Season 2 Player Draft

Season 2 of SEAL is here and I’m reviving the Clare Blogs starting with week 0, the player draft. The player draft is the most interesting part of these leagues so even though no games happened this week I’m still writing the blog. I’ll be going through my thinking process on the players I picked then what I think of the other teams.

Pick 1: Potato Farmer

My choices for the first round were realistically between Mr Matieu, Melliflox, Linkdx, and Potato Farmer. I ruled out the first two on the basis I don’t know them at all nor do their dotabuff’s imply they are noticeably better than Linkdx or Potato. Having my first pick be a shotcaller as well as a strong individual player was important to me and I know both remaining players filled those requirements to the fullest. Potato Farmer isn’t objectively better or worse than Linkdx in my eyes, but since I already have plenty of experience playing with him it seemed clear he was the pick for me.

Pick 2: NOVAKID

With myself being a 3k support player it was vital to grab a strong core to pair with potato round two. Novakid only showed up recently in a couple Seal Club games which means I haven’t seen him play that much but I was pretty convinced on this pick even before the draft began. A 4.5k mid player that seemed pleasant to play with was ideal. Other players I considered were aug! and DerpyDots who are similarly skilled but play offlane best. Since I planned on picking a support round 3, I decided it was better to leave my last picks as offlane and have a stronger mid player, rather than the other way around.

Pick 3: TripleRainbow

Despite being 3k I know TripleRainbow is a highly capable 4th position player. I was initially unsure if this was the correct pick since many higher mmr players were available but I decided after sifting through a few dotabuffs this was the best option. With the new patch rumored to come this week I had some additional concern about the 4th position as a role being nerfed, since it has been so prevalent this meta. Luckily Valve announced today 7.07 won’t be coming for another month so that won’t be an issue yet.

Pick 4: Burgeoning

Getting Burg so late in the draft was pretty lucky for me. Despite being the highest MMR for a few picks before mine no one else took him (I assume because he captained a disbanded team last season people were afraid). I however, had no hesitation snatching up a high 3k/low 4k offlaner to round out my team. An additional plus of having burg is that my team now has a too many signature heroes for teams to ban them all, with Burg’s Phoenix, TR’s Earth Spirit/Shaker, my Kunkka and Potatoes cancerous pool.

Pick 5: Will

Picking the last player is always weird. Since I already have a full team I’m basically deciding who to bench for a potentially worse player. I had a few people in mind for this round. Initially I was thinking of missile since I picked his friend NOVAKID but it would have caused issues with Potato who doesn’t get along with him. I considered Til as well who I could swap out with burg in the offlane and keep a consistent support duo but I ended up settling on Will. I’ve known Will for a while, he is a super cool guy and much less retarded in game than he lets on. But most importantly I can use his discord and bot for team communications.

The Final Team

For now my lineup is probably going to be 1. Potato 2. Novakid 3. Burg 4. TR 5. Me/Will. I think we look pretty strong on paper and am looking forward to playing with these guys.

Other Teams

Figure I would do a Power ranking of the other teams based on their player drafts while I was at it, so here are my thoughts. No particular order within tiers

Top Tier: Teams destined for top 4

Gharnef — A.R. is a good player and he has been comboed with two other cores that he has league experience with. What moves this team from upper to top tier for me is that all 3 of the supports on this team are consistently solid. I’m sure Butterygreg is one once again the highest value 5th pick. Im also sure this team will have at least one horrible loss to a worse team this season since A.R. and El Jefe are fiftEE/fiftEE players.

Ultragunner — Ultra is a good player and has his buddy Treebeard with him for a dangerous dynamic duo. I’m not sure exactly how the roles end up as for this team but I think as long as Richie is comfortable the team will be very tough to beat. However I do think it’s possible for this to become a hard 2v8 scenario which would lower the team’s power in my eyes. Should be upper half regardless though.

aTran — aTran is a good player and he has his buddy Treyn with him for a dangerous dynamic duo. I assume this team will have aTran playing carry with Rabbi and shaz rotating offlane and Bolt/Superman as a consistant support duo. As mentioned in my own draft I like the idea of keeping one unchanging support duo and have offlane rotating. Kind of similar to Ultra’s team but I prefer aTrans last 4 picks, however, I expect Ultra on mid to be slightly more potent than aTran on carry.

Upper Tier: Teams with the potential for top 4

Chance — I like this team a lot but only because I believe, with Spence and Paradise’s coaching, Chance can become a mid much more powerful than his MMR suggests. It’s tempting to put this team in the Top Tier but until Chance proves himself, Upper Tier is the place to be. Wonder-boy Osis is obviously a key part of this team as the resident 5k but he can’t always win games alone. Luckily Chance drafted a strong line up, I’m not going to bother going through them individually since they are all good for their pick draft position.

Kodos — This team is unique in that their is no one 5k player with a high 4k player backing them up but instead has two high 4k players and Kizu for a balanced, strong tri-core. From what I can tell aku isn’t typically a support player but I’m sure he will adapt well to the four position and I know mao is a good five. Most balanced team in the league with the potential to do really well but might not make top 4 if they get run over by SEAL superstars like A.R., aTran, Ultra etc.

Smack — Managing to snag FC in the second round after picking Linkdx makes me like Smacks team Even before seeing the rest of the team. Toes and a couple more support picks to follow rounds this team off nicely. I think Pogchimps 2.0 has the potential to become top 4 but I wouldn’t rate them above the teams I currently have as Top tier.

Poonani — The EST refugees might be underrated on this list but I don’t know them so that’s just how it’s gonna be. The first two picks on this team are pretty good. If Poonani lives up to his MMR I’m sure this team will be in the top half.

GSKW — Similar to Poonani’s team I don’t know much about Mr. Matieu but the rest of the picks seems solid, aug in particular, so they should do well. Can’t say much more than that.

Lower Tier: Teams unlikely to make top 4

Tyrannosaurus-X — Seems a lot like team “Admin Abuse” from last season but with a2k instead of tswift and Vuvu instead of Took. I’m not counting them out completely but seems like this might be a downgrade from Tx’s last team. Looks like a fun group though wouldn’t mind losing some games on team like this.

Truckwaffle — Truck, Bloodninja, and Took seems like a solid core combination but the next couple picks don’t seem super good. I’m sure they will do okay but expecting more than a 50% winrate from a truck team is bad practice.

Shea Dr. — This team might be super good. Shea is a capable captain and his first two picks are high mmr for their round. The other picks look alright too but I’m heard lots of rumors that Box ghosts mmr is very inflated. If thats true this team belongs in the lower tier, if not they should be in upper tier, maybe even top.

tiGGer — I won’t ever put a team with tswift in the bottom tier but it was tempting. Apart from tswift this team has nothing. tswift was in a similar situation last season but at least he had deadprez and Took instead of Doosher and a bunch of 3ks. I don’t think any players on this team are particularly bad for the round they were picked in, the assembly of this team is just terrible.

racc9 — It’s possible that I’m just underestimating Melliflox but this team doesn’t look super strong at first glance. The Kabo Zoompa support duo is proven but I’m not sure how Shadowmerc will work into that. Racc9 used the standard formula of one 5k backed by two 4ks for cores and some 3k/2k supports. In my opinion this needs 3 good cores or a support that can lead the duo in order to be effective. I prefer to see that one of the top three players is a support player to lead the support duo unless you have a lot of faith in later picked supports to do so. I don’t with this team, nor do I like the power of it’s tri-core. Compared to a team like Gharnef’s that uses the same picking strategy, this team looks worse.

TheMantis — This team is weird and I doubt they can reach top4, but they might be able to land themselves in the top half of teams and both knuttz and mantis are fun to play with. 659, a low 5k carry player, was a fine first pick for Mantis but the follow up of Knuttz and Danny seems odd. Knuttz is a 4k support player just like Mantis which means either Mantis is going back to offlane or the later picks are playing the offlane and mid roles with knuttz and Mantis working as the support Duo. Another point of interest is that Knuttz has also recently come back from a long break of not playing Dota and as of me writing this blog has fallen to 4.1k solo MMR. He is likely not going to be as strong as his sheet MMR implied for at least the first half of the season. Danny is not a bad player but third round was probably too early. However the Danny pick did allow for Cyni to be picked shortly after, perhaps a stroke of genius here. If Mantis wants to run a Knuttz-Mantis Support duo Danny and Cyni are pretty good at cores relative to their MMR which makes me like this team even if it looks really weird on paper. Last picking Rock was perfect since he is Danny’s friend can also play offlane. Overall this team seems pretty well constructed and may contain the strongest support duo in the league but if knuttz doesn't get back into fighting form quickly this team is going to be lacking in raw Dota skill.

exp — Picking waves for your mid after he refused to play it last season is questionable. Other than that this team just seems a little subpar. Ryrk is a good player but if hes playing offlane I don’t think he can put out results good enough to consistently carry waves and exp. If waves refuses to play mid again and ryrk plays it this team could be a little stronger but still lower tier.

Bottom Tier: Something dumb happened here

Mango Girl — MangoGirl’s team was always going to be a little weaker than it had to be since he is picking with is wife who is brand new to Dota. However his other choices are what placed him in my bottom tier. Picking Aeos when Linkdx was in the pool was the dumbest thing to happen this draft and following it up with an oblvxknight pick was also dumb. Instead of picking a flexible 5k carry/mid followed by a high 4k, Mango picked two high 4k carry only players. To stoke the fire none of the other picks seem worth their slot either. Aeos is making his RD2L team that is in a similar situation work by playing offlane, so this team wont be a complete train-wreck but its pretty bad.

Mjj — Picking fiery first round is setting yourself up for disaster. I’m not even sure what tryhard fiery looks like anymore, he always just memes or doesn’t try. His support might actually be his best role now. If Fiery decides to put his all into this team and is still good at core then they are out of bottom tier but still not super impressive. The latter picks are high MMR but fallen is probably being forced to play mid again and people will expect Dihy’s jungle tinker now which lowers both of their values.

Crap — First picking Treegirl for guaranteed first pick every other round was a cool idea, if not actually brilliant, but using that to immediately pick Tango seems questionable. If Tango being much worse than his MMR has been an elaborate ruse then this team doesn't look as bad as I initially thought but that seems unlikely considering how much Dota he plays. Wumpkins is probably value, wolf might be value considering he was picked 4th round but I don’t think Yes has working internet.

Until next week,

-Clare