The Wild Cards

The Wild Cards begin this Sunday at 9am PDT, where four teams will battle it out to decide who will claim the final two invites to The International. Following that will be the Group Stage games, which will determine the seeding for the Main Event, and will run through the week beginning Monday, July 27th at 10am PDT. Finally, the The International’s Main Event begins on Monday, August 3rd and culminates with the Grand Finals on Saturday, August 8th, beginning at 10am PDT each day. You’ll be able to watch every moment streamed live at The International site.

If you’ll be attending The International in person, the doors to KeyArena open at 9am. Pre-orders for Secret Shop merchandise can be made until midnight PDT this Saturday night, July 25th. They will be available for pickup at the Secret Shop, located just outside of KeyArena at Fisher Pavilion, begining Friday, July 31st, at 8am PDT until 2pm PDT on August 8th.

Been watching only Vega vs CDEC and it was really painful to see despite a great caster with huge Dota experience. CDEC were playing like casual pub scrubs Games 1 and 2 and they still won Game 1 because Vega picked ****. Game 2 was how all of these games could be, Vega's players are just superior to CDEC in terms of personal skill(in Game 1 they won top and bot lanes which had to be auto-lost with their heroes vs CDEC's heroes). Vega's pick in game 3 was also bad, gj picking Phantom Lancer 3rd only to be countered, and then misplays and unlucky situations did they job. Very sad. Hope they will win Loser's Bracket II(no doubt they will beat Archon), because the rest 3 of the teams are just no-names for me, don't know any of them.

At least Ember Spirit is getting some attention, I hope to see him in the main event as well(because then I can just necro my Ember thread and spam it with rainbow-colored "I TOLD YA").

Actually CDEC losing lanes is pretty expected for the team; They are a team who compensate for a weak lane by mid-game and late-game decision making, which they showed.

I thought the series was pretty good tbh, but I wasn't paying full attention to it. I wanna catch the Archon MVP series, because that was apparently pretty intense.

You mean they always lose lanes any other team would have won(been watching both CDEC and Vega play for the 1st time)? How do you even lose as Undying, Queen of Pain and Disruptor vs Ember Spirit, Dazzle and Skywrath Mage? Probably the same way you lose to Clockwerk playing Spirit Breaker with DD kappa kappa kappa kappa. Really **** team, but they had a better pick.

No, not always. (And that aggresive tri-lane was weird; I don't think they expected it at all. I know I didn't. An unexpected aggresive lane, even if it is a weak one, can make a huge difference, because it throws you out of synch a little, and that can mean a huge amount in pro-games) I'm just saying, that them losing the lanes doesn't make them a **** team if they compensate for it. They also improved massively between game 1 and game 3, and doubly so in the second series.

In essence, I'm just saying that CDEC aren't a bad team, even if they lose lanes a lot, or are in the worse position early on. Especially if they are consitently getting better drafts.

I don't know if they expected it or not, but if they didn't and they REALLY picket that trilane just to **** on Bara while Ember gets freefam bot, they are seriously ******ed. Likewise, I don't know why Vega went top, maybe to try and dodge their aggro tri. So if it was unexpected, they are ******s because they pick two heroes one of the main purposes is to **** on their opponents in lane(and put one of them as core), if this was their plan, they|(okay, Unduying) are ******ed as well because Unduying did nothing, NOTHING in lane when one double Decay would have just won them the lane. THis makes it even funnier that his Tombstone on Roshan won them the game, a game that they have already won because of how bad Vega's pick was.

I don't say they are bad, I just say that Vega is much stronger, and two of their players are either super-bad or they haven't played unduying and Spirit Breaker. Bara had a DD and 17(100)% bash, what did he do? Hit creeps, right. Btw in Game 3 Unduying did nothing as well.

Oh btw, almost forgot - nice BKB recipe Bara ;)

What is this, dotafire turning into 9k mmr twitch chat?
These guys are at TI, they are certainly better than you and they surely aren't ****.
You seem like a vega fanboy, so I understand your frustration but the better team won and I'm sure of that since vega lost to MVP too...

I never compared any of them to me, because it is not me who is fighting for a slot at TI5 in the first place. And both teams(Vega and CDEC) played like they are in some 5k$ prize pool LAN, not the biggest eSport tournament in history. You don't come to earn yourself a chance at TI and pick what Vega picked and play like CDEC played in Games 1 and 2. Of course this is disappointing and of course I am frustrated, I hope play-offs will be a better show.

can anyone talk me through about their drafts? what was wrong and what was right?>
Because currently all I see is meme-bers summarily dismissing drafts like full ****. What was wrong?

Dimony confirmed 9k reddit MMR 8{3