We’re just dropping in to inform you that, in addition to our current eGameFame feature, we’re going to be investigating the various local South African clans. Coverage, exposure and all that jazz — you know, since we love our gaming community so much.

On the clan agenda we’re thinking reviews. We’ll look at clans and tell you about them. Perhaps we might even look at what they have been up to.

We’re telling you this not just to let you know, but also because we need you to help us. You’ll need to spread the word and tell us about your clan!

Drop us an email, and we will definitely get around to you. If you email us, we will reply as soon as it is your turn under the spotlight. We will ask various questions and even do all of the hard work. In fact, we’re only asking you to make first contact. Pretty simple, right?

So, if you cooperate with us — we’ll be nice. So nice that you might be able to call it objective. Even more nice that you might even be able to show it to a potential sponsor.

However, if you’re going to play hard to get — we’ll be slightly more subjective and mean. Just remember that we’re mean enough to find you, just so we can hurt your feelings!

We would greatly appreciate your cooperation in this. Please help us offer exposure to SA’s fine gaming teams.

Any game counts. Any team counts. In fact, any platform counts! PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. If you’re a Wii gang… Well, we’ll review you too!

Email us with your clan name, a contact email and what game you play.

Tell your friends too.

Written by Michael “Orange” Masson

Week one of the UCL got off to flyer last week with wins going to clans Star, PhD, dedA, DUC, 8or9 and Crap. One of the weeks highlight replays was the clash between CraP and NsF, captained by Magicman and Doppl3r respectively. NsF are a recently reformed clan, looking to get back into the competitive scene, sporting the likes of Doppl3r, Ryuu and Vsdgkk. The expectation was on them to win this one, with individual skill and experience exceeding that of Crap. However, a determined Crap kept cool, calm and collected throughout the game and with some well coordinated team play, managed to give NsF a lot more than they bargained for. NsF were downed by the good communication and synergy of Crap and out muscled late game by the TenQ’s in axe and necro.

The Draft

Bans

NsF:

Dark seer has, of late, become more often used – and used well with his flexibility be it ganging, laning or even late game support, thus he was banned. Bane was also elimed, a powerful ganger and solo lane. Stratting for a Rasta solo mid, bane would’ve been an obvious threat to the success of the rasta. We can also note at this point the tide ban, a mass AoE disabler, was benched with the stratting of a Chen, who thrives off less AoE to disable his creeps.

Crap:

Na and es, known trouble makers, were banned by Crap. Veng being the roaming problem child – going 2 solos, Crap were probably thinking whats best for someone trying to hold a lane/farm. Slardar was Craps more unorthodox ban, a hard to control super carry.

Picks, Assignments and Lanes:

NsF:

• Chen [Doppl3r] – Bush/Gang
• Doom [BearGrills] – Bot Solo
• Rasta [Ryuu] – Mid Solo
• CM [_Pies4ng] – Top
• Panda [Vsdgkk] – Top

Doppl3r went for strat based around Panda and him getting his scepter as early as possible (with cm to babysit and harass in his lane) and the silence doom to farm up as much as possible (note the early midas). Opting for a ganging chen that could help cm with the support role was a risky pick but allowed for some early kills to the favour of panda. The rasta played a more aggressive game than what we are used to seeing, taking on the solo mid and controlling the pirate. Lucifer in the bottom lane had a tough time controlling the conventionally feared axe/wl lane and eventually farmed less than expected.

A cm laning top supporting panda, a bushing chen ready to gang and a relatively frail necro laning top, sentinel were planning on dominating an early lane (top) whilst Doom farmed up bot and Rasta defended mid. Things obviously didn’t go as planned.

Crap:

• Axe [Magicman] – Bot
• Admiral [Lighten] –Mid Solo
• Warlock  [h0nd] – Bot
• Necrolyte [-Eraser-] – Top Solo
• Enigma [Nowhere] – Top Bush

Many new strats have emerged lately
and have been tried and tested. Last week, Crap kept to what they new opting for a more conventional strat. A bushing enigma to assit a top solo, farm some stats/wards/blink was not so surprising from Crap. Pirate is also a known solid farmer when soloing – of which can also make some kills with his disable. He also some decent late game AoE. Necro (who solo’d top) can be a deadly force late and early game, and after Nsf picked semi tanks in Panda and Doom, having someone who could eliminate one the higher hp battle heros could greatly influence the outcome of battles! The idea of Necro versus a Panda in battle is to focus his ulti on a lower hp panda before he can use Primal Spirit, the deadly, tanking three pandas from hell that can single handedly win battles. Necro had a hard time in his lane and his farming was halted by some constant deaths and harassing. Axe/WL is known to pay dividends if executed correctly, and was a good lane bot (with them assuming Chen would bush bot).

Early On

After some Rasta nets to attempt solo kills, a few missed torrents by pirate, and doom not letting up versus his tough axe/wl lane, first blood predictably went to NsF top lane with the cm/panda slows and chen rushing (frightening) poor necro into a dismal corner.

Enigma
had quite a tough job in the farms and was gunned down by the cm/panda/chen combo as often as necro. He ganged effectively and attempted to help recover top lane but, even after making 2 kills, couldn’t hold panda back from a farming spree (note there were wards planted in his primary creep pulling camp early on).

Meanwhile, bottom lane, axe was farming it up with the help of wl. An almost untouched, unganged lane by NsF – a critical mistake in my opinion. Their over-commitment

top blew Dooms farming expectations to smithereens, yet he did well for the situation he found himself in, even earning a kill when chen made the trek across the river! Axe was yet to be killed and sported a large wad of cash to
show for it. Doom was also hauling it in. Rasta and Pirate were also farming it up a bit mid, with even creep scores for a while and 1 kill a piece (pirate had a death and an assist).

These are the following aspects to note 10 mins into the game:

Score: 7/4

Towers lost: 0

Creep
Scores:

Wards
Purchased (sets): 2(cm)/2(wl)

Midgame

Midgame, things seemed to go all NsF for a long while, with multiple lane pushes, takings of towers and well coordinated gangs. This went hand in hand with some decent mid-game warding by chen. However, a big negative for NsF were the 3 low hp intel heros. As much as NsF seemed to dominate, Crap often snatched one or two kills from a gang. This kept them well in touch score wise.

Axe was already well farmed and on his way towards super tanking (with blink). Many NsF gangs, however, were ill coordinated and lead to nothing. This gave Crap the break to farm up – pirate with battle fury, enigma with blink, wl with necro book. Crap started comboing up with axe blink call, enigma ulti, wl ulti. They started winning 5v5’s and gaining the upper hand (with the odd battle victory going to NsF). NsF had the rasta pushes on their side and successfully took some towers, gaining gold all along and allowing them more space to farm.

NsF, although on the backfoot, also began to come back with some well timed aghanism-induced ultis from Vsdgkk (Panda) that won them many kills in various battles.

The game remained tight throughout the middle of the game with both teams trading kills every 5 or so minutes.

Mistakes were made by both teams, however it was evident at this stage that Crap were gelling well as a team, with some really well timed ulties and farming management.

NsF were burdened by some lazy map awareness by cm at times, and over confidence in many pushes. With cm buying wards and chen planting them, NsF were showing doubt in their support’s capabilities, never a good sign. Communication also brought them down at times with some people speaking over Teamspeak and others not.

Another big issue was the division of farming in NsF. With only a panda to carry them through fights, piling him with items seemed a plausible option. However, with doom farming his aga and refresher, rasta soloing (for a long time) and raking in gold from towers and creeps and cm carelessly pushing lanes every so often, he did not get enough chance to farm as much as he should’ve. Late game turned out interesting indeed.

Late Game

Some interesting stats (at 40 mins):

Score: 30/32

Creep Scores:

Wards: 18 /16

We began to see some late game pushes after NsF took a few vital kills. This severely dampened Crap defense and NsF were able to take a (melee) rax at 52 mins.

NsF continued some power pushes with panda’s ulti and rasta wards, taking another rax. 2 rax’s down and the creeps having pushed bottom scourge tower, scourge were on the backfoot, and if this pushing was to continue, they were sure to lose. It was time to act for Crap. After roshing (2^nd rosh – 2^nd aegis to necro), they pushed a few times themselves, the first few to no avail. Finally, one last massive push, Crap cleaned most of NsF out, continuing to rax mid. Slipping past defences, they raxed both bot and top, inducing super creeps. Nsf’s defence was weekend by consecutive deaths and no synergy. Pandas idea to save cash for a possible push of this sort, bought back 3 times trying to defend. Crap was already way too powerful and tanked up for vsdgkk’s primal spirit. They took the tree. Very persistent play from both teams lead to a classic!

Very powerful 5v5 heroes from both Crap and NsF lead to some decent late game turtling, and it was nice to see a tight replay for a change!

Well played Crap! Look forward to seeing both these clans back in action this week =P.

End game screenshot:

DotA Parse
Date: 09/11/2009 21:17

Patch version: 1.24

Map: DotA Allstars 6.64

Game name: [12]nsf v crap

Game mode: Normal mode

Host name: Vsdgkk

Replay saver: Doppl3R

Game length: 1:25:32

Players: 5v5

Game score: 52/43

Observers: Sacred_Warrior, The_Protagonist

Sentinel:

Doppl3R, level 20, K/D: 14/11, CS: 208/4, build: 9353 gold, items: , APM: 94

BearGrills, level 21, K/D: 7/13, CS: 149/10, build: 16258 gold, items: , APM: 94

Ryuu, level 19, K/D: 21/5, CS: 302/10, build: 12487 gold, items: , APM: 67

_Pies4ng, level 20, K/D: 0/0, CS: 0/0, build: 13265 gold, items: , APM: 65

Vsdgkk, level 21, K/D: 5/14, CS: 37/0, build: 17530 gold, items: , APM: 86

Scourge:

Magicman, level 19, K/D: 3/13, CS: 157/6, build: 19149 gold, items: , APM: 109

(Pirate)Lighten, level 25, K/D: 8/15, CS: 95/4, build: 21733 gold, items: , APM: 99

h0nd, level 25, K/D: 8/14, CS: 147/4, build: 12871 gold, items: , APM: 101

-Eraser-, level 21, K/D: 5/10, CS: 95/13, build: 19214 gold, items: , APM: 74

Nowere, level 19, K/D: 0/0, CS: 0/0, build: 12459 gold, items: , APM: 64

Article Source: www.GoodDota.za.net