Though one of the smaller tournaments, the jD Masters XIII gave us two days of great games by Western DotA's top teams. Here's a rundown of the games, including VODs, so you can watch a few as you go along.RoX pulls the game back from the brink early on after a quick Fnatic 5-1 start and from there Fnatic seem unable to make either the push or gank approaches click. Even with Aegises, Fnatic can't find the chinks in RoX's armour and eventually, past the 60 minute mark, Bzz's Gyro and Dread's Weaver are able to outcarry their opponents.One to watch. While both teams' lineups revolve around pushing, the game is comprised mostly of skirmishes until QPAD start to pull away with some convincing fights around 20-25 minutes in. While their gold/XP lead balloons, it takes them 15 minutes to convert it to the first rax. Na`Vi go on permanent defense with Puppey splitpushing, and wait for QPAD to make a mistake, which they do, biting on the Puppey bait slightly too hard just a couple of times and finding a wrathful Na`Vi swooping in to take vengeance and flip the game on its head.Mouz gets the kills early, and it seems like Black might find the farm especially when he rockets to 8-0, then 10-0, then 13-0. But Black is the only good news for a team actually struggling to hold EG off anywhere on the map. EG effectively farms up 3 separate core heroes and breaks the base through sheer numbers and tenacity.

Eternal Onslaught

By riptide



A wild EternaLEnVy appears. (Picture by A wild EternaLEnVy appears. (Picture by joinDOTA

The last few months have been a period of change for you. How do you find your new team?

I think Pieliedie is a great player and I have learnt a lot from him in play, and how he approaches the game. The rest of the players are very skilled in specific areas as well, but also have big weaknesses. For example, bOne7 is sometimes mute. However, right now the team mostly needs to work on their attitude towards the game - to not be scared of facing tough opponents but instead be excited, to not rage/go emo from a loss but to grow from them instead, and to treat each other with the utmost respect. Overall, it is a team with some talented players. I'm excited to see how they will develop.

You have moved from being a hard support to a carry, going right across the farm allocation scale from #5 to #1. Have you enjoyed this transition? What have you learnt from the experience?

At first it was quite enjoyable transitioning from support to carry as it adds a new spice to playing in real games. However, after a few days it's basically the same as playing support. It's fun when you win or are improving, but otherwise it's depressing. One good thing is that I solo queue public games quite a lot, so the transition has made practicing/warming up in public games easier, although I don't really win more when I play carry in public games (unless I pick some specific heroes *cough* Ursa *cough*), it's definitely less frustrating.



Going by the same logic though, I think the mid role would be the best since I usually play mid in pubs. I hate it when everyone feeds and I can't even play my game as carry. At least in the mid role, I can blame myself when I lose - "omg, I made a mistake this game, that's why I lost." Sigh, I say that too much on stream... T_T solo queue emo-ness. It's definitely more frustrating practicing support heroes in pub games, especially heroes that require coordination. It may even make you worse. I haven't really learnt much from the transition from a knowledge perspective. I spent a lot of time thinking, trying to figure out every role in order to have a higher chance of joining a good team when I first started playing, and I continued to do the same even during NTH in order to help my teammates. That doesn't mean I'm not learning though. I'm gaining experience and confidence in my play, and I can think I learn faster the more I play the role. Some roles require more knowledge than others in the laning phase, but the carry role probably has the least technical aspects in terms of laning. But really, switching roles usually isn't that big a deal, it's really just playing DotA.

You guys did really well in the jD Masters XIII tournament, beating both Liquid and EG. Tell us a bit about how the five of you went into these two games.

We were fairly confident against both teams after our victory against Empire. Kaipi has played against Liquid in matches a few times already and so far it's been going back and forth. Evil Geniuses is a team I respect, but lately they aren't doing too well. We didn't underestimate EG though, as they played well against mousesports, and I personally don't do that in general. In both games the opponent went for an aggressive tri-lane to slow down our hard late game carry's farm (Phantom Lancer, and Void) but failed both times. Our solo lanes got crushed then as my teammates don't do very well on the US EAST server. Regardless, I felt like we out picked Liquid and once they lost a team fight (lol blademail clockwerk > eclipse), the game was over. In the game against EG we had heroes like a mask of madness Void/Queen of Pain/Batrider which are strong at picking off weak heroes, and once the enemy fails an aggressive tri-lane they will surely have at least 2 heroes that are easy to pick off.

What are your thoughts on your Grand Finals series vs Na`Vi? If you could replay it, what would your team do differently?

I think the first game was a fairly good game, but we had some embarrassing moments. We somehow lost to a solo Lifestealer with a tri-lane, after crushing a 3v3 at the start. There were some points in time where we got chased for a year and there wasn't any clear communication/reaction between teammates. If we secured our tri-lane and our Gyro managed to farm a single damage item, the enfeeble wouldn't have crushed us that hard. Also, Kuroky used the same stolen Mag ult two times. We should have kept track of the ultimate and avoided fights till it timed out. In the second game they used a neat strategy that just caught us off guard. I think Na`Vi is the highest individual skilled team in the Western scene, and they have been playing well since their boot camp, so I'm kinda OK with the results. It sucks though because we got second place in so many two day tournaments, and we've been trying to win a tournament to buy Arise a new computer. T_T Right now he doesn't even have a mousepad and lags every game. "I can't play, the wind is blowing, I'm lagging." - Arise.

In the long run, what do you think you guys need to work on the most?

Well, as I mentioned before, first we need to work on our team atmosphere when we are under pressure or after a loss. Our supports need to start practicing mastering their heroes, as they aren't weak at heroes like Wisp/Visage/Chen, and they definitely can get a lot better. After we develop our hero pool, I would like to start playing more pressure oriented line-ups, and eventually we will have plenty of strategies, sort of like Fnatic.EU.

As a team, what are you most looking forward to about the next few months?

Obviously TI3, and right now the G-1 qualifier. Hopefully DDOS won't doom us all.

Which team(s) would you like to face next in a tournament?

I sometimes get really excited when we play against the best teams. Right now that would be NTH, and Na`Vi. But personally I think there are about 9 teams right now in the West that can beat each other at random times, so any of the Tier 1 teams plus Rox.Kis, DD, and 4FC would be fun to play against.

Make a bold prediction about the Dota 2 scene in the second half of 2013.

Clairvoyance becomes one of the best casters, Arteezy becomes a great, developed player and crushes everyone; he's still a kid though, but that could be a good thing.