Team Secret: Kings of TI Strategy August 2nd, 2015 23:05 GMT Text by Ver Graphics by Ninjan Kings of TI Strategy

- 6.84 paradox

- sancity of secrets sidelanes

- unpredictable predictability

- nullifying the enemy plan

- secret unveiled?



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Team Secret. TI favorites. Fan favorites. Techies pickers. After what they’ve shown the past three months, them not making the TI finals would be a massive upset. Since 6.84 started Team Secret has dominated every major tournament: they didn’t just win, they won inevitably. When Secret starts playing, your first thought is to wonder how will they win this time? If Secret ever gets ahead, you relax, knowing the game is all but over. If Secret is behind, you get curious as to exactly how they will come back. What more can be said about them?



Surprisingly, quite a lot. Whether they win or lose, TI5 is shadowed by Team Secret. They have defined the meta in 6.84 with a host of brilliant strategies and, as a result, you’re either with them or against them. Like TI4 with Vici Gaming’s deathball, teams had to either find a way to beat it, or to copy it and do it better. Here at TI teams will either try to copy Secret’s innovations or devise counter-plans specifically engineered against what Secret has shown - there is no in-between for any real contender. The difference is that unlike VG at TI4, Secret revealed their strategies before TI. Maybe they have something new up their sleeve but, until they show it, teams will have to play around what they used at previous tournaments or in the TI5 Group Stage.



Here we’re going to examine what made Secret’s play so special pre-TI, which will then illuminate for you why teams will play a certain way at TI. Even the wildcard teams have copied Secret to some degree, and the patterns will only become clearer as the tournament progresses.



What does a strategic advantage actually mean here? From the start of the game, Secret put a hidden pressure on their opponents to make something happen or die. Other teams feel hurried into making a rash attack that Secret are ready for, as otherwise Secret zooms ahead on farm. With a superior farming posture and surprising ganks, the western giants have consistently confounded foes who expect one move and fall prey to the opposite.



The second aspect, that of margin of error, will be covered in the sequel to this article. But to give a brief teaser, Secret has perfected the simple paradigm elucidated by ppd as an important reason for EG’s DAC victory: make your opponent outplay you. This means that Secret plays in such a way that their opponents are forced to make far fewer mistakes to achieve the same result. Easy to say, but a lot harder to design. Especially if the other guy, like EG, is trying to do the same thing. This is the main advantage Secret and EG have held over the Chinese, and it will be exciting to see whether the latter conform and stop placing themselves in a harder position, or come up with something completely new.



The International has always been the catalyst for great innovations, and TI5 should be no exception. The only difference is that, like Alliance at TI3, the strategic backdrop is based on one team. Everyone always raves about Secret's exceptional individual skill, but what really has set them apart so far are their exceptional minds. Let’s see why.



The 6.84 Paradox 6.83, released at the end of 2014, was one of the most hated patches in Dota history. Thanks to radical changes to comeback gold and experience, teams could safely pick Medusa and Sniper, fall way behind, and hide in their base until their opponents made a mistake. Even with a 20k gold lead, teams trembled in fear at pushing high ground and losing their entire lead in 2 fights, and thus games dragged on longer. Given this massive outcry against the rubberband and 50+ minute turtlefests, Icefrog seemingly neutered comeback rewards and incentivized fighting over farming. 6.84 was supposed to be a Russian-style bloodbath.



For some teams, that has indeed been the case. But that has been proven to be a suboptimal way to play 6.84. Most fans haven’t realized it since they’re too busy gushing over their favorite players, but in the vast majority of their games, Secret plays the most boring, stereotypical Chinese farming style possible. Most games involve very small kill scores on both sides until a few decisive fights. They are flashy and exciting in certain ways, but Secret’s play is eerily similar to the disciplined Chinese sides of 2010-2012, and Alliance in 2013. They don’t give you openings, they don’t overextend, and barring a minor miracle, they will outfarm you.





2-4 at 20 minutes. Not particularly unusual for Secret.



In other words, Secret was the first team to understand the hidden paradox of 6.84: farming is incentivized over fighting. Absurd, right?



Melee lane creep bounty reduced from 43 to 40 (-7%)

Range lane creep bounty reduced from 48 to 45 (-6.25%)

Hero kills (the non-net worth portions) are worth 10% more

The amount of AoE Bonus Gold given is now increased/decreased by up to 20% based on the dying hero’s relative rank in net worth amongst all the enemies on that team.

Instead of Buyback temporarily preventing unreliable gold gain, it now reduces all gold gained (including hero and aoe gold) by 60%

Reduced the direct hero last hit bounty by 100 and redistributed that gold into AoE gold (in ratio of 100/75/40/25/20 for 1/2/3/4/5 heroes)

If you are the only person contributing to a kill, you still get the same gold overall

Clearly these patch notes favor defensive farming styles...right?



There are two reasons that Secret’s defensive and farm-heavy style has proved so successful. The first is that they have copied and refined the map movements and positioning of 2014 VG and DK. It’s not simply that they sit around and farm, but they move around the map more intelligently than any current team.



The second is based on a paradox of the patch. Because teams are incentivized so much to fight more, that means they also need to group up more. When teams group up more, they push lanes less and therefore control less of the map. That inherently decreases the danger to solo farmers, thus giving teams a reason to play defensively and farm instead. If you always push your lanes, they enemy’s ganks become a lot more predictable, thus giving you opportunities to either have your heroes ready in a specific area, or have them spread out and farm more. And it’s easy to push your lanes because the enemy wants to group up before they make a serious aggressive move, thus potentially telegraphing the danger. In other words, the sheer incentives for fighting discourage continuous offensive actions, because you reap the same rewards for taking a defensive posture and farming instead of moving aggressively. Thus, farming aggressively essentially sustains itself for long periods.







(Editors note: Secret plays as Dire, the X's on the map)

EHOME is ahead right now yet can’t make use of it. Watch Secret’s superior movements slowly eke out a lead.









In this very close game, EHOME had taken a game-winning lead early on but simply couldn’t close it out. As soon as EHOME made a single mistake around the 20 minute mark, Secret started building up enough momentum across the map that EHOME were continuously forced to react. With 3-4 of Secret’s heroes staying off the map at certain times, EHOME’s more deathballish lineup couldn’t effectively split up and farm separately due to the threat of a smoke and a multi-screen battle that Drow fares poorly in. But Secret realized EHOME's rigidity and thus were always farming at least 3 places at once while EHOME were forced to trot around together. Secret’s aggressive farming paradoxically made them safer defensively, as any EHOME attack would become quite obvious once the sidelanes pushed in so deep with no counter-lane pressure elsewhere. In the end, Secret were free to Rosh at their pleasure, and EHOME had simply no room for error in order to hold on.



What the patch removed was the option for cores to ditch a fight and get greater returns elsewhere by farming 20 or more creeps and a tower. Now, Arteezy’s farm is higher than ever, but so is his kill participation. There are only two types of fights: an instant initiation and kill that force the victim’s friends to either join down a man or not show up, or a running fight where everybody joins the fray. Because of Secret’s constant map pressure, they fight only on their terms, or eat a death and don’t fall behind because the rest of their team is farming anyway.



This also helps explain the conundrum of Vici Gaming’s downfall. They dominated the rubberband/turtle era by playing exceptionally aggressively and spreading themselves out across the entire map; but now, they are going aground in a much more “fighting oriented” patch. The difference is that VG won by creating chaos, spreading the map, and starting fights with only part of their team already there. Now, with their entire team forced to join, Vici is not able to move quite like they used to and thus they are not starting the fights they want nearly often enough.





The Sanctity of Secret’s Sidelanes Ever since the undetectable smoke and 4 minute day/night change of 2013, the mid lane has been the place of action for smokes and rotations during the laning phase. On top of being relatively easy to gank, killing the enemy mid is arguably one of the biggest early objectives for your team. As a result, mid players have had to face the all-too-often reality of a 3v3 middle where one team’s gank accidentally runs into the other team’s gank. Secret are the first top team to really buck this trend and, for the most part, leave mid lane to the wolves. Instead, Secret’s game plan generally plays out as follows: Zai gets more than the enemy offlaner

The Secret safelane goes untouched

At least one Secret support lives like a prince

Secret stacks and kills stacks more than any other team One of the reasons this can happen so often is the core heroes prioritized by Secret. If available, Secret almost always choose Queen of Pain. This is hardly surprising in itself, but Secret have made a significant innovation in 6.84 by sending her safelane even though she is one of the best mids. Because the safelane QoP needs no actual support to dominate her lane, and since Secret don’t actively gank mid, the rest of Secret’s heroes can do more or less whatever they please. As a result, Secret’s supports end up as rich as kings; but perhaps more importantly, they also have the time to go help Zai at the right moments. Zai then enters the midgame not poor as a pauper and struggling to survive, as most offlaners tend to be, but living in luxury and able to play from ahead. This often makes a world of difference in how many heroes Secret need to group up to ensure a successful gank later on, further increasing their ability to outfarm the other team midgame. A great example of this against LGD will be covered



A frequent outcome of Secret’s solid core choices: note the large advantage in Zai and Puppey’s farm over their counterparts.



While Secret doesn’t actively gank middle, they will often be ready to countergank and sometimes will have a support camp mid if it lets Arteezy farm the lane plus jungle or ancients safely. They just don’t want to waste the time sitting around to initiate, something that shows up in other areas as well. Occasionally this comes back to bite them when the opponent can arrange a very advantageous mid matchup like Drow-aura-buffed Queen of Pain versus Templar Assassin (in Secret's game vs EHOME) or Bloodseeker vs TA (vs iG), which seems to be the best way to gain a laning phase edge over Secret. Blowing multiple smokes on Secret’s mid often backfires because the large investment leaves zero margin for error.





Unpredictable Predictability Secret are rightly seen as a solid squad, with complete mastery of the fundamentals. Against Secret, you generally have an idea what is coming, you just can’t stop it. Yet Secret also have a more subtle side that abuses the above fact. They have flipped the paradigm of predictability upside-down: by playing the same styles over and over again, you think you know what to expect until the game where an ordinary draft or movement becomes something entirely different. Thus, Secret’s predictability becomes a weapon in and of itself, for right when their opponent thinks a typical fastball is coming like every other game, Secret throws a curveball. This manifests both on a strategic/drafting level, and a tactical one.



This type of unpredictability manifests itself very differently than the kind of say, 2014 DK, who could and would play any and all lineups. Yet in terms of results it is no less deadly so long as the team has the gamesense to gauge the enemy’s mentality and switch gears when they least expect it. Fortunately, that is a quality Secret have in spades.



At both The Summit 3 and Mars Dota League, Secret made very little attempt to hide their intentions in the first pick phase. While some teams like to pick certain flexible heroes that leave the remainder of their draft ambiguous, Secret instead prioritized sturdy heroes with no real weaknesses. Outside of a certain 65 minute Wisp/Sven vs Winter Wyvern/Razor game against EG at ESL, they have almost never outdrafted themselves. At the same time, when your first two picks are almost always extremely solid pairs like QoP/SF, or Chen/Bristle, it doesn’t require a great deal of imagination for your opponents to divine the remaining heroes and plan.



Which is, of course, where Secret can most take advantage of their enemy. The first time they showed this devious side in their drafts came against LGD at The Summit. It looked like an ordinary game, yet it hid venom. The highlights - almost the entire laning phase - speak for themselves.







Laning the Wisp+Bristle mid was already unusual enough, as this was before Secret had popularized safelane QoP, but the real kicker was Puppey’s Dazzle repeatedly rotating from behind the tower. LGD, one of the most disciplined and stable teams in the world, has almost never lost this one-sidedly. They assuredly knew the potential of Secret’s midlane, but they simply were not quite on point against such a curveball. Secret simply has a precise way of making “not quite on point” turn into “an absolute catastrophe.”



And of course, one cannot mention curveballs and pocket strategies without referring to their boundary-breaking Techies games against



Heading into the International playoffs, Secret will likely pick the same few types of lineups over and over. But when one leasts expects it, they will bust out something completely different. And it almost goes without saying that their opponent’s will not have the luxury of these types of wins as well: the lone exception (3-20) against Fnatic is likely to remain such.





Though the strategic examples of Secret’s unpredictable predictability are the most flashy, their tactical insights are arguably more innovative. Secret obtained a significant early game advantage in almost every game by following a couple of similar principles:



Play defensive, spread out and farm. Force the enemy to outplay you.



Once your defensive, farming posture is established, determine the moment the enemy is most lulled and rapidly attack.









Broodmother is, by general consensus, one of the most static heroes in the game. She sits in her webs and dominates one area of the map. This applies doubly in lane, as Brood is possibly the strongest laner in the game and has an extremely high opportunity cost to leave her lane and roam. If Brood leaves her lane, it transforms a simple, won lane into a very adventurous gamble that could be crippling. Perhaps more importantly, Brood moves agonizingly slowly outside of her webs and needs a lot of webs to gank another lane. Therefore, nobody becomes (or expects) a Brood to gank before 10 minutes. That’s why Zai’s two rotations here are so special.







(Editor's note: Zai is represented by the teal dot on the minimap)

When EG was discussing their gameplans after the draft, were they worried about the possibility of a Broodmother’s rotation? Of course not. Judging by their play, it almost certainly didn’t enter their minds. And that, of course, is why it worked so beautifully. The very inefficiency of the move dulled EG’s immediate reactions and their concentration. Had EG simply let Fear die and kept the pressure on bottom lane, they would have still kept themselves in the game. It was only their knee-jerk reaction to try and stabilize midlane that ruined them, for not only was it insufficient to save Fear’s Drow, but it also removed the crucial pressure on Shadow Fiend in the bottom lane. Once the fetters on Shadow Fiend were released without compensation, EG was out of the game.



Zai has a history of making this type of off-tempo play. Back when he played for EG, he was perhaps the foremost Enigma player in the world, and a large reason for this was his keen sense of when and where his movements would be least anticipated. Because Enigma is the fastest farming jungler, leaving the jungle during laning phase at any point has a massive opportunity cost. But he would routinely make risky ganks where he’d leave the jungle at 5-6 minutes and gank the enemy safelane, something nobody ever saw coming. Zai is simply transferring this successful principle over in new ways. The question is, will movements like this become standard play, or simply a Team Secret wild card?







The unexpected rotation that has now become a pro staple is the aggressive solo smoke of Secret’s safelane player (normally Arteezy, but sometimes s4). When one thinks of Arteezy, they probably get the image of a very rich carry leisurely farming then joining fights late and blowing heroes up left and right. If he goes off the map during the laning phase, it is merely to farm the jungle and return to the lane to farm some more. The time to fear the efficient farmer is in mid-lategame teamfights, not early game ganks.



After all, Arteezy really made his name early-mid 2014 as a player of extraordinary farming efficiency. As one example, before him Shadow Fiends would focus heavily on denying the enemy and pressuring them. But led by Arteezy, players began to focus solely on the maximization of farm, changing the freefarm Shadow Fiend standards from 70-80cs at 10 minutes to 90-100cs. In many ways TI4 was a clash between between the mathematical western farming efficiency, led by Arteezy, and the Chinese active disruption of farm. For example, an aggressive player like Hao or Super would rarely be jungle farming at half HP/mana because that would make them unable to offer help in a fight. Thus they willingly lose on optimal farm to always be fight-ready. On the other hand, Arteezy would always look for the safe, efficient farming patterns with less emphasis on making aggressive, riskier movements. This worked well for the most part, but was not enough against Newbee.



The 2015 Arteezy is a far more complete player than he was last year, both more daring in his farming patterns and capable of making aggressive plays like Hao. He first began showing this new side at DAC, but it wasn’t until The Summit 3 that it became standard play. Let’s take a look at how Secret resoundingly defeated EG by putting a twist on VG’s support Bounty/offlane Undying combo.



Team Secret Evil Geniuses







The goal of Secret’s lineup is simple: they want to use the uncertainty of the Bounty’s movements and the pressure of the Undying’s mere existence to restrict EG’s ability to farm their jungle and secure any lanes. To amplify this pressure, Secret rounded off with a Crystal Maiden, one of the best roamers in the game. But there was a trick to Secret’s plan: Puppey barely roamed, instead making Arteezy gank for him while the princess Crystal Maiden got to sit back and farm.









The key maneuver of the game was Arteezy’s 6 minute smoke into the dire jungle. In the past, this is a time when opponents could have safely assumed that he would be farming the jungle or returning to lane. When they assume this, and see Puppey’s CM farming bottom lane, they inevitably lower their guards. That reaction, of course, is exactly what Secret aim for and why they chose this specific timing. On top of all this, Secret is not sacrificing overly much.





ppd was prevented from placing a crucial ward to protect their safelane; in fact, he would never have the opportunity to place a useful ward. Thanks to Arteezy cutting off the link between top and middle, Secret could now rotate most of their team into middle and take away that area from EG. Just a few minutes later Secret was able to completely dominate the dire jungle and top lane, all thanks to Arteezy making this off-tempo maneuver. EG were reduced to cowering behind their towers but weren’t even safe there, and gg’d just 7 minutes after Arteezy’s rotation.



You don’t ordinarily see these kinds of decisive, simple maneuvers because they are so difficult to time. Yet this was not simply a one-off gimmick, but a new standard. Once Gyrocopter hits level 7 he becomes the strongest hero in any skirmish. At a time when it makes sense for him to be farming, foes are suddenly faced with an absolute monster charging at them from an unexpected angle. In another game against EG, we can see how Secret utilize this timing in a less aggressive lineup.



Evil Geniuses Team Secret







If you examine EG’s lineup here, it should be obvious that it has a single point of failure: everything depends on the Sand King’s ability to get a reasonably fast Blink Dagger. Without the SK Blink, EG has no real way to initiate outside of a hail mary tornado or Surge->Cold Snap/Burrowstrike, none of which is likely to produce the kind of fight they want. As a result, EG wants to create a safe, calm game until Aui completes Blink, then take over the entire map with their deathball and threat of SK/Invoker pickoffs before Secret’s greedy supports can get large enough to overcome their early teamfight weaknesses.



Both EG and Secret know the importance of SK’s Blink. But from EG's perspective, Secret does not have the tools to effectively disrupt it. Both Keeper of the Light and Visage are greedy supports who need to spend the first 15 minutes farming, not running around the jungle looking for a kill they can’t get. Bristleback is a bully who can camp an area of the map his team secured, but he can’t initiate the maneuver himself, nor can Nyx do everything on his own. Secret’s answer, if you follow the pattern, was instead to use Arteezy’s Gyrocopter offensively at the moment when it appeared as though he was merrily farming away. Because EG has no idea it is coming, Fear is left alone at precisely the wrong time.









A key feature of this strategy, like much of what Secret does, is that even if the offensive maneuver doesn’t work out they still pull ahead. Secret is an extremely efficient team in the sense that they will send the minimum number of heroes to do the job. In this case, only Arteezy rotates to join Zai, while Kuroky cheerfully hits creeps in the safelane and Puppey laboriously farms the jungle. Because they don’t overinvest in most maneuvers, they retain a margin of error if anything goes wrong. Getting this equilibrium right in each patch is nowhere near as easy as I make it sound, but it is an important reason as to why Secret always seems to pull ahead no matter what.









The first gank on Fear was merely to take away the feeling of safety in the safelane and make Fear play further back. This means that for the second gank, after EG saw Arteezy move from midlane into the dire jungle, Aui’s SK no longer has a “shield” in place to keep him safe. This smoke into the heart of EG’s formation is devastating, for the delay on the Blink and seizure of EG’s supposedly safe areas allowed Secret to completely take over the game. As with the above, the best part is that Secret had 3 other heroes farming while this occurred.







If Zai and Arteezy can individually apply this philosophy of “gank at the least expected time,” then of course the team as a whole is likely to have similar plans.



Evil Geniuses Team Secret







In this ESL Grand Finals game against EG, Secret picked an extremely static trio of Shadow Fiend, Antimage, and Keeper of the Light. These are all heroes that need protection, space, and can’t leave their lane easily. As a result, they spent almost the entire laning phase sitting back and farming, merely trying to thwart EG’s aggression. EG had no reason to suspect that this pattern would deviate. Based on the draft, the question was whether Secret could withstand EG’s pressure and get their cores online before EG could take over the map. Rather than contest that battle, Secret simply changed the question. Out of nowhere, they switched the pace and immediately smoked on Fear with little warning.











The same situation occurred two minutes later as well, crippling the needy Sven. Notice how EG has intelligently placed all 3 of their wards covering the enemy jungle. Because of the massive space required to support SF, AM, and Kotl, EG wants to keep Secret pinned down to small portions of their jungle/safelane. This, in turn, forces Secret to group up to secure the rest of the map, thereby giving Fear plenty of space. If Fear is able to convert that space into farm, EG can easily create a midgame situation where Arteezy and s4 cannot farm a lane alone safely, thus turning an early edge into total map domination. Secret apparently realized EG’s plan, for they instead switch into an offensive stance, denying Fear once again the critical start he needs on Sven to overcome an Antimage. EG had no idea it was coming because their wards were all so offensive.











Notice how this innovation fits Secret’s overall 6.84 archetype: they regularly pick greedy heroes who want more out of the map than they should be allowed to get, thus inviting enemy pressure. But with Secret picking so many heroes with excellent waveclear, they make it difficult for the enemy to find easy openings. Their foe is forced to invest a lot of time and resources into preparing any major offensive maneuver, weakening their own side of the map. Then when the opposition least expects it, Secret suddenly strikes deep into enemy territory and takes a very important objective without warning. Not only is this a less risky approach for Secret, but it also lets them control the tempo of the game without exerting too much extra effort.



Nullifying the Enemy Plan In a game between two top tier teams, it is exceedingly rare that one can so consistently thwart the other. Oftentimes games appear to be decided by the smallest of things: minute details in a fight that neither side can predict before it starts. Luck plays a bigger role than most of us would like to think. What makes Secret so special is how they minimize this dampening factor of luck. This is the kind of play that other teams will strive to emulate, and most likely won’t be able to.



Team Secret LGD Gaming









Let’s analyze the lineups from LGD’s perspective. What do they want to make happen? Lycan unassisted will be annoyingly disrupted by Clockwerk. Maybe’s Brewmaster can dominate the lane against Arteezy’s SF early, but SF will heavily surpass Brew in farm eventually due to jungle stacks. Meanwhile in bottom lane, Bounty Hunter might as well jungle for how few creeps he'll be able to get.



Given all this information, what’s a great plan for LGD? First, they want to completely secure their safelane so that Lycan can have freefarm and Visage can securely pull. With the power of a trilane Visage and Lion’s disables, this should not be difficult. Second, they want to keep Shadow Fiend down and get Brewmaster an early Blink. Lion+Bounty and possibly Visage ganks can easily manage this. In order to achieve all these objectives, they’ll completely sacrifice the bottom lane and give QoP freefarm, and also allow Rubick and KotL relative freedom.



LGD’s entire gameplan revolves around getting Brewmaster an ultra fast Blink, then forcing an immediate fight 4-5 man fight utilizing the Brew Blink before SF tanks up with his Mekansm and Black King Bar. With Track and Lycan+Visage’s pushing, LGD can snowball incredibly easily from that single fight and take over the game.



What is so magical about Secret's performance here is how, every step of the way, they thwart LGD's plan just moments before they're about to do something. LGD’s first move is to kick Zai out of the safelane and show him that his presence is not tolerated, but Secret amazingly blocks it.



Instead of giving Clockwerk the boot, the unexpected presence of Puppey’s KotL results in a double kill for Secret. Had MMY known this 3v2 would result, he undoubtedly would have skilled Soul Assumption - his choice of Grave Chill was for harassing a solo offlaner, not winning a contested fight. As a result of this unexpected disaster, Lycan sits under constant pressure throughout the laning phase and gets a fraction of the expected farm, while Clockwerk can carve out a princely share for himself. Because of this one simple move, Puppey’s role in the laning phase is done: he can do whatever he fancies and be satisfied knowing he already made a disproportionate impact.



LGD still persevered with their plan in ganking SF with Lion/Bounty rotations, but now instead of Xiao8’s Lion leaving a secure safelane behind him, Sylar and MMY are unable to truly drive Clockwerk out. This pressure makes it all the more urgent that LGD find kills on Arteezy, but their hasty actions result in Arteezy going 2-1 instead of 0-3. These slightly botched rotations almost decide the game outright.



At 9 minutes, Brewmaster’s Blink is delivered and now the crucial timing arrives. Can LGD force a decisive fight using Blink->Clap->Split and take over the game before the Shadow Fiend Mek? Let the minimap tell the tale.











Instead of a surprise 9-10 minute smoke where a hidden Brew Blink eviscerates Secret, LGD is unable to force the decisive movement until nearly 13 minutes. And of course, it’s so obvious by this point Secret easily dodges it. Timing lost, game effectively over. What happened to LGD’s gameplan? How could Secret stymie it so totally?





(Editor's note: Radiant heroes: Clockwerk is the teal dot, QoP purple, Rubick yellow, SF orange, KotL blue) Look at the lane pressure Secret is exerting here: Clock is pressuring the dire safelane up to the tower and pull camp, QoP is pushing the T2 bottom, SF is casually farming mid, while KotL is munching jungle creeps. Any smoke or initiation LGD do here on SF would be so incredibly obvious it wouldn’t work due to the pressure by Clock and QoP. As a result, before LGD can smoke, they need to release the pressure on their sidelanes. QoP, pushing the bottom T2, is the obvious target. Secret know this and leave Kuroky’s Rubick on bodyguard duty for s4.











LGD predictably move on s4, but Kuroky saves him, sacrificing his life in the process. This noble death delays the attack on Arteezy longer, and is followed up with one of those Secret ganks that nobody sees coming. Maybe’s Brew casually pushes out bottom to relieve their lane equilibrium, and is rewarded for his diligence with a KotL blast and QoP Sonic Wave to the face. Xiao8 then dies going for a rune Secret shouldn’t have had vision of. With LGD’s key hero down and another minute wasted, the hourglass for LGD’s timing attack is nearly depleted. But there is still time left!











Once Maybe revives, he immediately smokes with MMY, refusing to let any new obstacle thwart them from killing Arteezy and claiming the Radiant jungle. Yet right in front of their eyes, Zai’s Clockwerk pounces on Yao, blowing the smoke and netting a kill. xiao8’s Lion could not join them because he needed to protect bottom from QoP, thus allowing Zai to escape without retribution. Smoke wasted, opportunity lost.



LGD still had enough time for a final attempt to salvage the game, but with the sidelanes pushed far into dire territory, Secret now group and push down mid. This gathering presents a golden opportunity for LGD, especially before all of Secret’s heroes link up. However, LGD’s heroes also have to push out sidelanes, or else any attack middle becomes very obvious. By the time they can rally, Secret already killed the tower and took a safe, high ground position in the dire jungle. The followup LGD smoke is wasted, and Secret effectively wins the game a few minutes later at a hail mary Roshan attempt.



LGD’s plans were solid, but at every step of the way they were blocked almost effortlessly. Secret did one of the hardest things to do between TI caliber teams, and did it so casually that you didn’t notice. That is how outsmarting the opponent manifests at the highest level.



Secret Unveiled? With all of this said, and Secret’s dominating run pre-TI, why is TI not just going through the motions? The problem here is that TI is its own meta, and that Secret merely have defined the optimal play coming into it. That, however, does not not mean they still possess a monopoly on strategy that they had the previous tournaments. The half-life on a truly dominant system seems to be one tournament. In order to win ESL, Secret had to create better strategies than they showed at The Summit and MarsTV League. So it will have to be the same for TI if they want to maintain the advantage they entered each previous tournament with.



When Secret entered ESL, they said they were going to relax and stick with their stable strategies already displayed. This wish apparently evaporated midway through their first round match against Fnatic. Though Secret was able to persevere with their refined lategame decision making, their midgame difficulties did not bode well.



Secret stuck with their normal rotations of having Puppey bolster Zai in the offlane, a strong laner mid, and an absolutely secure safelane. Then, when the safelane hero reached level 6-7, he would go gank the enemy safelane/jungle and leave safelane farm to Kuroky. With such judicious moves, Secret would almost inevitably pull ahead. Because the enemy would not expect aggression at this timing, the European giants could seize control of multiple areas without requiring the time investment of many heroes.



The advantage of Secret’s safelane rotation is that they pressure key enemy heroes at a unique timing while leaving secure farm to a support. It’s a similar philosophy to the old 4 protect 1 style of play, except instead of rotating underleveled supports to make space for a lategame carry, you are rotating an overleveled core to make space for a lategame support. Because of the surprising pressure, Secret could dictate the tempo of the game without committing too many resources - i,e their mid can keep farming. Simply moving over the carry forces the enemy to react, giving their fragile safelane support indirect protection.











Instead of reacting to Secret’s aggression like every other team, Fnatic refused to be sucked into Secret’s tempo and immediately ganked the vulnerable Kuroky. The usual procedure left Secret threatening the enemy safelane while controlling their own, but in this case all that resulted was a trade of safelane gank for safelane gank. And, very importantly, it was done very efficiently, only requiring two heroes and leaving Bristleback the lane to farm.



Of course, Secret’s success is due to far more than just this one type of maneuver, yet it shows there are chinks in the armor that they have to prepare for. After all Secret has been running around with a target on their heads for nearly 3 months. Many teams have begun using some of the ideas Secret has popularized, but only a few will probably know how to play against them. It will be very interesting to see who have merely copied Secret's ideas such as the economical ganks, who know them inside and out, and who refuses to adapt. Fortunately for Secret themselves, they have created a unique mid-lategame paradigm that will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of many playoff games.



Whether it be focusing on two stable cores and an initiating offlaner, prioritizing the offlane over mid early on, or ganking early on with the carry, Secret has defined the battleground of TI5. Teams are far more aware of the opportunity costs of aggressively seeking fights than they were at the start 6.84. More and more teams are starting to copy the selfishness of Puppey and Kuroky, who often play like they are the carry and not a support. Some incredibly talented teams like VG have failed to adapt and thus suffered, while other weaker ones like Complexity have seen the light and thrived. No matter who wins TI5, no team will have contributed remotely as much to the strategic landscape here as Secret.





CREDITS

Writer: Ver

Editors: Julmust, eieio, TheEmulator, tehh4ck3r

Graphics: Ninjan, Julmust



Team Secret. TI favorites. Fan favorites. Techies pickers. After what they’ve shown the past three months, them not making the TI finals would be a massive upset. Since 6.84 started Team Secret has dominated every major tournament: they didn’t just win, they won. When Secret starts playing, your first thought is to wonder how will they win this time? If Secret ever gets ahead, you relax, knowing the game is all but over. If Secret is behind, you get curious as to exactly how they will come back. What more can be said about them?Surprisingly, quite a lot. Whether they win or lose, TI5 is shadowed by Team Secret. They have defined the meta in 6.84 with a host of brilliant strategies and, as a result, you’re either with them or against them. Like TI4 with Vici Gaming’s deathball, teams had to either find a way to beat it, or to copy it and do it better. Here at TI teams will either try to copy Secret’s innovations or devise counter-plans specifically engineered against what Secret has shown - there is no in-between for any real contender. The difference is that unlike VG at TI4, Secret revealed their strategies before TI. Maybe they have something new up their sleeve but, until they show it, teams will have to play around what they used at previous tournaments or in the TI5 Group Stage.Here we’re going to examine what made Secret’s play so special pre-TI, which will then illuminate for you why teams will play a certain way at TI. Even the wildcard teams have copied Secret to some degree, and the patterns will only become clearer as the tournament progresses.What does a strategic advantage actually mean here? From the start of the game, Secret put a hidden pressure on their opponents to make something happen or die. Other teams feel hurried into making a rash attack that Secret are ready for, as otherwise Secret zooms ahead on farm. With a superior farming posture and surprising ganks, the western giants have consistently confounded foes who expect one move and fall prey to the opposite.The second aspect, that of margin of error, will be covered in the sequel to this article. But to give a brief teaser, Secret has perfected the simple paradigm elucidated by ppd as an important reason for EG’s DAC victory: make your opponent outplay you. This means that Secret plays in such a way that their opponents are forced to make far fewer mistakes to achieve the same result. Easy to say, but a lot harder to design. Especially if the other guy, like EG, is trying to do the same thing. This is the main advantage Secret and EG have held over the Chinese, and it will be exciting to see whether the latter conform and stop placing themselves in a harder position, or come up with something completely new.The International has always been the catalyst for great innovations, and TI5 should be no exception. The only difference is that, like Alliance at TI3, the strategic backdrop is based on one team. Everyone always raves about Secret's exceptional individual skill, but what really has set them apart so far are their exceptional minds. Let’s see why.6.83, released at the end of 2014, was one of the most hated patches in Dota history. Thanks to radical changes to comeback gold and experience, teams could safely pick Medusa and Sniper, fall way behind, and hide in their base until their opponents made a mistake. Even with a 20k gold lead, teams trembled in fear at pushing high ground and losing their entire lead in 2 fights, and thus games dragged on longer. Given this massive outcry against the rubberband and 50+ minute turtlefests, Icefrog seemingly neutered comeback rewards and incentivized fighting over farming. 6.84 was supposed to be a Russian-style bloodbath.For some teams, that has indeed been the case. But that has been proven to be a suboptimal way to play 6.84. Most fans haven’t realized it since they’re too busy gushing over their favorite players, but in the vast majority of their games, Secret plays the most boring, stereotypical Chinese farming style possible. Most games involve very small kill scores on both sides until a few decisive fights. They are flashy and exciting in certain ways, but Secret’s play is eerily similar to the disciplined Chinese sides of 2010-2012, and Alliance in 2013. They don’t give you openings, they don’t overextend, and barring a minor miracle, they will outfarm you.In other words, Secret was the first team to understand the hidden paradox of 6.84: farming is incentivized over fighting. Absurd, right?There are two reasons that Secret’s defensive and farm-heavy style has proved so successful. The first is that they have copied and refined the map movements and positioning of 2014 VG and DK. It’s not simply that they sit around and farm, but they move around the map more intelligently than any current team.The second is based on a paradox of the patch. Because teams are incentivized so much to fight more, that means they also need to group up more. When teams group up more, they push lanes less and therefore control less of the map. That inherently decreases the danger to solo farmers, thus giving teams a reason to play defensively and farm instead. If you always push your lanes, they enemy’s ganks become a lot more predictable, thus giving you opportunities to either have your heroes ready in a specific area, or have them spread out and farm more. And it’s easy to push your lanes because the enemy wants to group up before they make a serious aggressive move, thus potentially telegraphing the danger. In other words, the sheer incentives for fighting discourage continuous offensive actions, because you reap the same rewards for taking a defensive posture and farming instead of moving aggressively. Thus, farming aggressively essentially sustains itself for long periods.In this very close game, EHOME had taken a game-winning lead early on but simply couldn’t close it out. As soon as EHOME made a single mistake around the 20 minute mark, Secret started building up enough momentum across the map that EHOME were continuously forced to react. With 3-4 of Secret’s heroes staying off the map at certain times, EHOME’s more deathballish lineup couldn’t effectively split up and farm separately due to the threat of a smoke and a multi-screen battle that Drow fares poorly in. But Secret realized EHOME's rigidity and thus were always farming at least 3 places at once while EHOME were forced to trot around together. Secret’s aggressive farming paradoxically made them safer defensively, as any EHOME attack would become quite obvious once the sidelanes pushed in so deep with no counter-lane pressure elsewhere. In the end, Secret were free to Rosh at their pleasure, and EHOME had simply no room for error in order to hold on.What the patch removed was the option for cores to ditch a fight and get greater returns elsewhere by farming 20 or more creeps and a tower. Now, Arteezy’s farm is higher than ever, but so is his kill participation. There are only two types of fights: an instant initiation and kill that force the victim’s friends to either join down a man or not show up, or a running fight where everybody joins the fray. Because of Secret’s constant map pressure, they fight only on their terms, or eat a death and don’t fall behind because the rest of their team is farming anyway.This also helps explain the conundrum of Vici Gaming’s downfall. They dominated the rubberband/turtle era by playing exceptionally aggressively and spreading themselves out across the entire map; but now, they are going aground in a much more “fighting oriented” patch. The difference is that VG won by creating chaos, spreading the map, and starting fights with only part of their team already there. Now, with their entire team forced to join, Vici is not able to move quite like they used to and thus they are not starting the fights they want nearly often enough.Ever since the undetectable smoke and 4 minute day/night change of 2013, the mid lane has been the place of action for smokes and rotations during the laning phase. On top of being relatively easy to gank, killing the enemy mid is arguably one of the biggest early objectives for your team. As a result, mid players have had to face the all-too-often reality of a 3v3 middle where one team’s gank accidentally runs into the other team’s gank. Secret are the first top team to really buck this trend and, for the most part, leave mid lane to the wolves. Instead, Secret’s game plan generally plays out as follows:One of the reasons this can happen so often is the core heroes prioritized by Secret. If available, Secret almost always choose Queen of Pain. This is hardly surprising in itself, but Secret have made a significant innovation in 6.84 by sending her safelane even though she is one of the best mids. Because the safelane QoP needs no actual support to dominate her lane, and since Secret don’t actively gank mid, the rest of Secret’s heroes can do more or less whatever they please. As a result, Secret’s supports end up as rich as kings; but perhaps more importantly, they also have the time to go help Zai at the right moments. Zai then enters the midgame not poor as a pauper and struggling to survive, as most offlaners tend to be, but living in luxury and able to play from ahead. This often makes a world of difference in how many heroes Secret need to group up to ensure a successful gank later on, further increasing their ability to outfarm the other team midgame. A great example of this against LGD will be covered later on in the article. Secret’s signature SF/QoP combo, just by virtue of their presence in the game, put pressure on the enemy supports to make something happen.While Secret doesn’t actively gank middle, they will often be ready to countergank and sometimes will have a support camp mid if it lets Arteezy farm the lane plus jungle or ancients safely. They just don’t want to waste the time sitting around to initiate, something that shows up in other areas as well. Occasionally this comes back to bite them when the opponent can arrange a very advantageous mid matchup like Drow-aura-buffed Queen of Pain versus Templar Assassin (in Secret's game vs EHOME) or Bloodseeker vs TA (vs iG), which seems to be the best way to gain a laning phase edge over Secret. Blowing multiple smokes on Secret’s mid often backfires because the large investment leaves zero margin for error.Secret are rightly seen as a solid squad, with complete mastery of the fundamentals. Against Secret, you generally have an idea what is coming, you just can’t stop it. Yet Secret also have a more subtle side that abuses the above fact. They have flipped the paradigm of predictability upside-down: by playing the same styles over and over again, you think you know what to expect until the game where an ordinary draft or movement becomes something entirely different. Thus, Secret’s predictability becomes a weapon in and of itself, for right when their opponent thinks a typical fastball is coming like every other game, Secret throws a curveball. This manifests both on a strategic/drafting level, and a tactical one.This type of unpredictability manifests itself very differently than the kind of say, 2014 DK, who could and would play any and all lineups. Yet in terms of results it is no less deadly so long as the team has the gamesense to gauge the enemy’s mentality and switch gears when they least expect it. Fortunately, that is a quality Secret have in spades.At both The Summit 3 and Mars Dota League, Secret made very little attempt to hide their intentions in the first pick phase. While some teams like to pick certain flexible heroes that leave the remainder of their draft ambiguous, Secret instead prioritized sturdy heroes with no real weaknesses. Outside of a certain 65 minute Wisp/Sven vs Winter Wyvern/Razor game against EG at ESL, they have almost never outdrafted themselves. At the same time, when your first two picks are almost always extremely solid pairs like QoP/SF, or Chen/Bristle, it doesn’t require a great deal of imagination for your opponents to divine the remaining heroes and plan.Which is, of course, where Secret can most take advantage of their enemy. The first time they showed this devious side in their drafts came against LGD at The Summit. It looked like an ordinary game, yet it hid venom. The highlights - almost the entire laning phase - speak for themselves.Laning the Wisp+Bristle mid was already unusual enough, as this was before Secret had popularized safelane QoP, but the real kicker was Puppey’s Dazzle repeatedly rotating from behind the tower. LGD, one of the most disciplined and stable teams in the world, has almost never lost this one-sidedly. They assuredly knew the potential of Secret’s midlane, but they simply were not quite on point against such a curveball. Secret simply has a precise way of making “not quite on point” turn into “an absolute catastrophe.”And of course, one cannot mention curveballs and pocket strategies without referring to their boundary-breaking Techies games against CDEC and Fnatic . Before these games, Techies was simply seen as the uncompetitive, cancerous pub hero that most players hate but pros are mercilessly spared from. With just two games, Secret has unleashed an epidemic, flooding high level matchmaking with everyone’s least-favorite hero to play against but favorite-to-watch, and making Techies a real possibility for TI. Even if they never pick it again, teams will be scared of it.Heading into the International playoffs, Secret will likely pick the same few types of lineups over and over. But when one leasts expects it, they will bust out something completely different. And it almost goes without saying that their opponent’s will not have the luxury of these types of wins as well: the lone exception (3-20) against Fnatic is likely to remain such.Though the strategic examples of Secret’s unpredictable predictability are the most flashy, their tactical insights are arguably more innovative. Secret obtained a significant early game advantage in almost every game by following a couple of similar principles:Broodmother is, by general consensus, one of the most static heroes in the game. She sits in her webs and dominates one area of the map. This applies doubly in lane, as Brood is possibly the strongest laner in the game and has an extremely high opportunity cost to leave her lane and roam. If Brood leaves her lane, it transforms a simple, won lane into a very adventurous gamble that could be crippling. Perhaps more importantly, Brood moves agonizingly slowly outside of her webs and needs a lot of webs to gank another lane. Therefore, nobody becomes (or expects) a Brood to gank before 10 minutes. That’s why Zai’s two rotations here are so special.When EG was discussing their gameplans after the draft, were they worried about the possibility of a Broodmother’s rotation? Of course not. Judging by their play, it almost certainly didn’t enter their minds. And that, of course, is why it worked so beautifully. The very inefficiency of the move dulled EG’s immediate reactions and their concentration. Had EG simply let Fear die and kept the pressure on bottom lane, they would have still kept themselves in the game. It was only their knee-jerk reaction to try and stabilize midlane that ruined them, for not only was it insufficient to save Fear’s Drow, but it also removed the crucial pressure on Shadow Fiend in the bottom lane. Once the fetters on Shadow Fiend were released without compensation, EG was out of the game.Zai has a history of making this type of off-tempo play. Back when he played for EG, he was perhaps the foremost Enigma player in the world, and a large reason for this was his keen sense of when and where his movements would be least anticipated. Because Enigma is the fastest farming jungler, leaving the jungle during laning phase at any point has a massive opportunity cost. But he would routinely make risky ganks where he’d leave the jungle at 5-6 minutes and gank the enemy safelane, something nobody ever saw coming. Zai is simply transferring this successful principle over in new ways. The question is, will movements like this become standard play, or simply a Team Secret wild card?The unexpected rotation that has now become a pro staple is the aggressive solo smoke of Secret’s safelane player (normally Arteezy, but sometimes s4). When one thinks of Arteezy, they probably get the image of a very rich carry leisurely farming then joining fights late and blowing heroes up left and right. If he goes off the map during the laning phase, it is merely to farm the jungle and return to the lane to farm some more. The time to fear the efficient farmer is in mid-lategame teamfights, not early game ganks.After all, Arteezy really made his name early-mid 2014 as a player of extraordinary farming efficiency. As one example, before him Shadow Fiends would focus heavily on denying the enemy and pressuring them. But led by Arteezy, players began to focus solely on the maximization of farm, changing the freefarm Shadow Fiend standards from 70-80cs at 10 minutes to 90-100cs. In many ways TI4 was a clash between between the mathematical western farming efficiency, led by Arteezy, and the Chinese active disruption of farm. For example, an aggressive player like Hao or Super would rarely be jungle farming at half HP/mana because that would make them unable to offer help in a fight. Thus they willingly lose on optimal farm to always be fight-ready. On the other hand, Arteezy would always look for the safe, efficient farming patterns with less emphasis on making aggressive, riskier movements. This worked well for the most part, but was not enough against Newbee.The 2015 Arteezy is a far more complete player than he was last year, both more daring in his farming patterns and capable of making aggressive plays like Hao. He first began showing this new side at DAC, but it wasn’t until The Summit 3 that it became standard play. Let’s take a look at how Secret resoundingly defeated EG by putting a twist on VG’s support Bounty/offlane Undying combo.The goal of Secret’s lineup is simple: they want to use the uncertainty of the Bounty’s movements and the pressure of the Undying’s mere existence to restrict EG’s ability to farm their jungle and secure any lanes. To amplify this pressure, Secret rounded off with a Crystal Maiden, one of the best roamers in the game. But there was a trick to Secret’s plan: Puppey barely roamed, instead making Arteezy gank for him while the princess Crystal Maiden got to sit back and farm.The key maneuver of the game was Arteezy’s 6 minute smoke into the dire jungle. In the past, this is a time when opponents could have safely assumed that he would be farming the jungle or returning to lane. When they assume this, and see Puppey’s CM farming bottom lane, they inevitably lower their guards. That reaction, of course, is exactly what Secret aim for and why they chose this specific timing. On top of all this, Secret is not sacrificing overly much.ppd was prevented from placing a crucial ward to protect their safelane; in fact, he would never have the opportunity to place a useful ward. Thanks to Arteezy cutting off the link between top and middle, Secret could now rotate most of their team into middle and take away that area from EG. Just a few minutes later Secret was able to completely dominate the dire jungle and top lane, all thanks to Arteezy making this off-tempo maneuver. EG were reduced to cowering behind their towers but weren’t even safe there, and gg’d just 7 minutes after Arteezy’s rotation.You don’t ordinarily see these kinds of decisive, simple maneuvers because they are so difficult to time. Yet this was not simply a one-off gimmick, but a new standard. Once Gyrocopter hits level 7 he becomes the strongest hero in any skirmish. At a time when it makes sense for him to be farming, foes are suddenly faced with an absolute monster charging at them from an unexpected angle. In another game against EG, we can see how Secret utilize this timing in a less aggressive lineup.If you examine EG’s lineup here, it should be obvious that it has a single point of failure: everything depends on the Sand King’s ability to get a reasonably fast Blink Dagger. Without the SK Blink, EG has no real way to initiate outside of a hail mary tornado or Surge->Cold Snap/Burrowstrike, none of which is likely to produce the kind of fight they want. As a result, EG wants to create a safe, calm game until Aui completes Blink, then take over the entire map with their deathball and threat of SK/Invoker pickoffs before Secret’s greedy supports can get large enough to overcome their early teamfight weaknesses.Both EG and Secret know the importance of SK’s Blink. But from EG's perspective, Secret does not have the tools to effectively disrupt it. Both Keeper of the Light and Visage are greedy supports who need to spend the first 15 minutes farming, not running around the jungle looking for a kill they can’t get. Bristleback is a bully who can camp an area of the map his team secured, but he can’t initiate the maneuver himself, nor can Nyx do everything on his own. Secret’s answer, if you follow the pattern, was instead to use Arteezy’s Gyrocopter offensively at the moment when it appeared as though he was merrily farming away. Because EG has no idea it is coming, Fear is left alone at precisely the wrong time.A key feature of this strategy, like much of what Secret does, is that even if the offensive maneuver doesn’t work out they still pull ahead. Secret is an extremely efficient team in the sense that they will send the minimum number of heroes to do the job. In this case, only Arteezy rotates to join Zai, while Kuroky cheerfully hits creeps in the safelane and Puppey laboriously farms the jungle. Because they don’t overinvest in most maneuvers, they retain a margin of error if anything goes wrong. Getting this equilibrium right in each patch is nowhere near as easy as I make it sound, but it is an important reason as to why Secret always seems to pull ahead no matter what.The first gank on Fear was merely to take away the feeling of safety in the safelane and make Fear play further back. This means that for the second gank, after EG saw Arteezy move from midlane into the dire jungle, Aui’s SK no longer has a “shield” in place to keep him safe. This smoke into the heart of EG’s formation is devastating, for the delay on the Blink and seizure of EG’s supposedly safe areas allowed Secret to completely take over the game. As with the above, the best part is that Secret had 3 other heroes farming while this occurred.If Zai and Arteezy can individually apply this philosophy of “gank at the least expected time,” then of course the team as a whole is likely to have similar plans.In this ESL Grand Finals game against EG, Secret picked an extremely static trio of Shadow Fiend, Antimage, and Keeper of the Light. These are all heroes that need protection, space, and can’t leave their lane easily. As a result, they spent almost the entire laning phase sitting back and farming, merely trying to thwart EG’s aggression. EG had no reason to suspect that this pattern would deviate. Based on the draft, the question was whether Secret could withstand EG’s pressure and get their cores online before EG could take over the map. Rather than contest that battle, Secret simply changed the question. Out of nowhere, they switched the pace and immediately smoked on Fear with little warning.The same situation occurred two minutes later as well, crippling the needy Sven. Notice how EG has intelligently placed all 3 of their wards covering the enemy jungle. Because of the massive space required to support SF, AM, and Kotl, EG wants to keep Secret pinned down to small portions of their jungle/safelane. This, in turn, forces Secret to group up to secure the rest of the map, thereby giving Fear plenty of space. If Fear is able to convert that space into farm, EG can easily create a midgame situation where Arteezy and s4 cannot farm a lane alone safely, thus turning an early edge into total map domination. Secret apparently realized EG’s plan, for they instead switch into an offensive stance, denying Fear once again the critical start he needs on Sven to overcome an Antimage. EG had no idea it was coming because their wards were all so offensive.Notice how this innovation fits Secret’s overall 6.84 archetype: they regularly pick greedy heroes who want more out of the map than they should be allowed to get, thus inviting enemy pressure. But with Secret picking so many heroes with excellent waveclear, they make it difficult for the enemy to find easy openings. Their foe is forced to invest a lot of time and resources into preparing any major offensive maneuver, weakening their own side of the map. Then when the opposition least expects it, Secret suddenly strikes deep into enemy territory and takes a very important objective without warning. Not only is this a less risky approach for Secret, but it also lets them control the tempo of the game without exerting too much extra effort.In a game between two top tier teams, it is exceedingly rare that one can so consistently thwart the other. Oftentimes games appear to be decided by the smallest of things: minute details in a fight that neither side can predict before it starts. Luck plays a bigger role than most of us would like to think. What makes Secret so special is how they minimize this dampening factor of luck. This is the kind of play that other teams will strive to emulate, and most likely won’t be able to.Let’s analyze the lineups from LGD’s perspective. What do they want to make happen? Lycan unassisted will be annoyingly disrupted by Clockwerk. Maybe’s Brewmaster can dominate the lane against Arteezy’s SF early, but SF will heavily surpass Brew in farm eventually due to jungle stacks. Meanwhile in bottom lane, Bounty Hunter might as well jungle for how few creeps he'll be able to get.Given all this information, what’s a great plan for LGD? First, they want to completely secure their safelane so that Lycan can have freefarm and Visage can securely pull. With the power of a trilane Visage and Lion’s disables, this should not be difficult. Second, they want to keep Shadow Fiend down and get Brewmaster an early Blink. Lion+Bounty and possibly Visage ganks can easily manage this. In order to achieve all these objectives, they’ll completely sacrifice the bottom lane and give QoP freefarm, and also allow Rubick and KotL relative freedom.LGD’s entire gameplan revolves around getting Brewmaster an ultra fast Blink, then forcing an immediate fight 4-5 man fight utilizing the Brew Blink before SF tanks up with his Mekansm and Black King Bar. With Track and Lycan+Visage’s pushing, LGD can snowball incredibly easily from that single fight and take over the game.What is so magical about Secret's performance here is how, every step of the way, they thwart LGD's plan just moments before they're about to do something. LGD’s first move is to kick Zai out of the safelane and show him that his presence is not tolerated, but Secret amazingly blocks it.Instead of giving Clockwerk the boot, the unexpected presence of Puppey’s KotL results in a double kill for Secret. Had MMY known this 3v2 would result, he undoubtedly would have skilled Soul Assumption - his choice of Grave Chill was for harassing a solo offlaner, not winning a contested fight. As a result of this unexpected disaster, Lycan sits under constant pressure throughout the laning phase and gets a fraction of the expected farm, while Clockwerk can carve out a princely share for himself. Because of this one simple move, Puppey’s role in the laning phase is done: he can do whatever he fancies and be satisfied knowing he already made a disproportionate impact.LGD still persevered with their plan in ganking SF with Lion/Bounty rotations, but now instead of Xiao8’s Lion leaving a secure safelane behind him, Sylar and MMY are unable to truly drive Clockwerk out. This pressure makes it all the more urgent that LGD find kills on Arteezy, but their hasty actions result in Arteezy going 2-1 instead of 0-3. These slightly botched rotations almost decide the game outright.At 9 minutes, Brewmaster’s Blink is delivered and now the crucial timing arrives. Can LGD force a decisive fight using Blink->Clap->Split and take over the game before the Shadow Fiend Mek? Let the minimap tell the tale.Instead of a surprise 9-10 minute smoke where a hidden Brew Blink eviscerates Secret, LGD is unable to force the decisive movement until nearly 13 minutes. And of course, it’s so obvious by this point Secret easily dodges it. Timing lost, game effectively over. What happened to LGD’s gameplan? How could Secret stymie it so totally?Look at the lane pressure Secret is exerting here: Clock is pressuring the dire safelane up to the tower and pull camp, QoP is pushing the T2 bottom, SF is casually farming mid, while KotL is munching jungle creeps. Any smoke or initiation LGD do here on SF would be so incredibly obvious it wouldn’t work due to the pressure by Clock and QoP. As a result, before LGD can smoke, they need to release the pressure on their sidelanes. QoP, pushing the bottom T2, is the obvious target. Secret know this and leave Kuroky’s Rubick on bodyguard duty for s4.LGD predictably move on s4, but Kuroky saves him, sacrificing his life in the process. This noble death delays the attack on Arteezy longer, and is followed up with one of those Secret ganks that nobody sees coming. Maybe’s Brew casually pushes out bottom to relieve their lane equilibrium, and is rewarded for his diligence with a KotL blast and QoP Sonic Wave to the face. Xiao8 then dies going for a rune Secret shouldn’t have had vision of. With LGD’s key hero down and another minute wasted, the hourglass for LGD’s timing attack is nearly depleted. But there is still time left!Once Maybe revives, he immediately smokes with MMY, refusing to let any new obstacle thwart them from killing Arteezy and claiming the Radiant jungle. Yet right in front of their eyes, Zai’s Clockwerk pounces on Yao, blowing the smoke and netting a kill. xiao8’s Lion could not join them because he needed to protect bottom from QoP, thus allowing Zai to escape without retribution. Smoke wasted, opportunity lost.LGD still had enough time for a final attempt to salvage the game, but with the sidelanes pushed far into dire territory, Secret now group and push down mid. This gathering presents a golden opportunity for LGD, especially before all of Secret’s heroes link up. However, LGD’s heroes also have to push out sidelanes, or else any attack middle becomes very obvious. By the time they can rally, Secret already killed the tower and took a safe, high ground position in the dire jungle. The followup LGD smoke is wasted, and Secret effectively wins the game a few minutes later at a hail mary Roshan attempt.LGD’s plans were solid, but at every step of the way they were blocked almost effortlessly. Secret did one of the hardest things to do between TI caliber teams, and did it so casually that you didn’t notice. That is how outsmarting the opponent manifests at the highest level.With all of this said, and Secret’s dominating run pre-TI, why is TI not just going through the motions? The problem here is that TI is its own meta, and that Secret merely have defined the optimal play coming into it. That, however, does not not mean they still possess a monopoly on strategy that they had the previous tournaments. The half-life on a truly dominant system seems to be one tournament. In order to win ESL, Secret had to create better strategies than they showed at The Summit and MarsTV League. So it will have to be the same for TI if they want to maintain the advantage they entered each previous tournament with.When Secret entered ESL, they said they were going to relax and stick with their stable strategies already displayed. This wish apparently evaporated midway through their first round match against Fnatic. Though Secret was able to persevere with their refined lategame decision making, their midgame difficulties did not bode well.Secret stuck with their normal rotations of having Puppey bolster Zai in the offlane, a strong laner mid, and an absolutely secure safelane. Then, when the safelane hero reached level 6-7, he would go gank the enemy safelane/jungle and leave safelane farm to Kuroky. With such judicious moves, Secret would almost inevitably pull ahead. Because the enemy would not expect aggression at this timing, the European giants could seize control of multiple areas without requiring the time investment of many heroes.The advantage of Secret’s safelane rotation is that they pressure key enemy heroes at a unique timing while leaving secure farm to a support. It’s a similar philosophy to the old 4 protect 1 style of play, except instead of rotating underleveled supports to make space for a lategame carry, you are rotating an overleveled core to make space for a lategame support. Because of the surprising pressure, Secret could dictate the tempo of the game without committing too many resources - i,e their mid can keep farming. Simply moving over the carry forces the enemy to react, giving their fragile safelane support indirect protection.Instead of reacting to Secret’s aggression like every other team, Fnatic refused to be sucked into Secret’s tempo and immediately ganked the vulnerable Kuroky. The usual procedure left Secret threatening the enemy safelane while controlling their own, but in this case all that resulted was a trade of safelane gank for safelane gank. And, very importantly, it was done very efficiently, only requiring two heroes and leaving Bristleback the lane to farm.Of course, Secret’s success is due to far more than just this one type of maneuver, yet it shows there are chinks in the armor that they have to prepare for. After all Secret has been running around with a target on their heads for nearly 3 months. Many teams have begun using some of the ideas Secret has popularized, but only a few will probably know how to play against them. It will be very interesting to see who have merely copied Secret's ideas such as the economical ganks, who know them inside and out, and who refuses to adapt. Fortunately for Secret themselves, they have created a unique mid-lategame paradigm that will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of many playoff games.Whether it be focusing on two stable cores and an initiating offlaner, prioritizing the offlane over mid early on, or ganking early on with the carry, Secret has defined the battleground of TI5. Teams are far more aware of the opportunity costs of aggressively seeking fights than they were at the start 6.84. More and more teams are starting to copy the selfishness of Puppey and Kuroky, who often play like they are the carry and not a support. Some incredibly talented teams like VG have failed to adapt and thus suffered, while other weaker ones like Complexity have seen the light and thrived. No matter who wins TI5, no team will have contributed remotely as much to the strategic landscape here as Secret. Writer