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.