MMR Match 1: Grains in the Hourglass

I felt a little silly when I clicked the 'Ranked Match' option. Not because the idea of me playing in Ranked mode is inherently hilarious, mind you (though for some of you, it surely is), but because as I was waiting for the queue to pop I couldn't help but feel nervous.

As much as I love to think about this game, study its complexities, and rage at the rampant ineptitude of both myself and my friends (typically just myself), it is, at the end of the day, just a game. The fact that there were butterflies in my stomach is a little embarrassing, I think.

But hey, on the flip side: free Butterfly. Can't argue with that.

A full three and a half minutes later I finally get into a game. Graciously, all 10/10 connect on the first try, so I can't give into the temptation to close the game and hide. #Prettypathetic.

The first thing I notice is the average team MMR, both just a little over 2800. As a guy who doesn't specialize in any one hero and has roughly a 50% win/loss ratio, this is both surprising and encouraging. I'm not in the 1K trench! Unless, of course, I am and we had a 5K player on the team to balance me out. I try not to think about that and try to reach out to my team and say hi, but they aren't responding yet. The enemy team is Radiant and picks first, and within a few seconds they first-pick Troll Warlord.

I get a sickening feeling that this will be all too common as I find my rung on the ladder. Our All Pick counter ticks down slowly and I start to panic. No one is picking. NO ONE IS PICKING. With one second left, I choose a hero I know I'm halfway decent with.

Sand King MOFOS! (Note: I actually tried to take notes during the game so I could go back and accurately talk about what I was feeling. This line is the only thing I wrote during the draft phase. It's also the last thing I wrote so... so much for notes.) Draft phase goes back and forth and we string together something that looks like a teamfight comp. I convince our last player to pick Faceless Void. With that, the combatants are set:


One of the most jarring things I had to re-learn when coming back to Dota was the new expectations for the early game. For the first few years I was playing, I would stand near base, do my best creep block, and get the lane into a favorable position for farming. But that's different now: the double bounty rune thing means buying your items quickly and skedaddling over to the river, which I actually remembered to do this time! I was proud. I was standing by the run, waiting to contest, and lo and behold the first skirmish of the game happened.

It happened because the first thing I did in this game was get hooked by Pudge.


Thankfully, as you might be able to tell from the particle effects in the air, I was able to Sand Storm my way to safety and escape with just a few cuts and bruises. The skirmish itself didn't amount to any kills, though we did have to let Troll get the bounty rune. The Troll then also gets first blood on the solo Void by diving past the tower with Dazzle. After this happens, Abaddon decides to go help him and manages to get a double kill, so the momentum is slowed. For the moment.

I, as a jungle Sand King however, have no part in any of this. Tucked away in the large camp closest to base I mutter to myself while listening to Darude. I try rotating up to help every now and again, but in the end all I manage to do is leech XP off a kill.

At 9:45 I get my Blink Dagger, though I'm still only level 5. The kill count stands at 9-3, and we've lost top tower, giving Faceless Void less than ideal farming conditions. Not two minutes later, Troll Warlord solos Roshan. Things are... well, I got a Blink Dagger before ten minutes. That counts for something, right?

Our spells start to come on line and we begin to push back, taking advantage of our multitude of stuns and our high damage spells to turn things around and even the score. Just as we're beginning to relax, however, Troll finishes his Black King Bar. Thus begins the countdown, as we keep track of when each charge is used and make note of how long a BKB he has left. Phantom Assassin picks up her BKB a bit later as well, so the count begins again. Faceless Void may not have the best farm, but he's ok, and his Chronosphere provides the lock down we need against those targets to wait out BKB charges and chain stuns together to kill these terrifying DPSers.

All that being said, the game is far from turned. Thanks to the enemy Treant Protector we don't manage to take a tower until 27 minutes in. Meanwhile, thank to Troll and his insane attack speed buffs, any time a teamfight goes sour Radiant can push up and do serious damage to towers before we can respawn and respond. In one such teamfight gone awry, during the enemy's 'clean up' phase, this happens:


Now, the important things to note about this teamfight is that it's where the Radiant pushes both t2 AND t3 mid towers down, and how we're able to respawn in time to prevent any barracks from going down. But when this happened, and Lina and Dazzle simultaneously blew each other up in such a spectacular fashion, everyone paused for the briefest of moments and went... 'damn. That was epic.'

Unfortunately, even though we push them off barracks, an unfortunate interaction between Fissure and Chronosphere causes us to wipe while trying to take their t3 mid, leading to our barracks dying regardless. We stop them before t4s drop, however. They back off and decide, since we're pushed in, it's a good time to take Rosh, which leads to what is possibly the most important teamfight of the game.

The score is 34-34, 38 minutes in. The Radiant are taking Roshan... successfully, I might add. We realize what's going on and manage to make it down there and pick off Pudge, but Troll gets the Aegis right as Dazzle dies as well. Void jumps in and Chronospheres, catches PA, but then tries to help kill Troll. He's asploded when PA is released. Earthshaker land a good Echo Slam, but dies to Troll regardless. Lina lands a great double stun on Troll and PA that allows us to pop Troll once, PA tries to run but dies to a Burrowstrike. Abaddon and Lina manmode the Troll while Sand King hides in a Sandstorm, and though Abbadon dies, so does Troll, to a burrow strike I wish could have been just a moment sooner.

A six for four trade in our favor. Aegis is wasted. The grains of the hourglass drop one after the other as both teams respawn and regroup, but the momentum has finally ground to a halt. It finally feels like an even match. We're not out yet.

The Radiant, realizing a pick-off could help them gg push, smokes up and catches out some poor, hapless sap that's out of position.


This also allows them to pick off the Abaddon. But though they group up and try to push down top, they don't manage to get anything, in fact they lose enough people that we can take mid rax, back out, and get Aegis for Void, who by this time has Monkey King Bar and Butterfly. We push bottom and force two buybacks, but don't get any towers. The Radiant push up and go for the gg push, getting one t4 tower but ultimately not being able to overcome the teamfight presence we have. They wipe, we go straight down midlane and end. GG.



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) The Dire large camp is friggin hard to stack, guys. I missed it at least twice, which is why I wasn't level 6 until something like 14 minutes in. A faster Blink Dagger and Epicenter could have helped stop the early game from getting so out of control, and I probably could have rotated more to help the safe lane.

2) I bought a Veil of Discord. This is a good thing! I didn't use it very often. That's bad. During the game, I was having a hard time figuring out the best time to activate it, since BKB on Troll and PA would take off the debuff or prevent it from latching on in the first place, so... yeah.

3) I bought Blade Mail. I'm not sure if it was really all that helpful. Whenever I was focused, I could just go into Sand Storm, and whenever I couldn't do that it was because I was being bash-lorded to death and didn't have time to activate it anyways. I could have taken the money from there along with the 5000 gold I ended up not spending and bought a Scythe of Vyse, which probably would have been more useful in the long run. But live and learn, yeah?

All in all this was... pretty stressful XD. I'm not sure if it was necessarily any more intense than other games of Dota I've played, but being on a team of complete strangers in a more competitive arena has an entirely different aura than messing around with friends in All Random. That being said: 9 more matches to go before Valve decides where I belong. Unnngh.

Safecyn, signing out.