MMR Match 4: Snowballs and Space Cows

I have not been having luck lately when it comes to Dota.

You NEVER have luck when it comes to Dota.

More so, though. Noticeably moreso. Over the last few days I have lost a grand total of SIX matches in a row. It was discouraging. Humbling. And the perfect reason to play another game of ranked!

I... what?

I'm a huge sucker for Gambler's fallacy, man. I made that clear in the last post. I was on a 'cold' streak, so it only makes sense that I had a win 'coming to me', you know? So I decided to lock myself in my room, slip into something comfortable, and play another match of that MMR calibration.

The sample MMRs for this match were 2665 on Radiant (us) and 2657 on Dire. I now fully understand that these are the MMRs of the people whose portraits the numbers are under, and not an average for the team, so I know better than to think that my 6 game un-ranked losing streak caused me to drop out of the 3k bracket I was in last time. I know better... but I couldn't help thinking it.

We choose first this time around, and orange immediately mashes the random button and gets Tusk, alerting me for the first time that yes, the random button still exists in ranked All Pick. Fascinating. Our Tusk calls gg and calls the safe lane and we... are actually all ok with that. No fuss. No cries of noob. Just acceptance. My team was, in general, vey chill, which was a nice change of pace from how these things usually work. The enemy team picks Spirit Breaker in response. Right out the gate, we've got a battle of the gankers.

Tusk and Spirit Breaker are two heroes I've never actually been good at. Whenever they're on the other team, they always seem like these insanely dangerous, nigh omnipresent heroes who come out of nowhere and murder you before have a chance to ping for help. Whenever I play them, I'm weak, ineffectual, and end up buying wards and hoping our carry can pull us through. There's something I'm lacking that makes me a subpar roaming ganker.. is it map awareness? Lack of confidence? Do I not find as much farm as I should? I really don't know.

I end up playing Gyrocopter in this match: a hero I have a guide out for that I've yet to update for 6.84. Should probably get on that. Since Tusk is our safelane, Undying and Phoenix (who also randomed) are our offlane, and we have a Crystal Maiden supporting our safe lane farming Tusk, I go mid against the enemy Tinker. The lineup, as is tradition by now:



Clinkz has a beard, yeah? That's a weird looking skull otherwise. Anyways.

The game starts off with a bang almost immediately, with the Undying and Phoenix offlane securing first blood against the Clinkz. Not only that, but you know what they spend their first blood gold on? DUST. Dust of Appearance. I... I pause for a moment, to reflect happily that I'm at least at an MMR where people will buy dust against a Clinkz Treant lane in order to secure all the kills. The Tusk and CM trade a few kills back and forth with the SB and Lich, and Tinker and I share an uneasy equilibrium in mid-lane (though I did deny quite a few of his creeps from him. Delayed his Boots of Travel for sure.)

My last-hitting with Gyro isn't the best and I fully admit that, so I get my Bottle a little later than I should. (I also didn't go for a fast bottle build, so make what you will out of that.) I rotate bottom lane on seeing that Dire has four people down there for some reason, and eve grab a kill on the Lich! Unfortunately, the guy hit level 6 just a few seconds before hand and... uh...


Lich's name probably REALLY accurately describes how he felt tossing that thing at me. He also gets ANOTHER kill on the Crystal Maiden not too long after thing, but Tusk gets Spirit Breaker for it, and on offlane Phoenix and Undying spray firey zombies all over Clinkz and Treant for more carnage. In the midlane, I pick off the Tinker, making the score 10-6 at nine minutes in. In response, the Spirit Breaker and Clinkz rotate onto me, but I slip behind the tower and avoid giving up a kill... for now. Not a minute later, the Spirit Breaker charges me again, and this time catches me as I'm going for the rune allowing the Tinker to pick me off with Laser. He dies immediately to a rotation from Tusk, however, and on bottom lane both Lich and Clinkz die.

At this point, it's important to note something: our safe lane farming Tusk has five kills and three deaths, while the safe lane farming Clinkz on the Dire side has 0 kills and 4 deaths. At ten minutes in, the score may be 14-9, but 6 of the Dire's kill belong to Lich, who himself has died 4 times. My point is that we have momentum going. We have an advantage, and we begin to press it. Hard.

The Tinker respawns and teleports middle lane, hoping to finally farm up his Boots of Travel. Tusk, still there, rolls on him and blows him up in a matter of seconds. This draws... basically everyone midlane. The Lich goes after a low health Phoenix only to be Frostbitten and solo ultid by a wandering Crystal Maiden. The Tinker teleports back mid and... gets rolled on and blown up by Tusk again. Treant Protector responds by using an ult from invis, but Phoenix dusts and I, coming up from the river, use Call Down to wreck his face. Tusk rolls on and blows up the Lich, Spirit Breaker charges Phoenix and bashes him down before he can use Supernova, but then dies to a Rocket Barrage by yours truly. This makes the score 20-10 at 13 minutes in.

Tusk goes back bottom to farm a little and Spirit Breaker charges him. He dodges it with Snowball and I teleport down to the tower to pick him off with ANOTHER Rocket Barrage. Lich and Treant Protector also get caught out and killed as they rotate down to try and help. Crystal Maiden gets Blink Dagger out of that one. We push bottom off of that and I grab the tower kill.

At this point, the Tusk really starts to make space, running around the map and punching people into the sky. At 20 minutes in, he has ten kills and I have 5, and I notice that I haven't even farmed BKB yet because I've been so busy rotating and ganking. So I start to take a more passive style and begin to farm and get ready for late game while Tusk continues to make space.

There's just one problem: the Tusk doesn't really ever... STOP making space. None of my teammates do. If I get ganked, they're there and getting two or three kills in exchange for my death. If the Tinker starts to push a lane, Tusk one-shots him... like, literally one-shots him once he has Desolator and Monkey King Bar. Crystal Maiden, now equipped with Glimmer Cape, wrecks face with surprise ultimates that actually DO something. Undying kills people. Tusk kills people. Phoenix kills people. Tusk kills even more people. I farm! I push down bottom lane tier 2 at one point. It's not glamorous, it doesn't give me an impressive looking KDA, but it's my JOB dang it. I'm not the best at it, but I do passably well.

The game goes on for about 35 minutes without us really being able to push high ground down against the Tinker, the Lich, and the Treant Protector's constant heals. We need to draw them out and kill them so we can end. And so the Crystal Maiden goes and... 'farms'.


Tragically, the Crystal Maiden does die when she's ganked by four of the Dire team at once. But, Tusk and Phoenix were both waiting in the trees by the secret shop and I was rotating up the lane, so... everyone on the Dire team but Treant Protector, who didn't show his face, dies in exchange. We push down top rax, rotate and push down mid rax, then rotate and push down bottom rax. The snowball is real. GG.


Yes. That Tusk did end up going 28-4-10. Just... well played, sir. Well played.

The Dotabuff page for the match can be found here, and you're all welcome to download the game and watch yourselves if you'd like. Post any comments you want, but I'd ask you to direct your focus on me, yeah? No reason to drag anyone else through the mud about this game. As for me, I'll chip in my own preemptive mud-dragging:

1) I'm not great at last hitting with Gyrocopter. I already said that. It's still true though.

2) I spent too much time rotating around in the early game and not enough time farming. Which means that:

3) I don't end the game as farmed as I should be by 40 minutes in. Sure, I have BKB, MKB (in stash), Helm and Phase Boots but... eh. I still wasn't quite strong enough to carry the game, even though I didn't have to. I would've liked to have finished Satanic by this point in the match.

6 matches to go! I'm almost halfway done!

Safecyn, signing out.


The Entire MMR Experience
Match 1: Grains in the Hourglass
Match 2: Defense of an Ancient
Match 3: Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death