SEAL Week 3/7: Clare vs. Nelson

Disclaimer: Ryrk has taken up the different hero every game challenge.

Game 1:

Overall Strategy: The Nelsons’ team is similar to panda’s in that they have two star players. Although different in that they actually work well together as they have not only have played a lot with each other but also with their offlaner Aku. Definitely are most difficult match up yet. I thought that if we could keep the Nelson duo from hard carry their team would crumble, and thus tried to draft accordingly.

Phase 1

Nelson Bans: Spirit Breaker/Kunkka

I assumed they were using the Rabbi strat of banning all my heroes to force me on something I’m shit at. But in the vod it looked like they thought Ryrk was the Kunkka spammer…interesting.

Clare Bans: Queen of Pain/Disruptor

I like banning out player signature supports since most captains pick at least one support during phase one, thus Blakkout’s Disruptor was out. The QoP ban was aimed at Dream. Ryrk winning lane and snowballing is very important to us so I can’t have dream running him over on one of his better heroes.

Nelson Pick: Clockwerk

We assumed this was the hip support Clock to shut down our mid but turned out to be the classic offlane Clock.

Clare Picks: Rubik/Skywrath Mage

I really having the Rubik to deal with the Clock before forcestaffs come out. I was thinking of picking Nightstalker since the hero is very powerful right now but chose Skywrath since I am personally more comfortable on the hero. This may have been a mistake.

Nelson Pick: Jakiro

Jakiro is a really solid support especially considering how it works well with Clock and works well against Skywrath.

Phase 2

Clare Bans: Puck/Lina

Dream is a very capable mid so we couldn’t give him lane bullies. Ryrk’s lane success is key.

Nelson Bans: Legion Commander/Razor

Two heroes we like to pick. Solid.

Clare Picks: Shadow Fiend/Faceless Void

Ryrk requested I immediately pick SF. I’m not totally sure why to be honest, I think it was partially a block pick. The Faceless void is a proven hero for Derpy and contributes well to the general strategy of shutting down the Nelsons since he can easily kill them with the ample damage coming from our team.

Nelson Picks: Riki/Outworld Devourer

The Riki surprised us since we assumed the Clock was support but didn’t bother us too much. The OD scared me a bit since I personally dislike playing against it but I don’t think Ryrk minds it too much which is the most important thing.

Phase 3

Clare Ban: Slark

Of the remaining carries in the pool we thought this would be the most difficult to deal with.

Nelson Ban: Juggernaught

They assumed the void was offlane and decided to ban the Jugg, understandable.

Nelson Pick: Phantom Assassin

A hero that cause problems for most of our team similar to how a slark would. Can shred our supports and forces our cores to itemize against her just to deal damage. Still not as dangerous as the Slark would have been in my opinion.

Clare Pick: Nyx Assassin

Nyx seemed the obvious pick against the OD.

Game Analysis

The game started off pretty well with both mid and bottom lanes winning handily. I was able to accomplish a lot more on roaming on Skywrath than Meat Popsicle did on Riki and Ryrk outfarmed the OD. Top lane was tough for toes as the endless slows and sustained damage killed him twice and hindered his farm. By fifteen minutes as we transitioned Ryrk was leading the networth charts by over 2000 gold. Toes was neck to neck with Clock despite his rough lane. Unfortunately me and Xtra were slightly behind their supports most likely due to buying detection, and Derpy was almost a full 1000 below Linkdx on PA. Almost perfectly equal in gold and exp we tried to start getting things done. This didn’t go too well as we lost a couple skirmishes and most notably Ryrk died twice. Overall the game was still very winnable still, Ryrk just needed an item or two. But then it all fell apart. We lost a fight by our mid T2 quite badly with OD’s scythe debut and chain fed till we lost all our barracks. GG

Game 2:

Overall Strategy: The general idea of the Nelsons being the only players worth worrying about seemed mostly confirmed although Aku played much better than I expected. I think I needed to pick Toes or Derpy something that does more than just setup for for Ryrk and actually puts out some damage this game though.

Phase 1

Nelson Bans: Spirit Breaker/Kunkka

Same as before

Clare Bans: Puck/Lina

Banned Lina this time, Ryrk insisted. Also Puck instead of QoP because we were going to pick QoP ourselves

Nelson Pick: Clockwerk

Same as before but this time we knew it could be offlane again

Clare Picks: Rubik/Nightstalker.

Rubik again to deal with Clock and we had Greg playing this game so not much thought here. I chose Nightstalker instead of Sky this time since he feels more powerful in the mid/late game even thought I have some personal issues playing him in the early game.

Nelson Pick: Disruptor

The Blakkout classic.

Phase 2

Clare Bans: Outworld Devourer/Templar Assassin

I didn’t want to deal with OD again and Ryrk didn’t want to face TA.

Nelson Bans: Queen of Pain/Invoker

Ryrk focused bans this time.

Clare Picks: Axe/Gyrocopter

The Axe gives Toes some play making potential and stops Nelson from picking melee agility heroes, can’t remember if Toes or Ryrk suggested the pick. The Gyrocopter was Ryrks suggestion which Derpy accepted.

Nelson Picks: Elder Titan/Sven

ET is one of Dude Broman’s most played heroes and Sven deals with Axe well.

Phase 3

Clare Ban: Tinker

Not a lot of mids left in the pool better start banning them.

Nelson Ban: Razor

Another mid ban

Nelson Pick: Lone Druid

The Razor ban makes a lot of sense now.

Clare Pick: Mirana

As always Ryrk asked for it he gets it.

Game Analysis

This game lasted well over an hour so I’m not going to go into deep details. We took early game by storm, at 20 minutes Ryrk was already 4000 gold ahead of the second richest hero (Sven) with our team as a whole being 6000 gold up in networth. Eventually Ryrk got bored so we ran in and fed, then next thing you know its sixty minutes in and we are stuck in our base. Honestly most of this game is a blur now but somehow we dragged it out to 75 minutes before finally falling to the power of Nelson Squared. GG

Week 3 Takeaway:

I mostly like the way the drafts are going but their are a couple things I want to change. First of all I want to continue banning supports first phase if the opposing team is having lots of success with a particular hero. Since most teams are very top heavy they tend to want to pick the core for their star player later in the draft and I think some players can do a lot of work on certain heroes, such as Blakkout with Disruptor. Second of all I want to find a good comfort hero to first pick for Xtra. I have played a lot more games with ButteryGreg and am perfectly happy to keep picking Rubik but Xtra seemed less comfortable on it when I picked it this week. Lastly if Spirit Breaker Clockwerk are unavailable I am going to be more inclined to pick Nightstalker for myself. Although I currently less with the hero in laning stage than I do with other heroes such as Skywrath his mid/late game presence is much more impactful. Nightstalkers don’t have this happen to them for starts.

Which brings me to our primary downfall, mid/late game. At a very minimum we are always able to break even in the early/laning phase largely due to Ryrks godly laning ability. Even in our losses we looked good in the beginning of the game but then things eventually fell apart. I’m not exactly sure how we fix that but I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Of course these are all just my personal thoughts and final decisions will be made with the whole team.

Til next week,

Clare