Woo. Hooray. So exciting. I'm literally dying of excitement, see? See how excited I am. So excited. Woo.
Why don't you add a 'kappa' to the end there, make the sarcasm even MORE obvious?
Don't have the energy. Cause I'm so excited.
Shush. Anyways, I finally got around to making myself a veggie pizza burger, so I also finally got around to playing my next ranked game. This signals the halfway point of this little series, and we've had some good times, yeah?
Oh yeah. So many...
NOT. TALKING. TO YOU.
Hmph.
When I loaded into my game this time, something... peculiar happened. Something that I've always wanted to happen, yet never actually thought would. Someone recognized me.
Like, someone you knew?
No, I mean like... from this site. They fingered me as 'that guy who writes funny guides on Dotafire'. And I gotta say, when someone recognizes you for your work, it's... an interesting feeling. All of a sudden here I was trying to live up to whatever mental image someone had in their head of me. I didn't want to disappoint them by, you know, turning out to be a jerk, yeah? I'll admit, I was making a conscious effort to be as nice and professional as possible this game, specifically because someone knew who I was.
You are literally the exact opposite of ACTUAL Dota celebrities. Except maybe Purge.
Yeah, Purge seems nice. Very soothing voice, too. Anyways, I won't bog down this article too much with this, or the drafting phase, so I'll just post the image of the lineup now:
Four Agis and a Zeus-ral vs. Fiery Plane Crash... in the woods.
The highest MMR on our team? TBD: The Best Dotes. The other team was something like 2875.
As you can see, I picked
Lion in this match: my justification being that we needed some hard lockdown, since everything else (
Searing Chains, Shackle Shot, 
Homing Missile) was unreliable. Once I got my 
Blink Dagger, I told myself, I'd be able to initiate on the 
Sniper (who still gets spam picked despite getting mega-nerfed last patch) and lead to quick pick-offs and lopsided team fights.The bounty runes go evenly to either team, dire getting the top one and our Gyrcopter (the guy who recognized me), nabbing the bottom. Unfortunately, the
Windranger on top gets teamed up on by three heroes, and isn't able to get out. A quick first blood, but not a big deal, and nothing else really happens for the first four minutes of the game. I support Gyro, buy wards, stack and pull creeps, etc. So far, so good.
Ember Spirit dies to the 
Zeus mid-lane, and I decide that in order to help him out, I'll grab a smoke and circle around, then we'll grab a kill on him and everything will be gucchi. It starts out looking beautiful:
What's a god to a demon witch?
And ends up as a double kill for
Zeus. I just... I don't even. Was it because I didn't have a level in 
Hex? Was it because Ember Spirit didn't use Searing Chains? Probably both, in combination with the tower hurting. Hurting badly. At almost the same time, 
Nature's Prophet TPS in and catches 
Spectre, allowing Windranger to 
Powershot her to death, but Sniper (who is, in fact, sharing the top lane with Spectre, kills him for his troubles. 1-4 Dire advantage at 6 minutes in. Still not too big a deal. Spectre and Gyro both die, and a few minutes later I try the same gank again to help Ember Spirit out. We get Zeus this time, but the Sniper just happened to be rotating there at the same time and... killed us both. Now, I should make it clear this wasn't a TP rotation in when the Zeus realized he was in trouble, he just... happened to be there. Passing through from getting bot rune and going back to top. It was unfortunate.I was seriously considering naming this article 'a series of unfortunate events', but I feel like that would have clued everyone in about how this game turned out a bit too soon. Now though, I think you can start to see a pattern emerging.
Gyrocopter grabs a haste rune, goes for a quick gank on midlane, and all five enemy heroes happened to have been grouping up there to push mid, resulting in three of us dying. A misclicked stun on behalf of yours truly (my only one in the game, I might add), lets the Sniper get away and kills three of us. A push mid goes south when 
Nyx Assassin lands a three man stun (that one's skill more than luck, but still.) A bunch of mistakes, small by themselves, gradually building the point where Sniper has a 
Maelstrom and a 
Manta Style at 23 minutes in, Zeus has a Blink and a Veil, 
Naga Siren has a 
Diffusal Blade, and our carries have a 
Helm of the Dominator and half a 
Battle Fury between them.It wasn't pretty, ladies and gentlemen. The score was 16-35 before thirty minutes in, and 25-47 by 40. We DID manage to hold on for forty minutes, there is that. I finally got that
Blink Dagger I'd planned on getting by that time, delayed seemingly unendingly from having to constantly buy wards and being a squishy Lion against fed carries. Not too long after I manage to get my Blink, the game is already over. 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) As mentioned earlier, perhaps that first gank on the
Zeus might have ended in a kill if I'd gotten level 2 Hex instead of 
Mana Drain, or just waited until level 4 to go gank.2) I left the Gyro alone in lane at one point to rotate and try to help other lanes, and his opponents were a Naga and a Nyx. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have left him alone as long as I did, because squishy hero plus lots of disable and damage equals... well... death.
3) Positioning errors. I made a few. They got me killed. It happens.
I apologize for not coming up with more to say, by the way. I tried. I spent a good bit of time thinking about how to analyze it. But at the end of the day: their carries got fed. Well played on their parts. Particularly the
Sniper, who was beyond godlike at some point, the only reason we held on for forty minutes is because the Gyrocopter picked up his bounty and got a BKB.Halfway there, guys. I'm gonna try and stay strong.
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
Match 4: Snowballs and Space Cows
Even if the gank on mid had worked out better, you can't really rotate as a solo support if your carry is going to be left vulnerable without you.
holy jesus that ember is so bad. im not even kidding. your first gank failed becaauseee and i **** you not ....he didnt chain... for the whole chase to the tower when he was RIGHT NEXT TO THE ZUES .... he didnt chain... i cant even. also i lot of plays failed because of him as well. the fight bot was an easy win but he blew all three remnants on.... nothing the nyx wasnt there. he then SoF'd and missed a clumped enemy team.
if that ember was even half way decent u would have won that game easy.
pity. the smoke gank was good though :)
And I liked the "veggie pizza burger" detail ahah
And btw, you're as legit as Purge :)
Hang on, next time you will have more luck!
well played safecyn unlucky there mate.
question.
how did Ember lose mid to a zues? i might dl and watch because ember should have crushed zues mid and a rotation by you should have meant a easy kill. very weird.
Zeus can crush ember untill lvl 5, because untill then he can easily burst down his shield (if it's a good Zeus ofc). After that, ember should immedeatly kill him with a triple remnant burst and dominate the lane with a constant threat of searing chains+flame guard (lvl 3-4 flame guard takes a bit of time to wear off or take down).
question.
how did Ember lose mid to a zues? i might dl and watch because ember should have crushed zues mid and a rotation by you should have meant a easy kill. very weird.