The International 5

Fun fact, that was only the second time Na'Vi have run Lina this patch. At least that's what the in-game stats man said.

As for the Io pick; I think they wanted something that would help mid, because it's very hard to lane against a Shadow Fiend and an Earthshaker. Lina can do it solo, but its still an extremely hard lane.

Like, you could say have the Dazzle help Lina mid, but it's not really something the hero is that good at. And name a hero that was still in the pool that's better at helping mid than the Io? Especially helping a hero with a lot of spam, and against a pair of heroes with massive kill potential.

Plus, they had a pretty mobile line-up for ganks, with Tusk and AM being able to gap close, so there was a lot of Relocate potential with Dendi, the Tether sustain would in theory let XBOCT fight above his weight (Which is really important against VG's line-up given how greedy it was. It was a tri-core line-up, AM needed something to help him being a stronger core). Likewise it would let them rat better because an AM with Relocate can do a lot of base damage in a very short time, which again lets the line-up scale later.

It wasn't the most typical Io game, but I think it was still a justifiable one.

Na'Vi had two issues; XBOCT acting like XBOCT in a game where he absolutely couldn't afford to do that, and Na'Vi getting out-drafted. Since that felt like an outdraft to me.

EDIT; I guess what I'm saying is; It's really hard to pick a line-up that Io is a bad pick in. There are line-ups it shouldn't be picked against, but what the hero does means he can fit in virtually any draft.

How the hell are you guys bashing xboct? I don't think he's a great player or anything, be he for sure didn't screw up that game (he had one dumb death and some other minor mistakes).
If anyone lost Na'vi this game it's dendi and artstyle.

Dendi spent 10-15 mins in the trees trying to pick off someone, meanwhile vici ofc was 5 manning all game because they were playing against a wisp to stop pick offs. His farm from min 35 till the end was really bad.
Artstyle gave weave multiple times to rubick, he had like 1 good grave and that's it. (not to mention that last grave on himself but w/e they lost at that point probably).

Xboct sure screws up a lot, but in that game him and sonneiko were their best players.

XBOCT's play at top lane where he stayed in the trees longer than he should do, and blew his 10 second BKB charge. That mistake then cost them Rosh and two kills. As well as farming the Dire jungle at a time he shouldn't have and getting killed as a result.

Yes, he made big plays involving the racks top lane. But he still made way too many mistakes that were very much XBOCT mistakes.

In essence, whilst it was not as crazy as XBOCT is known for, he still made some really big mistakes in that game. But really everyone buy Sonneko did. I guess Funn1k never made any big mistakes, but he just didn't do a lot.

Yes, that was a big mistake sure, but it wasn't the play that lost them the game.
You are really underating how much Na'vi lost because of dendi being in the trees for 15 mins.
Because all of that waiting he lost at least 5k gold, which is HUGE.
If he had refresher, he could burst luna, and AM would kill sf with abyssal.

Here we go, it's the Battle of America!

One day Valve, you will be able to run a tournament that goes off without any major hitches.

Tbh, if nothing else the Major's will force it, since I imagine they'll be things like ESL and DAC which ran more smoothly than this. If the events are held by companies that have good track records for this sort of thing, then TI will probably be made to improve as a result.

I know they are probably external issues, but it's still a little sad given how well things were going during the groups.

Missed the beginning of the game, opened the stream when pauses started, gj me+valve.

According to the folks at the analyst desk, TI5 is being DDOS'd. The biggest esport event of the year and it isn't equipped to defend against a ddos attack. #Whylive

In which case thanks to whichever bastard is trying to show how clever he is by doing this.

And like, at the very least this will make Valve make DOTAtv work for a LAN setting next year. Since that's part of the problem as it is, in that if it was a LAN, you wouldn't be able to watch it.