King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 4 – Two to Tango

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

The Buildup

And so another week of King of the Hill goes by, with yet another awesome match. This week we had Clan Select Few representing the scheming Scourge up against the reigning kings Dedicated’Abuse playing for the saintly Sentinel. Luckily there were no technical hiccups affecting the game, however we did lose the stream again after 30 minutes. We are actively working on this and hope to have the stream stable for next week.

Admin Log:

No admin decisions this week.

As always the replay is available, so you can see how things went down yourself. Hope the comments don’t ruin it for you though.

Replay: http://www.dota-allstars.com/download/replay/130328 - 745Kb

The overview

Week 4′s game between dedA (Dedicate’Abuse) and sF (Select Few) started at 20:49 on Tuesday night. No major hiccups occurred, and for a change (while the stream worked anyway) spectators got the chance to watch the ban/pick phase which was a first. dedA were randomly drawn to start off the ban phase. Incase you have the memory of a goldfish, dedA represented the Sentinel (as they were scourge last week) and sF were representing the scourge.

 

The Bans

This week’s bans saw a slight adjustment, with one of the “unpickables” (heroes that have been banned since the start of KotH) being dropped by both sides.  Enigma was not banned this week, and suprise suprise, he was picked. Other notable bans were the two super pushers (Rhasta/Krobelus) along with Crystal Maiden who made a return to the bans.  So the remaining “unpickables” are the Tauren, the Necrolyte and of course the Zombie.

Sentinel - Dedicated AbuseScourge – Select Few

 

The Picks

Starting off this week’s picks was dedA with n00b assassin followed up by sF picking Enigma, this being Enigma’s first appearance in the KotH. dedA’s s overall pick was slightly different to what you’d expect, opting for lots and lots of disable, which they put to very good use. sF picked a more rounded team, with a traditional strong pusher (Lanik), a tank (Axe), a strong damage per second (Nevemore), a spammer (Zeus) and then of course a pusher/disable with Enigma.

Sentinel - Dedicated AbuseScourge – Select Few

 

The Assignments 

Sentinel – dedA	Scourge – sF
Azen – King Leoric – Skeleton King	Leto – Demnok Lannik – Warlock
PhoBos – Atropos – Bane Elemental	GmadmaN – Zeus – Lord of Olympia
Clitsy – Mirana Nightshade – Priestess of the Moon	NooB_likeVigo – Mogul Kahn – Axe
Bonkers - Lion – Demon Witch	[ft]-[d]eath – Nevermore – Shadow Fiend
CryT_T – Anub’arak – Nerubian Assassin	zieOwnz – Darchrow – Enigma

 

The Game and the Kills

Week 4 produced an exciting game, with both teams going for slightly different strategies. Playing to their hero strengths, sF focused on pushing hard early game and farming as much as possible. Watching the overall CS saw sF leading 100-82 on creep kills after 10 minutes of play. With strong farmers like Axe and Shadowfiend it’s not all that suprising. 20 minutes of play and sF had stretched this lead to 239-154. Small problem with all of sF’s creep farming… They were being farmed by dedA. Almost every single team fight saw sF come off second best as dedA put all their stun to work. Pictured: Gmadman just misses a tripple with zeus with some quick tango eating from ClitsyB and Bonkers saving the day.

The hero kills tell a very different tale. From 10 minutes in, dedA ganged and picked off sF every chance they got. As sF racked up the creep kills and tower kills, so dedA racked up the hero kills. The table below gives a little idea of of how dedA progressed.

                                dedA     sF

5 minutes            1              2
10 minutes          5              3
20 minutes          16           7
30 minutes          26           9 

Pictured: ClitsyB taking over the helm from dominator as “the running man”.

 

The Towers and the Map control

Again with sF’s hero combination and determined farming/pushing, they struck first taking dedA’s level 1 top tower in just under 11 minutes. And sF were quick to strike down dedA’s middle and bottom soon after, having taken all three of dedA’s level 1 towers in just under 20 minutes. Of course when dedA stopped ganging and started pushing, the situation was quickly rectified.

 

The Vital Stats 

Need it a little bigger? BIG

 

The Summary

So it was dedA to win for a 3^rd week in a row. The first 15 minutes were quite evenly matched, however dedA’s team of disablers coupled with some good play stole the game right out from under sF. The game only lasted 36 minutes with sF calling just after dedA had taken mid, the final scoreded 37/11 in dedA’s favour. It was a convincing win and dedA are slowly proving that they’re one of the top teams, having already having beaten mmk, a handicapped Mint and now sF. Hopefully one of the big three (bvd/mint/tankh) will win next weeks vote so dedA can really be put to the test.

So dedA have earned two points in the tournament so far with a chance to make it three next week. sF will be taking a break as they lost their lost game and Pantheon have pulled out of KotH. Otherwise all other teams will be eligible.

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

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