MMR Match 10: The Reckoning

There comes a time in the life of every human being on this planet where they must say 'enough is enough'. No longer can things be put off. No longer can dreams be allowed to remain dreams. There is an imperative set by the gods that every man worth his salt, who wishes to prove himself in the ring of honor, must be weighted. Must be judged. And most definitely, must finish what he started.

So this man goes forth upon his final battle, back into the ring for the tenth time, to put an end to the sinister demons of waiting, uncertainty, and the unknown. Beckoning to the gods for their aid, he picks a hero wrought in their image: Zeus, the divine emissary of lightning, lord of thunder, rage, and pub stomps. Perhaps this facsimile of strength will transfer some of its digital splendor upon the man behind the keyboard. Or perhaps he shall be smitten for his arrogance. The combatants are set. May the game begin.


So yeah. I played my last game as Zeus. I wanted to do a lot of damage just in case that has anything to do with calibration, and I'm pretty comfortable with the hero. I followed my guide on the guy, even. What more of a proof of concept could you ask for, right? Can I win a game following my own advice?

I was also reasonably hyped after looking at what YASP estimated my MMR to be: currently it's estimating it at just over 3K, and in the days prior to me playing this match the estimation had gotten as high as 3.2K, so... you know. I got all excited. Anyways, I went mid because of course I did, and convinced my team to secure me a rune. And they did! It was great. I was laning against a Tiny, so things were pretty easy overall, though I will say that Toss is a great harassing skill. I was never dumb enough to get tossed back towards tower, but having creeps flung on top of me did make me burn through regen at a decent clip. First blood gets drawn by our team when the Luna over extends and gets caught in the trees between Omni and Wraith King.


Things are pretty even for a while: both team's safelanes find kills on the enemy offlaners, with the Luna giving Wraith King and Omni three kills while Dark Seer and Bristleback give up kills to the Ursa and Lich. Ursa dies once in lane to Bristle, but takes Roshan just before the 10 minute mark, so things are pretty even. Dark Seer and I rotate down to see if the Ursa's low, but he grabs a regen rune and is back at full, and goes on us. Dark Seer dies, and Ursa continues to chase me, underestimating power.


The Ursa continues to chase me to my tier two and I die, but rotations from Bristleback and Omniknight punish him and he dies again. Rosh advantage successfully nullified. By... the Ursa, if I'm honest. Eleven minutes into the game and it's 5-6.

Things slow down and are pretty tepid for five minutes, just some afk farming and a few kills back and forth. At 17 minutes in, our Wraith King finishes Blink Dagger and we group up mid, and he blinks up the hill and stuns Tiny. With all of us to back him up, the rock man quickly melts. Then he blinks towards ancients and stuns Ursa. The Ursa pops ult to negate some of the damage, but Wraith King has another secret weapon, Blade Mail, and he ... forces? the Ursa to attack himself to death? And we take mid tier 1.

Then on top of that, we catch the Lifestealer out of position and I nab a kill on him. Then we grab the tier TWO mid. All of this elapses in about 45 seconds, mind you, and really highlights how important positioning IS in this game. Two towers and three deaths for nothing in return is... yeah. Yeah.

We group and push bottom tier 2. The Wraith King blinks past the treeline and catches Ursa separated from his team again, and the ensuring teamfight leads to us almost wiping them in exchange for Omni, Lifestealer only getting away by infesting into a full health allied creep. We back out and take Roshan... embarassingly enough, the Ursa charges in and steals it right as it dies, but his backup is too far behind him to make it worth anything. He dies twice in exchange for Omniknight.

If this is starting to sound like a one-sided, gradual steamroll where we eventually grab Rosh, push with Aegis, and win the game... congratulations! Looks how smart you are. It's exactly what happens. There are no real places where the Radiant mount any sort of respectable defense, apart from getting the Wraith King and his godlike spree in exchange for three of their own. Even that doesn't stop our momentum. The gods favored us this day. GG.

The dotabuff for this match can be found here, and you're all welcome to...

OH MY GOD ENOUGH WAITING. TELL US ALREADY.

... what?

YOUR MMR. THIS WAS THE LAST MATCH, RIGHT? WELL WHAT IS IT?

Oh, very well. I can tell that the ten people reading this are curious as well, so without further ado, let's get it. Drum roll please...

UNDUNDUNDUDUNDUDUNDUDNUDNTUNTUNTUTNUNDUDNUDNUDNUDNDUNDUN

Smack dab in the middle of the trench. I KNEW it.

So did I, remember? Allll the way back in the first post of this series I estimated my MMR to be 2.4K.

That was... like a year ago.

Yeah... I was most definitely wrong back then, but in the year it's taken me to peel this bandage off, I've apparently gotten good enough to where I was kinda right! Score.

So what's next? Safecyn's road to 3k?

Nah, I'll do that on my own time. I've got much bigger, better plans in mind. That involved guns, rapiers, and tentacles. SO. MANY. TENTACLES.

Oh dear god...

Safecyn, signing out everyone.