King of the Hill Dota Series: Breakdown of “The warm up”

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-The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming-

This is a followup to http://egamer.co.za/2009/05/king-of-the-hill-dota-series-the-warm-up/

The Overview

Tonight’s KoTH Exhibition Match was contested between Tankh and dedA with Tank emerging victorious after a hard fought 52 minutes. The match kicked off last night (05/05/09) at 8:30pm sharp and even with a few connectivity scares, the match went off without a hitch and required no remakes. Tankh representing the Sentinel were randomly chosen to go first.

The Bans

Tankh started the bans, opting to go with Enigma. Not the most conventional choice as a first ban. The rest of the bans were fairly common, although it was a bit surprising not seeing Rikimaru (ed: Also know as Ricky Martin) make up one of the eight bans.

Sentinel – Tankh
Scourge – dedicated`abuse

The Picks

Both teams picked good combinations, each with strong DPS (Damage per second), with each team selecting strong late game agility heroes in Mirana and Morph, good AOE in Sand King/Warlock for Scourge and Kitty/Pirate for Sentinel. Each team also had strong pushing heroes with Warlock and Rhasta; and of course a fair stack of disable with the likes of Rhasta/Bane. Lots of options to initiate for both sides, although puck was by far the primary instigator as always. Not surprisingly, Naix also made an appearance for dedA’s Scourge as their super tank with his counterpart on Tankh’s Sentinel being the pirate (did somebody say they want some splash damage with a side of splash damage?).

Sentinel – Tankh
Scourge – dedicated`abuse

The Assignments

Sentinel – Tankh	Scourge – dedicated`abuse
Scant – Lina Inverse – Slayer	Azen – Atropos – Bane Elemental
Angel – Puck -Faerie Dragon	Phobos – Morphling – Morphling
Radox – Mirana Nightshade – Priestess of the Moon	Clitsybananas – N’aix – Life stealer
Sphere- Rhasta – Shadow Shaman	Bonkers – Demnok Lannik – Warlock
HorrorCast – Kunkka – Admiral (But really he’s the pirate)	CryT_T – Crixalis – Sand King

The Game and the Kills

The game got off to a good start, with dedA opting for a 1-2-2 strategy (1 top, 2 middle, 2 bottom) where as not surprisingly Tankh opted for one of their usual 2-1-1 strats, keeping Lina purely for ganking early game. With this strategy, Tankh took an early lead, ganking Azen (Atropos) who was top, barely two minutes into the game (1:30).

Pictured: Azen being distracted by the ever luscious Lina Inverse and about to get shackled.

The teams got straight back to the farming, with scant as Tankh’s trouble maker on the lookout for his next victim. The next duo to get ganked was CryT_T (Sand King) and Azen (Atropos) around the 8 minute mark. It all started with SK teleporting top, with Lina following soon after. A shackle here, a Dragon slave there and SK/Bane were done. They did however manage to take sphere (Rhasta) down with them bringing the score up to 3-1.
Pictured:CryT_T about to be introduced to Lina’s Light strike.

dedA however did not give up, and kept coming back at Tankh with everything they had. 20 minutes in, dedA were only trailing Tankh by two kills (11-9), and generally were never more than 3-4 kills off from Tankh. 30 Minutes in, they were at their closest just a single kill behind (17-16). Forty minutes in the score was still close at 26/22 to Tankh. The score pretty much stayed this way until right at the end. The final score was 44/26 to Tankh, with a few pulls from the fountain in the remaining minutes once the middle and bottom raxes were down.

The Tower kills

Tankh also struck first against dedA’s towers, taking the top tower just 15 minutes in. By 20 minutes in, Tankh had disposed of all of dedA’s level one towers opening up the map and forcing them back slightly. The fighting continued for the next 20 minutes, with Tankh continuing to apply pressure to dedA’s towers. At 38 minutes in, dedA managed to take down their first tower(mid), with only a single level two tower standing (also mid). Tankh remedied this situation shortly after the 40 minute mark, destroying dedA’s last level two tower, and warding the scourge bushes to gain an even stronger grip over possession of the map.

The Beginning of the End

dedA decided it was now or never and started pushing Tankh’s bottom level one tower 45 minutes into the game. Tankh pounced on this opportunity, pushing mid and quickly stole the middle level three tower before dedA had time to get back and defend. dedA managed to push Tankh back slightly, however with sphere’s wards and the whole Tankh team pushing back in and banging at the Scourge middle raxes, it just wasn’t going to be dedA’s day. Shortly after Tankh switched to bottom to demolish a second lane and secure the win.

The Vital Stats

Want to watch the whole game? Grab a copy of the replay http://www.dota-allstars.com/download/replay/121480

The Summary

Both teams played well although lane and map control definitely went to Tankh. Tankh were very structured at times and always seemed to have a game plan, while dedA just seemed to play the role they were forced into, never really fighting for map control, and at times did look shaky. I have to say I was surprised dedA kept up with Tankh on kills, and both teams really pulled off some good 5v5 team fights. Both sides warded well, and did well farming. Tankh’s strategy of the roaming player really paid off and they deserved the win, but I look forward to watching dedA play again and expect to see them keep the other top sides on their toes. Gee Gee to both sides, thanks for competing in our exhibition match and good luck in the polls.

Check out http://egamer.co.za/koth-voting-results/ for more details.

Gank you in the bushes – FatBob