Unfortunately for VP, by the end of the laning stage, the result was 9-0 in favor of VG. The good news was that the overall resource difference wasn’t too bad because they were farming OK in the lanes. The bad news was that Paparazi was gaining momentum on Morph, while Pasha (VP’s main team-fight control hero and space creator) was slowly falling behind.

It’s interesting to note that in the three games that VG won Paparazi didn’t have a single death, while Pasha didn’t have a single kill (with a KDA close to 1). Although three games are not enough to draw a solid conclusion, this looks a bit like a trend.

It is quite possible that countering Pasha makes it much harder for VP to win because Pasha plays their main space creator, while Noone and Ramzes play cores that need space to farm. This means that when Pasha has a bad game it’s hard for VP to control the map. Consequently, Noone and Ramzes lack enough space to farm and they have a hard game as well.

Alternatively, if the enemy team targets either Noone or Ramzes with their early aggression, even if one of them has a bad game the other one will have the space to take over and carry.

This conclusion is a bit too general for such high tier Dota teams and if VP notice Pasha is getting systematically targeted they will surely be able to switch up their strat. Both Noone and Ramzes are able to create space if given the right hero and they show it in some of the games below. Nonetheless, this logic is very applicable to our own pubs: