The International - what have we learnt?

They were building Razor wrong if they want to farm, they kept the same aghs refresher build, instead of going for a mek + bkb build, so they can get the full drain off in a fight and wreck face. I've only seen it once happen the entire tournament, though gotta give it to RTZ, he's been adapting really well his hero to the enemies, especially Razor, I've seen hex, ghost scepter and many more from him.

Dendi Tiny worked in the one game against Liquid, but they tried the same thing against Newbee, and lost mid 2v1 to Mu's TA..

I think the bottomline was that, instead of playing heroes they were suited for, they tried to play "meta" heroes even though it didn't suit their playstyle. An obvious example was Dendi - this player is known for his flashy plays and playmaking heroes (like Puck/Pudge/Ember Spirit/etc). Instead, he played a lot of heroes like Death Prophet that didn't suit his playstyle, which really limited his ability. For teams like Na'Vi that depend a lot on their mid player making plays during the mid game, this really hurt them a ton. The series against C9 emphasizes this even more. The games Dendi played Mirana and DP, they lost. The game he played Invoker, they ended up winning.

In my opinion, teams should stick to what they are strong at, and tweak their play according to the meta, rather than totally revamping their drafts/heroes to suit the meta.

I agree with you, just not the tiny example. He was 100% with him at TI untill that TA. I believe 3-0

I feel like Newbee won Playing like Navi used to excel at. Dendi should've been "unleashed" similar to past TI's with his signature heroes. A solid farmer should've been picked other than razor for Xboct so he would've been somewhat leashed..and honestly where the hell was the Kuro Rubick? They played into a meta that favored their aggressive playstyle, yet failed utterly, unless they went for the throat with heroes they excel at (game 2 vs C9)

DK gets the same review: where were the plays? MMY and LaNm made some huge plays, Mushi didn't have the magic of last year, Iceiceice was locked into heroes he definitely was bored with the thought of, and well, sad for Burning. Just seemed the strategies weren't all there for the team. A team with game breaking players at each position should have won.

Newbee--so glad they won, "Strongfu" from last year back with a vendetta. They outplayed everyone and showed no mercy, lovely to watch that kind of team cohesion and strategy combined with the skill the team had individually. A dream Team of sorts. Awesome team.

I'm even more excited for next TI, really hope the shake ups after TI make for a great year of dota.

Alliance pretty much lost all their games cause they went with Meta heroes instead of their core heroes.


Also hated the Meta heroes. Tons of Void/skywrath and Razor pics.

EG got so many wins due to countering the Void/Skywrath combo it wasn't even funny.

EG also showed the depth of their hero pull by making both Abaddon and Silencer work as supports in the same draft.