King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 3 – First Blood

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

The Buildup

So after a few technical hiccups, Xera’s 286 rebooting, glitch’s ADSL resetting, Wingster’s  power tripping and a cat on fire, this week’s King of the Hill turned out to be quite an awesome game. A big thanks to both teams for agreeing to a re after about 6 loads, as we could restart the stream for the fans and so our guest commentator had something to commentate on. We didn’t manage to record this week’s, but I hear Waz_Mac’s take on the game was quite entertaining. Thanks for filling in Waz, we’ll have you back anytime. We do apologize for the technical problems; the team at egamer is working hard to get things smooth for next week’s game. Also yes yes I know the write up was a bit late, but that really was all Nitrate and Blink’s fault.

Admin Log:

Due to game stability issues, it has been agreed by both teams that the game will be re’d. – KotH admin team

Don’t care what I think and want to form your own opinion? You can get the replay and check it out yourself.

Replay: http://www.dota-allstars.com/download/replay/128053 – 679KB

 

The overview

So this week’s game started a little later than usual, with both teams and EVENTUALLY Fluke joining. The game started at 9:51pm as an AP due to the draft having been decided in the first game. For those of you who want to know, mmK were randomed to go first. As dedicated’abuse were sentinel last week, this week they represented the scourge with mmK playing as sentinel.

 

The Bans

No suprises here, although this week was the first time we’ve not seen Crystal Maiden banned. The other four regulars (Necro, Tauren, Zombie and Enigma) made the list as well as some of the other common bans we’ve seen before.

 Sentinel – mmK Scourge – Dedicated Abuse

The Picks

This week’s picks were loaded with surprises, as mmK decided that they didn’t need any agility heroes or much DPS, and decided on two meat shields with three spell casters/support heroes. Let’s just say it didn’t work which was especially noticeable in the team fights as they had no real way to initiate which left them on the back foot most of the time. The Axe did go blink, but due to dedA’s map control, Axe (Cookie-Monster) only farmed this after 23 minutes of play. On the other side, dedA opted for a pretty standard pick, with only the Bane in their starting line-up from last week. No real surprises as to how they played, Puck initiated, Rhasta ward pushed, Abaddon (a.k.a the man on the horse) tanked and Kitty did lots of damage. Even though it didn’t work that well, it was refreshing to see something different from mmK and not the usual cookie cutter strats.

Sentinel – mmK Scourge – Dedicated Abuse

  

The Assignments

Sentinel – mmK	Scourge – dedA
Wingster – Pugna – Oblivion	Bonkers - Rhasta – Shadow Shaman
daekiNho – Rylai Crestfall – Crystal Maiden	Glitch – Mirana Nightshade – Priestess of the Moon
Cookie-Monster – Mogul Kahn – Axe	BounCy – Abaddon – Lord of Avernus
D-o1shi – Lina Inverse – Slayer	PhoBos – Puck – Faerie Dragon
Ecstacy- N’aix – Life stealerÂ	CryT_T – Atropos – Bane Elemental

 

The Game and the Kills

Both teams got off to a good start, each going with a 2-1-2 lane strategy. dedA had Kitty/Bane top and Rhasta/Man on a horse bot against mmK’s Axe/Crystal combo top and Lina/Naix combo bottom, leaving Puck and Pugna to Battle out middle. Both teams got off to a good start and overall things were close early on. 10 minutes in dedA had a 2 kill lead and were only 1 creep kill ahead.

Pictured: Cookie on the run from Glitch’s Arrow

However mmK were clearly struggling top, with all the mmK deaths coming from this lane. This was the calm before the storm, as dedA shifted up a gear, ganking left, right, centre and even catching an offguard daekiNho in the bushes. Just 10 minutes later the game had shifted into dedA’s favour, with a strong 10 kill lead (13/3) lead, even though mmK were doing a better job farming 196/180. With dedA’s early tower push strat, mmK were confined to their base and from here on dedA just picked them off one at a time as they pushed. The game finished 9/35 in dedA’s favour after just 36 minutes and 11 seconds.

Pictured: Daek sleeping most the game 

 

The Towers and the Map control

Wow… that’s going to be your response when you watch the replay and see dedA’s tower blitz. In previous games, I had mentioned that at times dedA seemed disorganized and generally never seemed to push. Well that definitely wasn’t the case this week, as dedA smashed down mmK’s tier 1 and 2 towers in just over 9 minutes, the first 4 falling in 3 minutes and 3 seconds. The trouble all started when a push bottom, spearheaded by Rhasta’s wards, on the mmK tier 1 bottom tower in the 12^th minute, led to dedA taking both bottom towers in one push. This was followed up with a quick regroup and gank mid, leaving mmK exposed and another hard push with both mid towers falling. A quick trip to town for some hp/mana and dedA started their assult on the top towers, taking slightly longer (about 4 minutes) to get these two, as mmK had cottoned on to their plan. The bad news was that 22 minutes 45 seconds into the game, mmK were left with no tier 1/2 which as we all know leads to farming problems. To make matters worse, dedA still had all their towers and a few well placed observer wards to keep mmK in check.

The Vital Stats

If it’s a little small, check out the bigger vesion here.

The Summary

dedA spanked the monkeys (Ed: Not that kind of Monkey Nitrate) and so defended their hill and remain as king for this week. The game was named first blood as dedA are the first team to get a point as they won while being king. GG WP to both teams, and thanks again for playing. Although things were a bit rocky in the beginning this weeks Koth turned out alright.

mmK will be out of the next vote, but I’m sure we’ll see them back soon. So who’s going to play dedA in the next game? That’s all up to you. Pantheon and Mint both return, so vote wisely for who will take on dedA.

To cast your vote for next week’s challenger, check out http://egamer.co.za/2009/05/koth-4-results-and-voting/

Gank you in the bushes – FatBob – Slobber@kothseries.co.za

P.s. Shout out to oldman, boo, ronnie, farmer, hulk, grumpy, and of course Jesus