going ahead 6-10 at one point), Dignitas were the better team. They sat behind in kills for long stretches of the game, but the split-pushing power of Universe (as Nature’s Prophet) and a tendency to hurt Rattlesnake on the counter led them to victory, bundling RattleSnake out of the competition. The crowd yelled ‘U-S-A’ a lot.
Dignitas.
The second loser’s bracket game for the day was between Mousesports and LGD International.
It’d be nice to say this game was balanced, but Mousesports were out-picked and then convincingly outplayed. Their mix wasn’t bad, but against the Clockwerk of Brax – not to mention Pajkatt and God (Gyro and Dragon Knight respectively) – they definitely suffered. Mousesports found themselves relying heavily on the Phantom Lancer of Black, who did admirably (as did the entire team) in sitting back, defending, and farming towards a position that wasn’t quite so bleak, but in the end it was to no avail. They were the second team eliminated, and LGDI looked solid.
The penultimate game of the day was Orange (who had dropped to the loser’s bracket) vs Dignitas, and it was almost decided before the game began. Where Orange opted for a strong all-round side, Dignitas ended up with a very late-game-focused side, and the early-to-mid game did not treat them well.
They did manage to suppress Mushi’s Queen of Pain early on (difficult, given that he was in sparkling form – only exceptional defence kept him from snowballing rapidly), but eventually began to slip behind. In a similar case to the previous game, they found themselves playing for time in order to get their important late-game items (notably a Radiance burny death sword for Aui_2000’s bear). Once they had the radiance (as well as a couple of magic-blocking Black King Bars) they almost got back into the game, but in the end Orange showed their superiority (and hopefully some form that they’ll carry forward), using double-damage runes on the Queen of Pain to maximum advantage and rolling most of the later team-fights.
Last up was Fnatic against LGD International, and it was here that Fnatic showed what they can really do. After their disappointing showing in the winner’s bracket, they systematically dismantled LGDI, showing another slice of the form that saw them defeat Na’Vi 2-0 in the group stages.
Trixi was the lynchpin around which their game grew, as his Bounty Hunter relentlessly hassled LGDI, sacrificing both experience and gold to make a real nuisance of himself all across the map. As a result, LGDI’s supports found themselves feeling vulnerable, a feeling exacerbated by H4nn1’s solid Dragon Knight performance against God’s Templar Assassin in the mid. With the Templar struggling, Era sat his Lifestealer on the bottom lane and hammered the last nail in. He built an item lead from the start, and once team-fights started happening it only got bigger. LGDI had their moments, but Fnatic’s performance was composed, ruthless and intelligent. They have showed their quality once again, and hopefully they (and Orange) can carry this hot form into their next games.
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Michael Blake is an Australian freelance writer and PC nutter. You can follow him on IGN here, or take part in the Aussie team's antics on Facebook or Twitter.
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