2 announcements to make :
1) zenith has won RGN season 3 DOTA 2006. this makes it the 3rd year that ice holds the title, albeit its with a different team each year.
congratulations to them. it was super tedious commentating under the hot, glaring tentage, i can only imagine how it was like to play in the plasticky jersey.
2) xMusiCa will be leaving us as he is migrating to Australia. i can only say that its not just his team that will miss him for his playing, all of us will miss our lil bro...
k. too depressed to write anymore. surprised i could come up with so much in the first place.

-back to silence on the blog-

***
for more pictures and writeups of RGN, check out www.gamesync.net.

girls, there's 2 upcoming competitions:
- capl premiere
- hq compy @ chinatown

capl we're definitely playing, date not confirm, but it should be the 3rd week of january. are we joining the hq one? hq one is every sunday for 3 sundays. more info, check out x3m private forum.

and we got to train up for capl. school's starting for me, next wednesday. i'll try to organise the trainings but tammy or someone else will have to take over soon. i expect truckload of homework. =( alevel sucks.

and happy new year to all! <3

Hi anyone interested in going on a holiday with me? =D Probably on a cruise. Or to Malaysia. Or maybe to Thailand. =) Clearing my off day in January =P 11 - 15 Jan. 19 -23 Jan.

my opinion is...
items + timing.
more mass team items- euls guinsoo meka refresher
earlier push once i got my ref and chen full house.

our early game wasnt too bad though. think we get the catch and control idea already.

we have been losing alot of games that we shouldn't lose.

SOMETHING IS WRONGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

hi babes and guys... MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL
i'm posting from cyn's house now... BBQ on the way! once the rain stops.
i know the site's been slow at updating, but... its the festive season man... we're all too busy with our own lives. YEAH, we HAVE lives!

a quick update for yesterday's training.

line up for yesterday's training, tammy, jiayi, me(shan), caocao and cloud(playing from home).

cynthia and dawn were busy.

lost both game. and i was seriously HOT. cos not suppose to lose one lorrrrrrrrr.

i'll do a clearer update soon. with heros lineup and some opinions from me.

In a large crowd, there will be a majority that's compliant, and a minority that complains.

Now, generally the easiest way to control the minority would be to issue blanket restrictions which also affect the majority. Unfortunately, this means the majority will suffer for what is only useful to control a small minority.

That however, is much simpler than identifying that minority and imposing restrictions on them specifically. The broader the restriction, the more the rule is followed to the letter and less to its purpose, but until it is specific enough, there will be a majority that is restricted in order to control the non-compliant minority.

----------------------------

Haven't really been playing much on Lancraft against SG teams. In preparation for a match against China team [mage] today, I installed GG-Client one week ago to test lag and etc. and subsequently got invited into IHCS, which is an inhouse tournament-like league for individual DotA players that are invited from all over the world. Players have win/loss records, and different modes of play, and most players (I say most because I've seen some pretty bad ones) play very well. They're also mostly from Europe and America so playing with them means either your body clock or their body clock is screwed up.

The standard is actually higher than playing SG Lancraft matches, though there's the frustration factor of having to cope with higher-than-usual delay on most hosts. Most hosts are European, and the best ones offer 0.5 second delay which can screw up last hits against another person who can micro well. Other European hosts can provide much worse delay. Hosts from America and Russia seem pretty good though, with delay that you can actually almost forget about a few dozen minutes into the game.

Anyway, played with clan [mage] from China today through GGC, courtesy of Replays.net arranging a match. Replays can be found on replays.net. We wanted to play 3 matches, 2 -LM and one AP Draft, but only played 2. We played by their rules though, which allows us to share regen items and control to buy items. It actually changes gameplay by quite a lot.

First game didn't go too fruitfully, with a rather bad host, so nothing much to speak about it. Second game went rather much better when we found a better host. Teamwork was rather good that game though, so we managed to win it.

I just summarised 2 games in one paragraph, because I don't feel like saying much about them. Late and I feel like playing more IHCS games tomorrow, hopefully with ice, because he sort of pwns.

IHCS games are troublesome, rather delay-filled, and occasional DCs result in a lot of unhappiness, but it's mostly worth the trouble for higher standard games.

*****
[edited by furryfish]
links to the replays are game 1: http://bbs2.replays.net/htm_data/994/0612/1012628.html
and game 2 : http://bbs2.replays.net/htm_data/994/0612/1012633.html
NOTE: DO NOT RIGHT CLICK SAVE THIS LINK.
**download not available on our d/l page because ice sent me 2 replay files 0kb each. ... .. . . . . .

[21:33:01] * Dns resolving 202.21.158.13
[21:33:01] * Dns resolved 202.21.158.13 to proxy.rp.edu.sg

[21:28:08] * Dns resolving 210.24.210.91
[21:28:08] * Dns resolved 210.24.210.91 to adsl91.dyn210.pacific.net.sg

**
spam reported, ip banned, posts deleted.
if u ever come on irc, u'll be pbanned too.
too bad for the whole rp.
lol.

hmm.. i took this in melbourne. along st kilda beach.

was at the melbourne zoo and this giraffe here reminds me of ice.. go figure.

zenith was recently interviewed by replays.net
this is the english version
http://bbs2.replays.net/htm_data/1306/0612/997921.html
chinese version
http://bbs2.replays.net/htm_data/616/0612/997530.html

or you can access it from http://map.replays.net/

pretty funny interview... ^^ i believe the first picture is ripped from the gxl site though.

"zEnith`GPS: The girl, because you can eat her and use her for other purposes as well. Clearly a superior choice to bread. As for DOTA, you just can't eat it."

aloha! i is back from aussie! weather there is cool. everywhere feels like aircon. chocolate fondue everyday. :D~

and since im suffering from jetlag(its about 12noon in aussie.), i'll do a "reply" to tammy's post from a marshal's point of view.

POINT TO NOTE! im only a mini marshal, and it DOES NOT represent what ALL the marshals think and feel. and also there are competitions organised by cha pa lang people who are not even sure how competitions are run or how the games are supposed to be played. so please note, im only talking about competitions that i, myself marshaled..

case 1 : player gets into final /semi-final of 2 different games, but forced to pick one and forfeit one.
organisers/marshals will do their best to accomodate such clashes but sometimes, time/venue does not permit this to happen. for example, capl @ e2max. the often clashes are wc3 and dota. the coms that players are using are actually being paid for hourly. if 2 different games clash, and organisers/marshals allow the player to stagger his game, it will cause some huge delay. say, maybe we're suppose to end at 6pm, but we end up ending at 8pm. when you delay ONE game, it is NOT only your that particular match will be delayed. it will cause delay to the WHOLE bracket, causing some HUGE delay like 2 to 3 hours. organisers are paying for the competition to be run, so if there's a delay, they'll have to pay more. and more often than not, we have a time schedule to follow. a case that happened this year. WCG preliminary round @ lanlab. it was supposed to end by 7pm, latest. due to some delay to ONE game, the whole event ended at 12am. see the seriousness? organisers/marshals try to accomodate players, and players should do likewise too, be a little more understanding, i guess?

then there was this incident in wcg, it happens every yearm and i happen to know both players, in 2005 and 2006. top 4 position in one game, top 2 position in another. then you say, "hey! its not the normal rounds! its the top few position! how can u ask them to forceit one?!" AH HAR! because its the top few games, these games are being casted on stage, online. if im to stagger one game, so whats going to happen? and i remember hearing from a more experienced marshal telling a player who was participating 2 games that, if the games happened to clash, with no regards to whichever stage, he/she will need to forceit one of them. and the player said ok. then after forceiting, the flaming begins. ironic, isnt it?

well, one thing players can do to avoid such clashes is that, if you are going to take part in 2 different games in 1 compy, you can try to contact the organisers beforehand. and beforehand means at least 3 days allowance, not 5mins allowance. i believe we can work some solution out, given the time allowances eh? one thing to note, most organisers/marshals themselves are gamers as well.

case 2 : unclear rules / rules that can be changed according to the marshall's discretion / rules changed last minute.
sometimes, its not the marshals, its the players. i remember this incident, i was the headmarshal for some compy in ngee ann poly. time limit was imposed for all games, except for the finals. so just before the game start, i reminded the players that there will be NO time limit(stated in the rules, and was at the back of the registration form). and as expected, i got scolded. things like, "you never tell us got time limit earlier!" the thing is, it has always been in the list of rules. it was in BOLD. sometimes, rules are there, players just seem to choose to not see certain rules or choose not to read them at all.. and then, because dota map version is everchanging. and dota is still deemed as an unstable game, the rules that we currently have are unable to cover every situation that is going to happen. more often than not, marshals are required to make a decision on the spot. so as to avoid delay. i do agree that marshals sometime make decisions that may SEEM bias but we're all trying very hard to accomodate everyone, both players and organisers. marshals are human too and all human make mistakes. and we marshals always want to explain to players why we make certain decision. but usually, players are too aggitated to listen. players sometimes SCREAM at you. and trust me, many teams would have been dq-ed for being late(some to the extent of 1hour). but as usual, organisers/marshals, accomodate these problems. so ya, spare a thought for us k.. =.= some things are unavoidable.

case 3 : spectators not allowed / spectator unfriendly sites
when i just joined marshalling, spectators were allowed. problems i faced,

1) so many people are crowding behind the teams playing that i cant even see whats going on on the screen. if thats the case, how am i suppose to do my job?

2) people behind telling the players what to do, tipping off enemy's location, causing unfair play. telling them off dont work, they just keep doing it. so do i dq that particular team? tell me what to do..

3) spectators distracting the players. i cant possibly tell the spectators to get loss because spectators are allowed.

and then there was this rule, spectators are to stand 1m away from competitors' chairs. did it work? apparently not. everytime you tell spectators to stand back, yeah, they move. 5mins later, they're touching the chairs again. cant possibly keep shouting at them, will distract the players.

and the implement of barricades. STILL, there are people who ignore the barricade and WALK/CRAWL in.

anyway, thats not the point. the point is, there's reasons why organsiers/marshals do not allow spectators. ya.. thats actually one of the reason how commentating comes about. until we find better solution, sorry, no spectators. :l

ok, im pretty much done with this. im sorry im not very good at expressing certain things. i'll keep this post updated if i find anything to edit.

decided to discuss some points that i've heard from gamers, about how competitions are run. generally, for the masses, there isnt much to complain about, however there are a few loopholes in the rules and so forth that can cause some... well... unhappiness. for the sake of everyone, i shall leave names of organisations and people out. cos this is just a post based on my experiences / what i've heard, and NOT TO FLAME ANYONE. cos i'm aware that organisers have alot on their agenda to handle, and they cant accomodate everyone in everything. fair?
***

case 1 : player gets into final /semi-final of 2 different games, but forced to pick one and forfeit one.
well, i guess if there is a timetable clash between the finals, and there is REALLY no time, then its just too bad for the player. if a disclaimer is there on the registration slip or whatever, then theres no way the player can kpkb if his/her matches clash. however, being an organiser, i think that its best to try to accomodate such clashes. if the player can actually get to the final rounds of the competition, its quite unfair to just force him/her to forfeit one, especially if he/she paid to take part. also, should there be any need for discussion and agreement, it should be done in 4's - both the players / teams present, with the head marshall and a witness, as to whether both sides are agreeable to postponing a match / forfeiting it. this prevents nonsense statements after the event with no one to verify them.
***

(ok i'm tired of using him/her. i shall just drop it and use the generic "him", please note that the"him" could mean "her" too ok.)
***

case 2 : unclear rules / rules that can be changed according to the marshall's discretion / rules changed last minute.
yes i agree that the marshall / organising committee has the right to change rules as and when they deem fit, however it is irritating to the players. for example, a dota compie could have no timelimit, but suddenly for a crucial match, a timelimit is fixed. this kinda screws up the last minute training for a no timelimit match, and forces the players to do more or less impromptu strategies. i guess rule changes should be clearly stated to the team, preferably in advance, perhaps via sms to the team captain. in the case of a cs compie, i heard that, like dota, one side chooses map, the other chooses terror / counter terror. i dont know why, because the incident was related to me, but somehow the marshalls let one team pick side twice, in both rounds, allowing them to get the favourable side for the second round AGAIN, pwning the supposedly "better team". of course, this incident could be related from a biased point of view, however if it really happened, and the pov was unbiased, then its pretty... eeks.
***

case 3 : spectators not allowed / spectator unfriendly sites
ok this has got to be the suckiest rule alive. lol! cos speaking from the viewpoint of a spectator, its really tong ku (painful) to just stand like 4 metres away from the gaming area, peeking at com screens in between heads and shoulders. however i understand fully... having so many people in the gaming area means that the competitors will be distracted and possibly poked here and there. (incidentally i hate people shaking my chair or knocking it when i'm in game... i think a few of you i know cant stand it either...) recent developments in shoutcasting have improved this situation, although the shoutcasting can piss the competitors off as much as people poking their chairs would. also, how about allowing coaches into the gaming arena? hmm...
then again, this is a pretty minor point compared to the first 2 i mentioned.
***

k i'm done for now. i shall go get trashed in bnet ladder... if i think of anything else i shall post!

Well, lessee what happened yesterday.

So we were down at e2max @ cathay for about 6 hours in the afternoon yesterday, playing 15 minute games. We didn't know the rules until we got there. It was supposed to be 10 minutes, but we requested for it to be 15 minutes since, frankly, nothing can be done in 10 minutes.

Simply put, we had to fight each team for 15 minutes, and every tower kill was worth 2 points, every hero kill was worth 1. Team with the best score over us won $300 bucks. Teams were allowed two tries, so most teams there played us twice, except for the ones who came after five.

A brief summary of the place. It looks cool and all, the interface is sweet and easy, but that's until you realise that they don't allow you to access internet explorer, IRC, MSN, or anything else for that matter other than about 4 games. The Razor Tarantula is also the subject of many complains as it's big and rather clumsy to play DotA with. I'll also rather have a diamondback than the copperhead they provide, but that's personal preference.

But for all that's worth, it's a nice place once you get used to it, and you don't get any more accessible than being at Cathay.

Most of the drafting was just done based on who wanted what heroes, we more or less didn't really care what heroes we picked as long as it had decent early game since it was a 15 minute game after all. First game against brts was won by a rather close margin, around 3 to 5 points, by virtue of Chen and Warlock having no counters drafted. Next game against what I'll just refer to as Renewious' team wasn't that close, even though ice proceeds to feed with his Chen.

There are a few not very noteworthy games in between the ones I mention, with double digit point margins or against people I have no idea about, and I won't mention them.

Then we got up against t@x!s/ipod/eMo/whatevertheyarecallednow. I don't know what was happening in other lanes, but a nice lucky spawn of creeps on top lane for my Enchantress locks their Viper at level 1 while Tofu happily levels up on top lane till level 5. Wasn't much of a close game.

Brts fights again, being the only team to do worse on their 2nd try than on their first. Renewious' team goes up yet again and loses by a not too narrow margin of 5 points or so. ipod/eMo goes up for their 2nd try and by virtue of simply snatching kills and humjing, they manage to get a kill advantage and lose by the closest ever margin of 1 point due to tower kills.

Cloud and company go up next and go very close to winning us with their 1-0-4, effectively sending 4 people up against ice to take down the tower fast and get as many early kills as possible without being killed. GPS' RK is feeding intensively too, which nets us a very bad hero score. We're losing 1-4 in terms of Hero kills at the end of the game, with LuX's KOTL being the only killer. Infernal at top and Bear at bottom though, net us a 3 tower advantage, with ice's bear at the last minute taking down the bottom tower, making them lose by 3 points, 2 points away from drawing with ipod/eMo.

I leave at this point but from what I heard rev0 gets thrashed completely in the next game losing 6 towers, and ipod/eMo having the closest margin of losing to us by only 1 point, wins. I guess.

Not much to speak of, 15 minute games in 5v5 are rather pressurising to say the least, but it sucks being able to shop only once.

That being said, I'm thinking of ways to insult Tofu's moral standard, but at least it's not incorrigible. It is however, quite fucked up.

read full article at http://www.gameaxis.com/home/?blog=522

"To continue with the new blood tradition that occurred in the Singapore National Finals, another unbeaten team again was knocked out during the DOTA qualifiers! Team Zenith never lost a tournament for half a year and was heralded as Singapore's best DOTA team..."
by jaczie on Sunday, 13th August 2006 @ 12:02:11 PM
***

something ice came across, but will never post, so i'm doing it on his behalf.
written by kel's female sidekick, commentator / article writer jaczie from Phillippines


***
e2max opening today, i only HEARD what happened, being stuck in egames for the good part of the day. cloud's team, consisting of alan and darkwish from XqR (i think) and i dont know who else, narrowly lost to ipod in the 5v5 challenge. ice, taking down one more tower gained a 3 point advantage over cloud's team, while ipod came away as the team which lost the least to zenith, winning $300 for themselves!
as i wasnt there, all this is what i HEARD only... lets hope ant keeps us posted, in greater detail.

i have my hands on the gxl finals between zenith and micronology. gxl has finally updated their site, i'm uploading it to geocities so u all can dl it from our download page too.
click here to download >>> gxl finals zenith vs micronology
***
Soup4lyfe : there are 2 teams here... u want to trash or be trashed? state preferences pls, we will then allocate a team to you.
***
to passerby passerby2 or stranger, sorry i cant remember who... cos the posts disappeared from the tagboard and i cant be bothered to check the main archives...if ure talking about the pictures here http://www.gxleague.com/league/gallery.asp?id=57&Start

me, shan, renew, ice from left to right. i'm looking at playworks and the hot babes from the korean gaming fest thing. shan got caught haha... renew ice and tofu (cant be seen) gambling... haha.

ant being very happy... in the hot sun... me in the mid smsing, some extras, then ice with a weird look on his face (as usual) holding FOOD!

Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes #1: Queen in Pain
Refer to post last Sunday for details... and now for the answer...

Yes! The mistake is 100% True! It caused him his one and only death in the GXL finals, which I guess I'll cover soon.

Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes #2: Sian King
After hitting burrowstrike, Musica casts epicentre and proceeds to blink out and hit nothing. Fact or fabrication?

Whoosh.

Since GXL seems to be rather slow to upload replays, I'll just give a brief summary of the whole thing. I have no idea what was going on around the map since it was a rather intense game, and the glare of the sunlight reflecting on the screen and the damn heat makes things rather difficult to see.

On to GXL, finals against Micronology.

With first pick, taking the side of the Scourge (hehe we're the bad guys), we get QoP, Zeus, THD, Chen, and Obsidian Destroyer. They have Warlock, Viper, Veno, LoA, Alchemist.

My Zeus happily takes top up against Veno and Alchemist, which as you can imagine is a very damn irritating combination. A lucky early Centaur for ice's Chen does net him first blood at top lane though, making my job considerably easier.

LuX's Obsidian Destroyer at mid is getting raped badly by Warlock. I think he was level 5 when Warlock was level 9. Then again, we have about nothing to stop the Warlock except for Tofu's THD, which is being used to help Musica's QoP farm at bottom lane.

"Help" of course, in Tofu's terms, meaning to KS everything. They don't fare too badly agaisnt LoA and Viper, though most of the farming is being done by Tofu, and Musica can't get much gold.

Mid game, problems appear. Zeus and THD take turns to handle Warlock, letting the QoP and Destroyer go off to better lanes for better farming prospects. Viper however, gets a very fast Reaver, and Warlock oddly has a Sacred Relic. Alchemist too gets a Reaver, before we can get any big items up. LoA and Veno though, have empty inventories.

Relative to them, we're completely underfarmed. QoP proceeds to take top lane for an absurdly long time before getting Skadi. She faces little resistance from the Alchemist, who also wants to farm and not touch her. Oh well.

I have no idea where our Destroyer was farming, but a Mystic Staff followed by Agahnim's goes up before I expect it to. QoP holds top until she gets herself a Skadi up. Zeus has a fast dagger and is completing Euls. Chen grabs a Stygian Desolator, ice's typical glass cannon.

Meanwhile, Heart on the Alchemist is completed, and his Aegis is almost up. Viper with his Reaver is one Claymore short of DR Aegis. The Warlock, aborting his plan to DR Aegis, has gotten himself a Radiance and a Demon Edge. First push starts.

LoA and Veno, having almost no items (the LoA, for the period of the entire game, had only one Boots of speed and a Sobi Mask, albeit with a lot of Wards), die almost instantly to the Destroyer's ultimate. Viper and Warlock, not that big in the health department, still manage to dish out a lot of damage before being massively disabled and put down. Alchemist spends his time pondering how much force a cyclone needs to lift him and his ogre up into the air. He tries to go after us upon landing, but with Skadi and SS and whatsnot, the only thing he touches is the ground.

The next push comes up quickly. Tofu, dying in almost every engagement, whines about how he really needs that 400 or so gold to get his items up, and never gets it. Rinse and repeat what happened in the previous engagement. Tofu dies again, and everyone is happy except him, leaving him to have to farm back his 400 or so gold.

Viper gets his DR Aegis up and this time, without the crucial Destroyer's ultimate, their push is somewhat more successful, taking down the first mid tower and bringing the 2nd tower very close to destruction. I'm quite sketchy as to the details of how this push was repelled, but I vaguely recall a lot of Sentinel heroes flying in the air for extended periods of time.

Well, all those pushes repelled, we're rather rich, and the Sentinel heroes are frankly, becoming useless.

LoA has nothing, and neither does Veno. They are about insta-fragged by LuX's ultimate, although with Agahnim and an additional TWO Mystic Staffs, all he really needs to do is hit them twice or so to finish them off.

The Warlock, going radiance and neglecting his HP, is very vulnerable to everything that comes in his way. Infernal is rather useless since the Infernal dies in 2 hits from LuX. Radiance being more effective when the user stays in battle for a prolonged period of time, this Warlock has absolutely no use for Radiance because Wave, Bolt, and Sanity's Eclipse sort of instagibs him.

Viper with a DR Aegis can dish out quite a bit of damage, but ice path, hex, and more hex, do a good job of delaying his damage output until the rest of his team is neutralised. Alchemist is the funniest one, going for Heart and Straight for Aegis, he can't touch any of our heroes in battle when Hexed, Skadied, and Shadow Striked. His plan to tank everything is foiled since his entire team, short of Viper (who's disabled anyway), dies in about 3 seconds.

With the repelled pushes and with everyone being overfarmed, it doesn't take long for us to push into their base and take down the poor World Tree (what happened to the Wisps that PWNED Archimonde? Obviously not here to stop us!).

It is rather amusing how Aegises could be depleted so quickly. Alchemist didn't do anything in the battle for it to be worth his time to revive. Tofu, as he says, didn't even realise the Viper had DR Aegis because most of the time, the Viper didn't have a chance to hit anything at all.

Then we stone around for a few hours to collect a letter for money, and set off to Vivo City, where none of the stuffed toys there suited my criteria to be brought home. I need to buy a stuffed turtle. Seriously. A good one. I've been looking for about 9 months.

here i go. to australia.

will be back asap.

KEEP TRAINING.

O hi everyone. I'm back after being abused at work for about a week and a half.

Sorry for allowing myself to be rampantly subbed (by Cloud). I didn't expect it. The dateline for that job was on Friday morning, AND has been sitting on her desk since Wednesday - imagine my frustration. To add, I spent the WHOLE time sitting in my office watching Robot Chicken because (apparently), my part of the job was already completed eons ago. I was ONLY waiting to proof read the final versions which didn't manifest till a good 11pm. *grumbles* Queen of Procrastination alert!

For the benefit of those who don't know how my job works and so don't get the above:
1. We work in teams of 2: a writer and an art-based person
2. I write the copy, and then my 'partner' does the layout + art stuffs
3. We have to finish up, do final checks before it can be sent out to the client/suppliers
4. Because of point 3, if either one doesn't get anything done, the other has to wait
5. ... and shes a QOP so, ya...

Anyway, I watched the replay but didnt finish it. Who was using what (besides Tam and Shan who are probably QOP and Chen)? I thought the Chen did some pretty nice backstabs. Wasnt watching Pugna/Veno generally. Need to look more at the minimap though. Some blur-ness here and there.

OK I will be on leave from the 20th onwards till next year. Should be available to play more often. Just MSN me.

BTW how come I can't change my text colour anymore... =\

Fairly Fun Features!!

Featuring "Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes" and "Tofu's Tantalising Trecherous Tricks".

Here's something that everyone can post! Every so often, anyone can post about "Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes" or "Tofu's Tantalising Trecherous Tricks" featuring bizzare mistakes that Tofu or Musica might have made (or heck, start one for someone else if you want). Then readers can guess whether or not the mistake is true or false, and the poster can reveal whether the mistake was really made by aforementioned player, or just made up. Of course, if you don't want this charade and just want to smash people for making bizzare mistakes, that's not a problem either.

For example:

Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes: God of Pain
Faced with an enemy hero in the secret shop and fully aware of the enemy heroes surrounding him, Musica blinked his Queen of Pain beside a fully healthy God Strengthed Sven, to be promptly chopped down.

Now it's up to you to think if he really made this mistake!

Well, since this is an example, I'll just give the answer now.

Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes: God of Pain
I don't think I've caught him doing so yet. The act of blinking in front of an enemy's God Strengthed Sven was commited by me a lot of months back. Sucked to be me. Bleh.

On to the real thing!

Musica's Mysteriously Many Mistakes #1: Queen in Pain
While attempting to escape a gank, Musica's Queen Of Pain proceeds to blink... on the spot, leaving the Queen of Pain helpless to experience... much pain.

True or false? Fact or fiction?

I would have been doing one long report on GXL, since it was a rather good game, but the glare from the sun shining on the screen (add that on to the mass lightning effects from THD, Zeus, and Chen, and all the regen auras), means that half the time I didn't know where I was, let alone the rest of my team or the enemy team. Replays hopefully get up soon.

Anyway, I'm watching the asterisk* vs va1zard & co. match now, and I'll just leave my many cents worth of opinion behind. I'll leave more opinion than usual, so I'll be wrong much more too. Oh, and I'm mostly going to comment on things which I disagree with.

Oh, first thing, you guys really should stop rampantly subbing players because one change in the lineup makes a hell lot of difference in team performance. If you are testing strats or training individual skill, it isn't really a problem, but a true reflection of team performance only comes if every member plays together.

Lineup seems fine, traditional. Warlock Viper Pugna VS THD against Veno Zeus Chen QoP Bear. Except we don't usually see a team being allowed to get all 3 of Veno Zeus Chen.

2 minutes into the game, Chen's ward placements are Tofu-like. Tofu has a chronic habit of perpetually blocking creeps from spawning whenever there is an allied Chen, Bear, or Enchantress in the game. There are ward spots overlooking the crucial backstab points that don't stop creeps from spawning. Especially when you have both Chen who needs creep spawns and Bear who can once in a while resort to neutral creeping, it's best if spawns are not blocked by wards.

Top lane, THD Viper up against Bear isn't even supposed to be close. However, the Viper isn't last hitting (missing last hits as well as attacking full HP creeps) and the THD isn't spamming dual breath (granted the Bear rarely presents himself for that to happen, but the THD should be more aggro, let the Viper farm).

Mid lane, QoP against Warlock, and maybe it was different in the other levels, but taking a peek at level 5, I'm seeing an upslope Warlock being scared to go near the QoP and being harrassed instead. It's not even supposed to be a close matchup. Then again, checking later, it seems the Warlock does do his job rather well.

Sending 3 to help establish lane control momentum in the bottom lane is a good choice since Veno Zeus really needs that early game momentum, but once they have it can go far up against VS and Pugna. VS and Pugna also have no need to run away from the lane since the other lanes are sort of controlling pretty well. Nothing much wrong with bottom lane.

Chen backstabs top effectively, and the Bear roots =.= There's actually a crack in between the trees where you probably would have been able to catch the Viper, but I guess the THD died so it doesn't matter. I much actually prefer ToF at the lower levels since it does much more potential damage than penitence should, but with 2 creeps or more and at high levels of penitence, I usually favour penitence, so Chen with Penitence or ToF are both viable choices.

Oh, and I know we do this to Tofu a lot, but that's because he's Tofu. Don't send your allied QoP to her grave. Soloing mid against Warlock without backstabs every 3 minutes or so is bad for farming. 10 minutes into the game, that's a very overkilled Veno at mid. Shadow word would have been enough without having to use Infernal with 2 allies there. Costs less mana too, especially with a mana shortage.

Why is Pugna acting as an Observer Ward at btm lane? o.o Running around doing nothing, not going to backstab anything, and not creeping or gaining XP, is generally not a good thing this early in the game. Same goes for Chen. If you're waiting for a Centaur to gain mana, go creep around and get level 5 quickly instead of running around not actually achieving anything.

Chen at bottom finally gets around to catching, but Zeus responds too fast. I mean, they KNOW that the Zeus has basically been a humming chicken (humji!!) for a long time and suddenly he moves forward, and hey they just spotted Chen recently, so something must be wrong! Zeus can stay within strike range, and wait for the Chen to advance before going forward. Going forward too early means that Chen can't catch them with the Centaur.

It's now 14 minutes into the game. Checking top lane, I think THD needs to overcome goldilocks syndrome and stop being so scared of the Bear. Just huff and puff and blow the Bear down!! No sense keeping far behind the creep line, not spamming Dual Breath. Mana is for using.

Oh well, Bear dies one minute later, so I guess THD did his job. Meanwhile at mid-lane, it's level 9 for both Warlock and QoP, and QoP should never attempt to engage in poking wars with a Warlock at this level, especially if the Warlock is upslope. Also, if Shadow Word Pain can kill, don't be too hasty and waste the Infernal on a QoP that can blink away?

17 Minutes into the game, that's not the best backstab in the world. Veno could have got a bit of extra damage by coming in from above the ramp, not below, although it doesn't really matter since killing a Warlock without the use of three ultimates at this stage is kind of difficult. Also, at this low level, unless you have some form of escape with a Dagger or something, or a Heart, or an Aegis, or are feeling high, Zeus should not run through 10 seconds of tower fire to cast one lightning bolt on a almost full HP warlock.

Neither should Veno cast its ultimate at the end of everything when everyone else is already retreating, especially with the Zeus already dead. Unless of course the Veno is doomed to die.

19 minutes into the game, Chen and Veno are moving together to catch. Most of the time, it's better for the Veno to go into the fray first to cast Shadow Strike, giving the Chen ample time to stomp and whack with creeps, so it's generally NOT GOOD that the Veno is running off away from the Chen, or that the Chen is starting backstabs while the Veno still lurks one screen behind. Also, penitence is usually casted on the potential target that is going to be stomped and focused on.

There is a lot of backstabbing going on from asterisk*, so if the Scourge wants to maintain a lane control strat, a few wards are very very handy. Alternatively, they can have quick TP backups, or just anticipate backstabs more, but they aren't doing any of those.

I guess that's about enough to cover about early game. I'll boost the replay speed and see what goes on.

On to item builds. Veno should go Diffusal, or the Chen. Bear going Diffusal so early in the game is mostly wasted, IMO, especially since he's not farming that quickly either.

Chen seems to be microing one Centaur individually to hit stomp. Which is fine, except in microling that one Centaur, the hero and the other 2 creeps are clean forgotten. I find it much easier to right click on the target hero with all your units before microing that individual stomp.

An illusion that has been attack-moving in a lane for 30 seconds should be relatively easy to spot and not waste Shadow Strike on too... but I guess this comes from the practice of habitually pressing the alt key at every available moment.

QoP misses a very easy kill on a 100 HP VS. Must have missed it. More communication is required I guess.

Now 40 minutes into the game, the game actually seems pretty much won by asterisk* just by virtue of item builds. BKB on Viper is going to give him no damage output, and no HP, meaning creeps of Chen, or Bear, or QoP will make short work of him (and Zeus just bolts other heroes anyway). Refresher on Warlock means a bit of stun which can land a good Macropyre, but chances of that happening are low, and Diffusal on the Bear means that the Infernals fall quickly, and I don't mean from the sky.

An engagement starts off pretty well for asterisk* at 41 minutes, catching Viper. However, some target pioritisation is neccessary here. We have a Zeus spamming spells, a Chen Healing, and whatsnot, all in front of a Nether Ward that could easily have been taken down by the Bear or Chen's Creeps (it was right in their face). And yes, QoP does need to farm, but when the battle is about 2 Screens away, it does a lot of good to blink there and lend a wave or a scream.

Next engagement is mostly a number game. Ults and all go off pretty well, but since asterisk* is locked in a 4v5 battle without the crucial QoP, and this time the opponent isn't streaming in 1 by 1 to their deaths, the battle doesn't go too well for them. Bear should try to stay alive to purge the Infernal if he has Diffusal though.

QoP sonic waving 2 heroes is fine, but not when there's no backup, the engagement hasn't started, and they're full HP in the middle of the river and with no possibility of dying.

50 minutes, even with being much more farmed, asterisk* fails to push mid, by virtue of being swapped when Nether Ward is already down. I mean, it's a golden opportunity here. Just wait another 40 seconds or so for Nether Ward to go down, and there is no more Nether Ward, leaving you free spam spells! No sense lurking around the front of the tower to get swapped.

Another push at 58 minutes. Wrath is casted at the same time as poison nova, which is truely a big fat waste. Wave comes in late too.

After that though, game is mostly won by virtue of Viper being useless, asterisk* having farmed much much more, and having more late gamers. Engagements are quite horrendous though. Zeus doesn't survive the battle long enough to do enough damage, Bear dies too fast to purge, QoP waves either too early or too late.

Well, last few comments at the chat log around past one hour.

To QoP: It IS zi bi. They CANT hold well without you.

Chen: No, they aren't winning. They have no chance to win with those items and those heroes this late into the game unless you have one rax down.

A bit of other comments I won't put up here (I can't even remember what it was, but I might once in a while). I know this is rather messy, and if you haven't seen the game, you will have almost NFI what I'm talking about, since I'm just posting my opinions on what I think (I MIGHT BE WRONG) can be improved as I watch the replay.

Once GXL replays are up, will be posting again. Meanwhile...

hi people today was the GXL finals @ siloso beach. well, of course zenith came in first, sometimes things are just too predictable. i do think micronology had the upperhand for the first 20-30mins of the game. very well fought. anyway, ant will post something about the game... so i wont dwell on it. i'm here to post PICTURES!

this was the competition area. thats it, 10 competition coms, face to face, open air.

micro on the left, zenith on the right

end game scores

team photo, with ice looking at dunno what.. (and the only one not in jersey)

ant's pikachu being held hostage. lol!

pics courtesy of swordplay from GXL. for more pics of the event, go to http://gxleague.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1640

***

as for our friendly against vaizard, i agree that our engagements were pretty eeks. but i do appreaciate that the 4 of you could hold and catch, letting me farm 590 creeps. ^^ thats FANTASTIC. an improvement, i feel, cos when i'm not called back to defend or disrupted to catch, i can really really farm up. admittedly, i was trying new item builds... i'm anti dr aegis. more updates on the match coming up.

updates on friendly with vaizard.

vaizard picked first while we hosted.

line up:

vaizard: warlock, viper, thd, vs, pugna
asterisk*: qop, zeus, chen, veno, syllabear

lanes:

vaizard: viper thd top, warlock mid, vs pugna btm
asterisk*: syllabear top, qop mid, veno zeus btm, chen ffa.

was controlling pretty fine and items were up pretty fast for us. but somehow, i think our engagement seriously suck la.. but its ok, practice makes perfect. game ended in favour of asterisk! =)

i've sent ant the replay so he'll probably do a clearer update + report.

lastly, thanks cloud for subbing dawn. dawn had work till 11pm.

ok i was trying to change to the new google account thing. but decided not to yet. anyway i also cant rem which email i used for google...

then i got bored.........

ok i know people have been asking for more pictures... so here they are... haha
i managed to get my paws on the amd-hp press kit on zenith. for those of you who havent been following the blog, i did post another picture entry, with a picture of tofu getting made up. well, this is what he was getting made up for. lol. anyway, the pictures are pretty disgusting cos i used my handphone to take a picture of the pictures. get it? so the resolution kinda sucks... anyway, here goes...

first up, we have a group shot

from left to right : ant, tofu with a se(4) lang(2) face, gps, ice, musica
(oops, i kinda cut out the amd-hp bosses to get a closer look at zenith)

gps, he looks pretty normal, pretty much like himself.

ok it starts getting funny here... ANT! i'm too used to seeing him in specs for one. and the pose is funny! i also heard that they had to tweak the colour cos he was too white. keke.

ice. told to frown at the camera, but doesnt really look like he's frowning. looks quite like him.

the caption is... -_-""

mujica! quite a cool shot of him i think.

tofu looks like ernie. but a pretty ok shot here.

(although he was like wtf at the comments)

and i'm out. =D pretty cool photoshoot, no ? i think so at least.

it was what i'd call a wasted evening... the friendly against team forsakened (it is interesting to note that there is no such word as forsakened, so i guess they kinda made up the name themselves. since the past tense of forsake is forsook, and the past participle is forsaken) wasnt even really a friendly... i mean, its ok if you arent really a dota player, but at least put some effort into the game. like, dont just chiong straight to enemy base once you spawn at level 1 and keep doing that til game end.
especially since (so i heard from shan and zilch) that they were the ones who suggested a friendly match with us. somehow today they decided that they didnt want to play us, but since we already made the trip down to funan (battlefield lanparty is the event, btw.) i guess they had to oblige and play a game with us.
team forsakened : techies, vs, sandking, treant, chen
asterisk : qop, warlock, veno, zeus, thd
plus, there were lots of strange comments in ALL chat to us. maybe they were just trying to be friendly, since it was supposed to be a friendly.

all in all, it was a really strange evening, strange match, strange play.
if anyone wants the replay
http://www.geocities.com/sylvirspydir/ForsakenvsAsterisk.zip
its there.
tell me if the link is dead.

girls, friendly match with va1zard at 7.30pm, this coming friday. they will be playing at egames.

let me know 1)if you can make it, 2)you want to play at eg or at home, asap. ty!

asterisk* will be playing an exhibition(showcase) match at funan, 8pm, on 5th dec, at the lanparty. will be playing against team forsakened. come down and give your support. :D

zilch(the butch) will be subbing for cynthia since she cant make it. unfortunately, zilch may be playing the actual compy at 8pm, so if that happens, we'll have musica as our sub.

girls girls, take it as training la..

Been a rather long time since the previous post, and I haven't done half the things I hoped to have done. Isn't much time left in the holidays, and next year isn't one I'm looking forward to.

Sitex doesn't have much to write about. Didn't feel like playing and so I commentated for most of the games. Bout of sickness and lack of sleep results in lacklustre performance, and nothing significant happened, besides some cheesy events.

GXL was rather fruitful though, with 3 back to back games with rather good performance.

Game against DiSc wasn't much to speak of. We went drafting Warlock and QoP after getting first pick, decided to go draft Tinker, KOTL, and Beastmaster. As you might be able to tell from the draft, it was mostly a relax and pwn kind of game. Nothing much to speak of except that ice uncharacteristically ends up with the worst ratio in our team, still more kills than deaths though.

The next two games feature rather unorthodox drafts though. With 2nd pick against eMo, we had Qop, Zeus, Bear, THD, ES up against Warlock, Viper, Chen, Lich, Morphling.

Early game goes on rather evenly. Chen goes around trying to backstab, and ends up underlevelled and very dead. Lack of any form of escape leads Lich as well to a lot of deaths. The power heroes of eMo, Morphling, Viper, and Warlock, are farming much better than the QoP and Bear on our side. When both Morphling and QoP have farmed a Perseverence, but Morphling has 1.2k more than QoP that early into the game. Well, seeing as how the QoP was mostly soloing Viper (a consequence of the ice-pangseh syndrome) and the Morphling was busy letting the Lich feed on his behalf.

And not just Lich. Chen was feeding too. With a Bear having Treads and Relic, Chen and Lich are Bear food. With the Warlock busy farming the middle, Viper on top, and Morphling below, locked in their lanes, Chen and Lich are mostly dead once they're caught outside those lanes. And die a lot they do.

Unfortunately, it's impossible for our current draft to stop all of the Morphling, Warlock, and Viper from farming. Viper dies twice, but hits level 17 before any of us hit 16. Trying to keep us in suspense or someting, he plainly refuses to buy any items, even after dying, and we KNOW he's farmed enough to buy any item he wants to. QoP early game isn't much control, and a wandering Chen means that when the bear gallavants up to the top lane it can only hinder the Viper's farming for a short time. Before the QoP can touch Skadi, Viper disappears into the fog with 5 Ironwood Branches, and appears with Radiance, and other minor accessories like Boots and a Stout Shield and whatsnot.

At the same time, Morphling appears with a Linken's Sphere, this one not so sudden because he buys his items slowly.

Warlock farms mid everlastingly with a Perseverence and a Ring of Basillus. It's mostly one (well two) Bears up against him, resorting to snatching last hits and avoiding Shadow Word Pain. I mean, what good is it harrassing a Warlock? It'll take about 4 roots in a row to do any lasting damage, and even with the better-than-normal luck I'm getting in this game, I'm not planning to get 4 roots in a row.

Backstabs to the mid usually result in the Chen or the Lich uncannily trying to backstab mid at the exact same time, forming an effective meat shield for the Warlock (well farmed full-hp fat warlock with Infernal and heal or a paper, no blink, no heal, no escape Lich? I wonder who to kill first eh?)

A 3-man backstab from a Bear (with newly-farmed radiance), THD, and Earthshaker, lands the Warlock finally dead (though it takes a rather long time to kill him). Viola! He appears with a Refresher Orb and a BKB, and other small accessories.

If you count total gold farmed by the late gamers of eMo, they're definitely leading, with Warlock and Viper getting free reign of lanes for a large part of the game. If you count allocative farming though, Diffusal Blade is up to counter the Warlock who has gone a build with very little damage output, meaning he's rather useless without Infernal. The Morphling with Linken is still more of a distraction than a threat, though he has survivability. Viper (going BKB), though having damage output, lacks the survivability required to dish out damage in a big battle.

Soon, capitalising on the double Infernal and the fact that Chen is not yet completely useless, eMo decide to push. LuX's Earthshaker becomes very happy. 2 failed pushes from eMo result in us gaining a rather large advantage.

It should be noted that before the pushes, the game was rather on even ground by my opinion. After the failed pushes though, it was a different story.

Attempts to push back from our part fail in getting any buildings taken down, but the engagements that follow are greatly to our advantage. I can't even keep track of how rapidly I'm farming. Aegis, Diffusal Blade, and MKB go up in shorter than I can ever imagine. Tofu as well is farming rapidly.

The game swings rapidly in our favour. Zeus, Bear, and QoP go on a Beyond Godlike streak that doesn't end for Bear and QoP because they have Aegises up quickly. With the farming of eMo being halted relative to the quick farming on our side (with the exception of the Morphling who manages to buy himself a Burize, meaning he's rather easy to kill at this point in the game), we win shortly.

Somehow my Bear seems to get luckier, or maybe I'm just expecting the worst with it, that's why I appreciate every successful root. Then again, the roots in that game just seemed to come up at the perfect moments.

We were contemplating whether to go for Lunch or head straight to Expo, and decided to go for Lunch. A rather lucky decision, since we didn't know that we actually had a 3rd game scheduled. A call hurries us back to E-Games to play a rather unexpected match against -ClicK-.

Lucky first pick! Woot! Warlock and Qop fall into our hands, followed soon by Zeus, LoA, and Chen. -Click- proceeds to shock with Viper, Veno, THD, ANTIMAGE, and DOOMBRINGER. By request of Musica, and also Tofu (because he doesn't want to play QoP again), Tofu is entrusted with Zeus, and Musica with QoP.

Since when was giving Tofu and Musica the heroes they wanted a good thing? Eh oh!

7 minutes into the game, after getting first blood and mostly pwning everything he meets with 2 spawns of Centaurs, ice's Chen DCs and the game is remade. Which is good for me since a bad block had resulted in me being toe-to-toe with Viper. The next game results in a better creep block for me, and considering the multiple intrusions from enemy heroes, I guess I can say I'm doing well against him.

Doombringer ends up eating a lot of Creeps, leaving ice with very few creeps throughout the game. Very good Doom-sense as well as aid from teammates gives the LoA no chance at all to Shield Doom away. With RoH and RoR, nothing can stop the Doombringer from farming. Especially with him feeding on the QoP aplenty.

With LoA accompanying her, our dearest QoP is feeding. Many thanks to the massive backstabs from Doombringer and Venomancer and everyone else. Zeus as well is feeding, which can be attributed to the fact that Tofu is using Zeus.

And all the backstabbing on the side lanes means I have the luxury of having a nice 1 on 1 with Viper in the mid lane without any interference. Well, we know how this mostly goes. Viper does manage to snatch a few creeps by abusing Fog of War, but overall his farming is rather slow, for a Viper at least. Meanwhile, I farm enough without dying to not know what I should buy.

Oh dear. I'm farming more than QoP. No wait, it's QoP that's farming less than me. I guess it's a noble sacrifice to allow the rest of the team to farm.

Then again, the QoP is still feeding, regardless of whether it's noble or not.

Unable to get any creeps for the long term without having them devoured, ice buys himself a Stygian. As I leave lane, LoA is given opportunity to farm a quick Radiance after being refused the opportunity to farm for the entire game having to accompany the QoP.

Warlock, seeing how the THD has managed to farm a Diffusal, decides that a Refresher would be a waste of valuable cash. He opts to aim for a Guinsoo and Skadi, along with an early Blink Dagger because he doesn't like dying. This along with Radiance LoA, Stygian Chen, and Zeus (and a bit of QoP I guess, I think it was a 50 minute Skadi or slower), we have more damage output than one might expect. Antimage with a BKB and Viper too with BKB and Crystalis means that the other team lacks strong damage output and the Doombringer being the only tank.

Our first push takes no buildings down, but gives us an advantage from hero kills, and serves as an excellent way to deplete my Eul's Sceptre to make way for Guinsoo's. LuX goes for even more damage output with Battle Fury and Cranium Basher, leaving him with about 1.6k hp at the high levels, which FYI, is VERY DAMN LOW, for an LoA.

With Guinsoo's on Zeus and Warlock, (and I can't remember if it was on Chen), AM opts to go BKB to stop himself from getting hexed to death. Unfortunately this means he has absolutely nothing for him in terms of HP. He dies in the span of one Infernal stun. Hex goes on to be used on the Doombringer and Viper, and the massive damage output of our team leaves them rather pwned.

There are a lot of rather nice battles, but since the replay is unavailable, and it's 1030AM (no I didn't just wake up), I regretfully won't report on them yet. Once I get my hands on the replay for this I think I'll go do a report on it. It's quite a good game, for a rather unexpected draft.

quote of the day :
tofu,"i want to be a model..."

***

anyhow, SITEX is concluding tomorrow, do drop by the amd booth from 12-8 and play 2v2 with the zenith guys! you do get some free gifts for signing up, and if u manage to win, each of you get a cerruti pen worth $50. no registration fee, nothing, just pure fun.
cassandra aka ppg is also at the booth, and i got to know her. nice to finally know her after hearing her name mentioned.
there will be shoutcasting going on as well, i'll be on break til i arrive later in the day. my throat is getting the better of me and i have church in the morning.
i have seen some familiar faces there, tallboy taking part the most frequently, together with his acer friends. kh is around too, merf as well. and quite a few other RGN people and dota people.

***

after a few days of helping sub in the 2v2s and yelling into the mic, cos somehow it sounds very soft, i have decided that dota can actually be a pretty well received spectator sport! it all depends on the shoutcaster to bring up the energy level of the crowd. of course its a two way thing... if the crowd's energy level is good, the shoutcasting gets better. and vice versa. but i guess the shoutcaster's gotta be always hyped and ready to go. ^^

speaking of which, i was forced to kek a 24min 2v2 because some guys from rightangle were filming me for a documentary to be aired in the U.S. to 11million people. 24mins! lol... was about to smack tofu ice and musica for dragging that game for so long... the filming included an interview, and the documentry requires me being present in the upcoming rgn caster's auditions. TT" cos i'm supposed to re-enact my first time casting.

***

joel's friend, kl, has asked me to do a "tv interview" thing for his ngee ann poly project. he's hammy's friend... i've asked him to push for ant to be there too... cos i dont particular want to be on it alone... =.="

should i accept the gxl gamer gal interview thing? swordplay has been asking me for a while... and he just asked me to again...

some thoughts. oh well.
i wish i could just make a living out of all this. then i wouldnt need to worry about getting a permanent job...

100th post!

alrights, GIRLS!

http://www.dotasg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=391 <- this is rgn 3. shall we take part?

You Are An ESFP

The Performer You are a natural performer and happiest when you're entertaining others. A great friend, you are generous, fun-loving and optimistic. You love to laugh - and you like almost all people equally. You accept life as it is, and you do your best to make each day fantastic. You would make a good actor, designer, or counselor.

What's Your Personality Type?

hmm, abit inaccurate leh, i think.

***You Are An INFJ***
The Protector
You live your life with integrity, originality, vision, and creativity.Independent and stubborn, you rarely stray from your vision - no matter what it is.You are an excellent listener, with almost infinite patience.You have complex, deep feelings, and you take great care to express them.
You would make a great photographer, alternative medicine guru, or teacher.
What's Your Personality Type?http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourpersonalitytypequiz/

You Are An INFJ

The Protector You live your life with integrity, originality, vision, and creativity. Independent and stubborn, you rarely stray from your vision - no matter what it is. You are an excellent listener, with almost infinite patience. You have complex, deep feelings, and you take great care to express them. You would make a great photographer, alternative medicine guru, or teacher.

What's Your Personality Type?

Sounds strange. Alternative medicine guru is just gg. More describers on this page: http://similarminds.com/jung/infj.html where there are things like "writers" which I think fits the bill better. And anyway I've always scored INFP on most tests.

Jung Test Results from http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/newembj.pl
Your type is: INFP

Introverted (I) 53.13% Extroverted (E) 46.88%
Intuitive (N) 61.76% Sensing (S) 38.24%
Feeling (F) 58.82% Thinking (T) 41.18%
Perceiving (P) 56.67% Judging (J) 43.33%

INFP - "Questor". High capacity for caring. Emotional face to the world. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 4.4% of total population.

You Are An ESTP

The Doer You are adventurous and risk taking. You act first, think second. You love being the center of attention. Chances are you were the class clown. Competitive, charming, and charasmatic - you have your own code of honor. You live a flexible life, bouncing between a series of activies that interest you. You would make a great salesperson, marketing director, or entrepreneur.

What's Your Personality Type?

You Are An INTP

The Thinker You are analytical and logical - and on a quest to learn everything you can.Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge.Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat.A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor.

What's" Your Personality Type?

wtf @ You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor.

Forgive mua. I'm boreds.

***You Are An ENTP***


The Visionary

You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression.
You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything.
Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off.
You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments.

You would make a great entrpreneur, marketing executive, or actor.


What's Your Personality Type?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourpersonalitytypequiz/

omgwtfbbqded! i just realised i have SITEXXXXX thurs - sun, 10am til 9pm. or is it 9am to 10pm. GG. ROFL. i'm commentating for the zenith vs public 2v2 thing.
GGGGGGG.

i havent slept since i woke up yesterday... thats since about 3-4pm. its now 9am the next day. brain is gonna fry. if my brain actually exists.
went walking around... saw this gal who was crying like a crazy person and threatening to jump from the 3rd floor chalet. hi... 3rd floor.. wun die la. unless u land head first and ure really really heavy. then like no one hiu her at all... she was screaming something about "wei she me bu da gei wo...?" (why u never call me?)

k out of point. brain really frying alr.

girls. i've pmed cloudiez already and he asked if u all are free to train on either thurs / friday night. pls get back to me asap so that i can help u all arrange the match yea. thx. =D

Hello! I wanna go out and play this Saturday so can we have the matches on Wed/Thurs evening? Merci beacoup!

Hi girls! Anyone interested in a weekend trip up to KL or something just for shopping!? Malaysia Mega Sales from Dec 1st to Jan 2nd! I was thinking of going up the week before xmas! Do some xmas shopping as well =)

Wells. I don't mind playing together. My schedule is as follows.


Tuesday: 3 - 11
Wednesday: 1 - 9
Thursday: 12 - 8
Friday: 8 - 4
Saturday: Off
Sunday: 2 - 10


If you guys wanna play on Saturday can make it evening or something? If not then go ahead without me. Tues Wed and Thurs are fine with me. Just give me an hour to get home and bathe all these.


LOL. Cloudiez exist! Funny the way u 2 put it. T.T Anyways he approached me like 3am. LOL! I told him the girls not around can play with me and the guys =X

mindfreak / gabriel's team free on fri night / sat afternoon. i'd pick sat afternoon cos shan would be back by then.
cloudiez exists, i've seen him online before looking for match. i believe i played match with him b4 also.

ehhhhh... thot the headset we share? lol. she one ear i one ear. if u are meeting demon, let me know, i see if i'm available also.

Hallo. Don't mind matching with Cloudiez. I went to mIRC but the nick doesn't exist. So anyway if anyone gets in contact with him just set a time. And about mindfreak and gang - if they still want to match it's fine with me too.

So what's everyone's schedule this week? Most likely I will be playing online, most nights, approx 9ish. So feel free to catch me on MSN. If everyone wants to rest for a week that's ok with me too.

I will be getting the Sennheiser headset from Demon tomorrow for Shan + the keychains too. When I next meet you guys I'll pass them around.

I happen to have found the last few episodes of Prison Break season 2 so I don't think I'll be writing anything. Quite a few good training matches though.

hi girls, this guy with the nick Cloudiez pm-ed me in irc. his team would like to train with us, a friendly match, i guess.

since im going overseas from tomorrow to friday, someone(dawn or tammy? since cyn's busy with work and jiayi always blurblur.) please get back to him and let him know when you girls are free. take it as training for this week bah. maybe we can do it a lan-training at egames, on saturday. i'll be back by then.

anything dont know, feel free to ask MUSICA.

The question of the day is, why the heck does Sandking need an Aegis for, even getting a second Aegis after the first one runs out (very quickly)?
eh, thacc goes aegis after dagger too. and he kinda recommended that build to me. but i kinda prefer linken or heart. or mass auras. depending.

***
anyway, my congratulations to all teams that made it to gxl top 16. ^^ have fun at sentosaaaa!!

special goodjobs to micronology who scraped into top 16 with their 1-1 this week. gogo renew.

***
canberra cc compie updates, mi2 has made it to the next rounds, but somehow zenith has been put out of the race by rEv0.
make me travel 1hr to see them lose. GG!
its ok ... <3 u all!

Normally this would be longer, but tiredness and this feeling of suddenly wanting to work on a TFT Map should shorten it.

GXL went rather smoothly. Azure (the LAN shop) is the worst damn possible place to host a game from (Singnet + LAN Shop = GGLAG). However, it's really sweeeeet for playing LAN. Screens are good, seats are comfortable, equipment is good, etc. Plus today we got to sit in this room where the comps are used by sitting at floor level, and there's lot of leg space, a nice floor-seat thing, and a comfy cushion to add on. That and because our opponents were sitting outside, we got to shout all we liked.

Oh and add that to the fact that for the most part Tofu was sitting seperately from the rest of us, for one match even on the corner outside, far away from anything we could hear, and we have a rather smooth going match.

Match with Micronology went rather well. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about our coordination that game, except that I have no idea why we won it so well, and that because I have no idea what we're doing, I fear that other teams might actually catch on to what we are doing before we do, and we might even lose this coordination. Mostly it was a 4v5, with Tofu farming an empty lane for about all of the game, before buying himself a Heart and a Divine Rapier (look ma, no aegis!), killing a THD, a VS, and then politely handing the Rapier over to the opponent's QoP, which gave ice the perfect opportunity to be the first Zeus to obtain a Divine Rapier in a serious game.

As an evolution to blink-stomp of the 5.84c era (bad memories of a certain Centaur reside), I have now the blink-Infernal move! I'll never miss an Infernal again!

Oh and LuX's bloodseeker is "kinda" imba. Zeus is also an effective stunner sometimes, today because we stunned them by picking it first.

Match with eMo was closer than we would like to have played it. They didn't touch our base or even most of the second towers, but we had a much harder time breaking into their base than we would like to have. We also more or less copied their strat, except choosing to drag the game instead of pushing fast, seeing as how their Warlock obtained a Refresher Orb in about 3 seconds into the game (warning: timings may be exaggerated). Night Stalker as a pick, Bear as an early 2nd pick, and Chen earlier than we were used to.

Tofu proceeds to die a lot more than we would like him to as Viper early into the game, falling to a Lvl 1 first blood. This is actually more of a good thing than a bad one because perpetually aiming Tofu means that I am free to farm without being backstabbed. Relic and Treads go up in 25 minutes despite having to share a lane with the hungrily-farming-for-dagger Enigma. The Enigma proceeds to have about 1 good Black Hole casted in the entire game and goes for a Diffusal Blade, whereby he attempts to continue Black Hole casting, and ends up being dead before even having a chance to purge an Infernal.

Though granted, the Enigma helped a lot in lane control, but not in the big battles. Strange?

By virtue of Tofu getting aimed, and also by virtue of us not bothering to help him because he is sitting far away in a distant outside world, we completely outfarm our opponents in the mid-game. We proceed to push 4v5, while Tofu well, takes an empty lane and farms for a good part of well, the entire game. Very bad engagements lead to our pushes being repelled and us getting taken down rather badly, despite having the farming advantage, courtesy of a Warlock and a farmed Zeus, and the lack of a good Black Hole. Sandking farms himself an Aegis, QoP farms well... nothing much really, and RK farms himself an Aegis and Radiance (along with a BKB he had long ago).

I also learnt that "Hunter in the Night" isn't really "Hunter in the Night" unless ice happens to use the Night Stalker. THEN we learn what it really means to be a Hunter in the Night.

A spree of catches lands ice a very early reaver, and a Heart (weren't vampires heartless?). As the pushes start, he obtains himself an Aegis.

No wait, how does one become more unkillable with Heart, and Aegis, a silence, a slow, and imba movement speed? One buys a Satanic, which ice promptly does.

Contrary to expectations, it took a very long time to break their base. Bear with Aegis Basher Radiance Heart patrolling the bottom, and Night Stalker with Heart Satanic Aegis (and I forgot what else) at the top lane did a very good job holding around and not dying, but Aegis-Rapier RK, refresher Warlock, and Zeus, are surprisingly difficult to break.

Nevertheless, base was broken after a very persistant effort to distract them from two directions and actually entangle something.

The question of the day is, why the heck does Sandking need an Aegis for, even getting a second Aegis after the first one runs out (very quickly)? Well, there's a story of Ant's "miss burrowstrike FTL" Sandking against LuX and Musica, but it's one I'll share another time.

And if you notice that I like to shoot Musica a lot (he was the Enigma this game. RAWR), well, I do. Tofu gets his fair share of being shot at by everyone else.

hello.
first, i'd like to apologise to gabriel and mindfreak's team... we really wanted to have the friendly with u all, but we had to post our score on gxl, and the site was taking a long time to load. on top of that, we kinda forgot to keep the end score screen open, so we watched the whole replay just to get it. so sorry. i know that weekend hourly charge can get quite chor...
postpone ok?

next, thanks to joel from np for the interview. hope your project goes well! and do remember to send me the final draft. i'll write the unanswered question on my blog for you.

as for the matches, well... i think they were pretty good actually. however, the second game really showed up our weaknesses, i feel. the engagements were... MESSY.
anyhow, lets leave it to the normal hardworking few who dissect our replays and instruct us to give us a report on it.

<3 *

relax gals. thanks for your committment to this league.
special thanks to shan who took charge this time round. really a relief... ^^

rights, so today mark the last round of gxl. so we didn't make it to top16, but i guess its fine. experience counts.

and even though gxl has ended(for us), i hope that we'll still be training. i wont be around for the next 5days or so. but do continue to train as a team. we need to be consistence, not train only when there's compy coming up. we shouldn't always take breaks. someone organise some training online?

hi we are at egames. anyway, after the matches, we have a friendly with gabriel's team. then u all are coming with me to the interview to give me moral support, then we go eat dinner !
thats the update. =)

HI GIRLS,

i know this is abit short notice(sorry, been away for 3days, dont know whats going on.), we'll be playing at 12noon at eg. gxl, first game at 12, followed by the 2nd game at 2pm.

im not sure about the friendly match, so tammy please update.

i know abit early la. but, last week for gxl liao.

Yoz! I'm having a Xmas party aka housewarming. whatever you wanna call it. All are invited. Of coz those i know lahz -.-"

Location: Katong
Time: Anytime

Please let me know if you're interested! Don't worry sure got good home cooked Eurasian food for those who haven't tried it before and of coz alcohol. =D

ok gals, some guy, called gabriel asked if we'd like to friendly them tml. they'll be at eg too, so it'll be on lan. let me know, i've got his contacts. btw, gxl is cfmed at130 rite? 2 matches?

Haven't been playing much DotA because I just found the recovery disks of my old comp back in '96. Completed Raptor on every single difficulty level, Die By the Sword twice, and Outwars is friggin impossible without cheats. Installing 10-year-old computer games on Windows XP tends to screw a lot of things up, even AI.

These single player games are kewl, short and dense so they can be completed quickly and re-played over again. Only example I can think of recently would be Max Payne 2. I remember I completed it again and again until I completed it in under an hour.

Speaking of which, my FF7 is HANGING after I meet Yuffie in combat. At least this one is by-passable, not like the time it was hanging before the chocobo races and I had to dl a fix.

So one DotA game a day or so, nothing much memorable, but this week's tournament games should be quite good. Speaking of which, someone, whom I assumed was from the Canberra CC tournament, called me while I was sleeping and set a match at 12 Noon on Sunday. Said he would SMS me the matchup later. Remind me to SMS them for confirmation because for all I know it could have been the @Corner guys speaking (they woke me up, so I forgot to ask).

SPEAKING OF @CORNER. Remind me to check on when we're resuming play.

And while we're still in the topic of competitions, GXL finals apparently clashes with the Telok Blangah CC competition, and registrations are closed, so if there are registrants in mixed teams...

Bleh.

Ant's Rant #4: What NOT to do when being pwned

As the Team Feeder (TM), it is my responsibility to know how to best help my team when I'm getting pwned, and what not to do when getting pwned. Here is what you should NOT do when being pwned.

1) Feed unneccessarily, because being pwned generally means you're on the slippery slope of getting to be pwned even more. This is amplified by the fact that those who are being pwned tend to be frustrated and make stupid mistakes to be pwned even more, so don't...

2) Get frustrated. Unless you are the late gamer or your team has been the primary cause of your being pwned. Realise that many a times, your being pwned is entirely your own damn fault (and of course that of those who are pwning you, but you can't help that). It helps to look on the bright side of things. At least giving your life to send someone home means your late gamer can farm for a few minutes ^^

3) Save up for the big items. Unless the game is going to drag to past 100 minutes, or you're one of those heroes that absolutely need to farm. Someone who goes from pwned to pwning generally farms much less than someone who goes from pwning to even more pwning. Then again, this really only applies to non-late-game heroes.

4) Think that your team is screwed. Unless of course, you're the only late gamer in your team, the game has dragged past 100 minutes, and you are 10 levels below everyone else, then your team is most likely screwed (lots of exceptions here, but I won't state them). Thinking that your team is screwed results in... bad things happening. BAD BAD THINGS.

Positive thinking!

wrote a battle report for rapture gaming recently, on the semi final match of the open category for CAPL autumn between -Team Click- and Destruction[X3M]. anyhows, its finally been posted online, go take a look if you're feeling mega bored or something.

its currently on the front page of www.dotasg.com and www.capl.com
for the direct link: http://www.dotasg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=365

anyhow, theres been a spell of silence, because ant seems to have gone into hibernation.

***

2 compies coming up

canberra cc
telok blangah.

lets decide what to do with them soon.

edited-

GXL Rd4

match against SmC, 1.30pm, saturday.

up to you if you want to play from home or from egames.

please confirm with me by SMS-ing me. so at least i have time to find sub if 1 or 2 cant make it.

eh... thats the real felicia chin. where got look like her...

just thought i'll add a pic too.



familiar eh? say hi..

anyways, request of caocao..

[04:56:16] [CaoCao-] that time go ur house
[04:56:19] [CaoCao-] i saw mh lor
[04:56:22] [CaoCao-] dont ka siao
[04:56:39] [xMusiCa] oops.
[04:56:41] [xMusiCa] u saw ah?
[04:56:42] [xMusiCa] >.<
[04:56:46] [xMusiCa] i thought i hide it properly le
[04:56:46] [CaoCao-] ah bo
[04:56:51] [CaoCao-] weak ah u
[04:56:53] [CaoCao-] still got ck
[04:57:02] [xMusiCa] wa.
[04:57:03] [CaoCao-] nowonder i ur oppo that time bo tai bo ji kean dc
[04:57:06] [xMusiCa] so alert ah u.
[04:57:17] [CaoCao-] of coz ur folder put dota cheats
[04:57:23] [xMusiCa] omg.
[04:57:27] [xMusiCa] kanna caught red handed.
[04:57:28] [xMusiCa] >.<
[04:57:32] [CaoCao-] gg

tofu at the zenith-amd photoshoot, in the red + black team jersey. he looks so innocent... and so happy that someone is fussing over him.
maybe he's gotten what he's always dreamed of... MAKE UP!

musica staring intently at the screen, lips parted.he looks a little kok eye actually... taken during the zion net competition held in Klang, Malaysia.

ant, everyone's favourite nerd!
taken at zion net compie also.

ANDDDDDDDDDDDD... once again...

we have world's most irritating fat boy - ToFu.

*tadahhh*

Hi all. Had a happy weekend, during which I cheong games till 3am... =) Okay I know it's no big deal to most of you but to me it's like WAH RARE. Nowadays.

I'm ok with being 1v1 hero (and I can train QOP if need be). In fact I think you're right, I can't really judge AOE well enough yet unless its 3v3 and below. But I do enjoy catching though. It is a fresh break from pure farming.

Anyways. Just to explain to all the reasons going thru my head, which caused me not to swap when we were at the acticz base front.
1. SK/zeus/qop could blink. Veno was no where in sight and neither was Chant. Which means if I swap one of those 3 out (zeus mostly), it is likely that it will be a 1v1 exchange unless it was a quick followup (since they would expect to be swapped, and finger would be on dagger).
2. Although THD was behind me, she's not the main dmg dealer. Viper was hanging on the left, which means the guy would have a chance to blink away.
3. I rather save my swap/stun for a assist role (since I am the only stunner), instead of risking a 4v5 situation.
4. No visibility of base. I think I did request for a ward along the sides but not followed thru.
5. Tammy you look scary in that pic =X ok, oop (out of point).
Anyway it's over lar. So let's learn from it and move on.. =)

Shan: ya I know sometimes I will let my hero FFA when I'm typing. Not always will 3/4 life or ks neutrals la (hey I only ks 1-2 leh! give me abit of gold la... =\). Anyway I will look out. But if I am gonna be power hero again I probably won't have to type much. =>

And about the trip - Shan has suggested that we go KL to shop instead, cos there is no airport tax. I'm fine with it. They have some December great sale thingie. Shall we go? I took leave during the 20+ days, not sure if it has been approved (hope so).

OKAY. back to work.

cam whore ftw!

ice + furry

***

match vs acticz :

after reading the comments and listening to some other people, and thinking about it as well, i think the main problem with the game was team coordination. this was more of a problem than individual skill, imo.

1) teammates have to trust each other. vs / veno /sk has to just go in and trust that the team will follow up. of course there would be kok ups at first, but without trying, you'll never know.

2) big mistake in trying to throne when we should have raxed. i think this was my fault, cos i just went in and aimed towers while dawn tried to take down the rax. underestimated the amount of people needed to take the rax down, and our abilities in throning.

3) cloud shouldnt have sat in my seat. LOL! that seat is haunted.

in the end, i think that we lack match experience, i for one was lost when it came to such a standoff. how long do we defend, and how hard do we push. if only zenith stayed behind us to tell us what to do. then again, ant would have lost his head and we're too reliant on them.
perhaps we need a stable commander.

Just watched the 166 minute replay of asterisk*, as requested by Shan. I typed a lot of stuff here, then realised that most of the stuff I typed I'd rather not let other teams know about. So I'll give my opinions over in person when I next meet you guys IF you feel like hearing.

In other news, Musica's QoP maphacks. Now, we see this a lot in pub games, but in draft matches?

Momentous occasion 19/11/06: [17:49:49] i gonna cut my hair tml

For the record, here's a brief history of team Zenith, to drive away the thousand and one misconceptions, of which include that we have koped players from Mi2, and others I probably don't want to hear about.

In the end of 2004, GPS and his brother Tofuboi (or steakzzz as he was known then) formed a team to take part in RGN DotA Season 1. Then, I was GPS' schoolmate, and due to complications, I was supposed to join their team, but eventually didn't. They got 3rd. 2 other players to mention, Shoury and Lux, joined the competition under another team and got 2nd. ice meanwhile was part of bonkers, the team that took the first place. Musica was not in the competitive scene yet, or so I'm led to believing.

As 2005 begun, Lux, Shoury, Tofuboi, and GPS, along with lu.ck (who is not lu5ck, a commom misconception), a classmate of GPS, formed a team, later to be known as DsD since Shoury at that time was in DsD for WC3:TFT. I never actually played a single LAN tourney for them and was never officially in DsD, although I did play online matches and came down as a reserve for some compes (but never did play on LAN).

At that point, ice was gallavanting from team to team, not set on a stable one. Musica I think still wasn't in the competitive scene.

At the end of 2005, for RGN Season 2, lu.ck was replaced by me because his skills had detiorated due to O lvls (whereas I don't take O levels, and GPS doesn't have a tyrannical parent that stops him from practicing for months before the O's). Shoury went off to play SRO -.- and so ice replaced him. At that point, because 2 players were not from DsD (ice and me), DsD (as I am led to believe) wasn't that willing to sponsor the team, and after winning RGN Season 2, the team joined ice in clan mVp, assuming their name as well.

With absolutely not player changes whatsoever, the team left mVp on a good note to find independent sponsorship (sponsorship as a 5 man team, not for the whole clan). Name was changed to Zenith at this point.

Musica joined team Zenith in September 2006, after a brief stint with Shinigami.

A brief history of Zenith, victories and tournament experiences not included.