The following are by Neil French, Advertising guru. I love these ads. Decided to share it with everyone. =D

The small print reads: "Dove is all you need to know about skincare"

Hello girls (and boys). I shall pre-empt everyone and unleash my schedule for the week.

Monday - Collect "Robot" manga from Takashimaya (last day)
Tuesday - Tuition (8-10pm)
Wednesday - Dinner with old pals from uni (planned for weeks, do not cancel)
Thursday - Date with hairdresser to straighten hair
Friday - A farewell party at Bryan's (for his friend)
Saturday - CAPL
Sunday - Turf Club expedition

The way I look at it, only Thursday seems available, since hair straightening cannot last more than 2 hours. Friday I should be able to train FROM his house. Yup. Please confirm via SMS. Thanks.

With regard to much mentioned lame BR on the CAPL website, I figured that hey, if people really wanted to know what happened in the game in CAPL premier a few days back, they would watch the VoD, and get for the most all the important details of what happened in the game. So hey, might as well write something that is more entertaining than informative, since a picture is worth a thousand words and there's a video there with audio too for bonus.

Claerly I failed, which would be even more incentive to watch the VoD for any details on what happened in the game. It's not too bad, it's really nice working with Jerome and there are very few silent parts, although I think my content is getting worse. Not really able to think. Plus, until I watch myself, I don't actually realise how much I stutter or how awkward some phrases sound, so yes I am aware of it just not when I'm actually doing it.

I figured, hey I have like 80 heroes to run through and can't afford to keep postponing or I'll forget what heroes I've played and what impressions I've formed, so I'll breeze through the next 3, probably will write longer stuff into the 2nd quarter of the year.


Hero Log 9/80: Sniper

This guy is really fun because he can actually actively participate in dishing out damage output without being in much danger due to his range advantage. I did have a bit of a problem with early game last hitting though, I'm surprisingly incapable of quickly getting used to instant projectile animation. Plus when I'm not in mid lane, distance estimation fails badly, and I screw up or waste a lot of shots or time because I misjudge my range.

See, Sniper has always had the same strength through all patches. Mostly impossible to touch by anything with less range than him and no ability to get to him. Throw in the godly irritant early game known as headshot, and Assasinate which is like a mini-doom, and you get one hell of a lane controller.

Nowadays unfortunately we see drafts with far too many heroes that can reach Sniper. Long ranged unavoidable stuns like those from Warlock or Sandking or even RK (who shall not be referred to as Sven nor Arnold Schwazeneggar because one name is too long and one name is not fun). Other popular heroes also can close up that range advantage Sniper has in far too short a time, namely VS, QoP, or Chen and Bear with their massive movement speed.

Not to mention also high level Assasinate is insanely irritating for low HP heroes when it comes to repelling pushes. Heck, Sniper is the bane of Low HP heroes, with headshot rapidly cutting down their HP and Assassinate finishing them off. Then again, what isn't.

I went mostly a pure damage output build, with the only survival item being an Aegis, but no Rapier made because I had to tank the raxes for my team (who all backed away to heal at half health, leaving a naked rax which I guess is worth more than one charge of Aegis). Worked very well though because the enemy team simply didn't have any heroes that could reach me without going through a lot of trouble first.

Overall a fun hero, something I'll actually try using in more draft matches given the correct situation in the future. The low hp and no escape mechanism thing making it easy to kill kind of is a turn off for me, but I guess the irritatingness from being semi-untouchable by abusing your range advantage makes up for it.


Hero Log 10/80: Pugna

Or Oblivion. It's a fun hero and I can see that it's obviously a good hero if used properly. Unfortunately I can't use it properly.

See, everything that I would love to not have in a hero happens to be in Pugna. He has an AoE spell that needs to be predicted and aimed properly, strike one. He needs to make difficult decisions even before a battle starts, one nether ward makes so much difference, strike two. He dies so easily early and mid game and late game too if he doesn't farm up, strike three. The only redeeming factor is that he's difficult to kill in some situations like when you can get lifedrain off for a long time. High movement speed is also kind of nice but not enough to offset his abyssmal HP.

Plus point for Pugna though is a really nice base damage and attack animation, which is really good for harrassing and last hitting, until you get caught by a stun and realise that you're essentially screwed unless your opponents are stupid. See, you don't need to harrass Pugna if you have more than one hero in your lane. By the time you let loose your nukes to harrass him, he's either ran away or died badly.

I don't even know what to get for Pugna. I'm really against Dagger though. Even Heart. Necrobook and Mekansm seem enough if survivability, health, and damage output is required. Heck, Pugna is sort of like Sandking in a lot of games. It's one of those heroes I'll see farm a lot but essentially isn't helped at all by the items he farms past a certain point.

Yet another hero I might use more in draft matches, but definitely will stay far far away from it in any serious games. The thought of needing that crucial timing for Nether Ward, or that skill require in hitting Nether Blast which I lack...


Hero Log 11/80: Chen

I figured I'd keep this until later, then figured I can write all the stuff about good Chens and bad Chens some other time. The gist of it is that Chen is a hero that has a lot of expectations which I can't be bothered to follow.

In a sense Chen isn't that hard when it comes to big battles. Right click stuff with creeps, stomp or shockwave when neccessary, penitence something, and launch that heal after the AoE starts to come in. I tend to actually ToF in the start of the battle, since usually at the start of battles using ToF on an ally might not save much as there is too much AoE and whatsnot flying around for someone who's not going to live to live after 4 seconds.

I did go Necronomicon for Chen, and Meka too. I can't actually micro that many creeps, but when you have that many units and that much attack and movement speed, quite seriously, selecting everything and right clicking is sufficient, as long as you constantly check on your hero.

I like Chen, because it can own stuff and you can micro more than one unit. Fun fun. And you not only CAN neutral, you are EXPECTED to neutral, which is another great great thing. I just don't really like not being able to freely sacrifice my creeps like I do with Enchantress though...

I won't play Chen in a serious match though. There are simply too many responsibilities and expectations required from a Chen which I can't fulfill because of just how I play, and I intended to cover those but don't much have the time to because it could really lengthen this.


Just getting the logs out of my head. Tried Dragon Knight in an IH today, but not really looking forward to using it in a proper draft match, though things may change once I see the draft.

I've been dying to write something on why people are failing badly to improve as much as they should, but it seems that's a rant that I'd rather cover when I've got a clear head and a lot of time.

My new blog is http://mischzz.spaces.live.com/

This morning, I was so fking drained that I just felt like pon-tanging work. I didn't get to rest at all the WHOLE weekend. Friday straight after work we had training (which comprised of waiting till 10+ before it started). Saturday, as you all know, we spent the whole day at CAPL, waiting most of the time. After that I went to play LAN so I got back quite late too. Sunday I had to wake up at 10 to go somewhere, and had three tuition classes which spanned like 2-5, 7-9. Managed to nap 20mins after dinner but that was about it.

Ok the crux behind the ranting above is to tell you all that mass training at LAN isn't going to go down very well with me. Maybe I will play from home, that will be better. At least between the waits I can nap or relax on the couch. Plus this week I have ads going out tentatively Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri. Which means I may not be able to knock off on time. Which also means I may only be able to play at 10pm or so.

Maybe we should endorse more online training instead. I think it's cheap and less tiring. And less waiting too because we will have our coms at home. Like, just be online 10pm every night you are available. Something like how Destr trains. What do the rest think?

hi girls,

i propose 1 training this week, and 2 lan-trainings next week.

as for this week, it should be on thursday night if there's no objections. lan or home, you girls decide.

comments comments.

[EDIT] OMGOSH ANT READS MY BLOG TOO!!![end of edit]
today's been one hell of a day...
* woke up early, well, earlier for some, later for some, and eventually made it down to e2max for CAPL DOTA premier at about... 1230 or so. thank goodness our first round was a walkover, over MEE. after our lunch, we were told that both ira and omgODDESS didnt turn up, granting us a SECOND walkover. dawn and i were grumbling at not being able to use the free coms to warm up. so we were basically doing nothing til our match at 4, against foosa! , who just won rEv0. then we were grumbled at by various marshalls to get the game going quick, but hey, we need warm up time. and since u didnt give us warm up time prior to the game, we need more time after the draft is done. i mean, we can always start the game, then kpkb about custom keys and quit, forcing a rm or something, if forced to start before we're ready. (not recommended, do not try this in compies)
so anywayyyyyy... aside from the mandatory grumbling, i'm glad i managed to help our marshall for the foosa! game get his job. apparently his nick is xJ.Sx and i gave him contacts to RGN, through which he managed to wrangle the job. ^^
SO. we lose foosa, in a fantastically short 39min top and mid raxes down game.
BUT, we proceed to CAPL ELITES. some dots or...
our second prize-money ever!
*embarrassed*

I generally don't tag or leave any sign of visitation of blogs. I do have my own blog, but it's not suitable for public domain, so in general this doubles up as my own blog too, albeit I'm compelled to write as little as possible about personal stuff.

In light of all the "Scary" stuff a few posts back, I would just like to generalise scary as basically something unfamiliar, unexpected, and undesirable. Generally this is caused by an adverse undesirable and unexpected reaction to something, either because of value differences or merely lack of knowledge of habits, or an irregularity in reaction, as a result of other circumstances unknown to the scaree. As such, flares of temper can be regarded as scary sometimes because the real causes for it are unknown or the cause simply is misinterpreted or seems absurd to the scaree, a result of difference in values.

On another topic familiar to everyone, school. I go to school for two reasons. Friends, and to graduate, which I think requires a certain amount of attendance to not attract disciplinary action. Every day I'm absent, or someone else is absent, and asks me what has gone on in school, I reflect back and reply "nothing". School is a testament to how teaching someone for 2 hours won't get anything into his head, but getting someone to help him learn for 20 minutes does so much more. 80% of the time spent is mostly buffer or wasted time.

What do you go to school for? Probably friends and attendance. Sleepiness, the drilling, the environment, the monotonity, the bad pacing, if you really wanted to learn you'd spend half the time reading up and learning twice as much. I do have a few really good teachers though, and it shows when they can make you learn twice as much in half the time, and end class early, not once leaving you sleepy and having you actually leaving the class feeling like you could reply that absent classmate with "hey, we actually learnt something today".

The above is personal opinion, not popular opinion, so disagree with it if you want as long as you can justify yourself.

Also, @dawn, QoP tends to get easier as you become better in generally playing the game. I think. My QoP improved from utterly-blowing to not-that-blowish without me playing her at all.

On with some hero logs... this time of everyone's two favourite many-unit heroes, Chen and Bear! I'll start off with Bear because I don't like writing about Chen.


Hero Log 8/80: Lone Druid

Another hero I'm rather proud of, I started using this to solo early last year in clan matches, and thought of it independently, around the same time DsD started to use it too. I had periodic feelings of being "out of control" with this hero, when I was mostly just microing both the Spirit Bear and the Lone Druid without any concious knowledge of what was going on, which resulted in sub-par playing. I mostly don't get that so often now.

Lone Druid is an early-mid game hero that can usually transit into late game. Quite frankly Lone Druid's early game before level 7 is pretty sucky. Competent players won't take much damage from the Spirit Bear without being rooted (and unfortunately, I don't root early game), and the hero has little defensive barrier and not many hit points, without room to get a few points in attribute bonus. Early game is usually reduced to fighting for last hits and keeping the opponent away, which works well for certain matchups, not so much for others. It's at level 7 where the Spirit Bear starts to form a brick wall of defense around the Lone Druid, making it impossible to take him without something to let you get close to the hero around that fat Spirit Bear.

In big engagements, it's mostly just sending your Spirit Bear in to maul on some hero you want to disable or kill quickly. Then comes the decision on whether to send your hero in to deal additional damage. Early-mid game, the Lone Druid can't really withstand much damage from any AoE or nukes that come his way. True form allows him to survive, but essentially he can't reach many targets in melee form.

That is basically the main vibe I have with the Lone Druid. His early game isn't the best but I can live with it, and even like it sometimes because the long strike range means he can farm even against 3 enemies. It's that choice between fragility and unmanuervability in engagements. The Lone Druid is too fragile to actually directly participate in team engagements early on in the game, but it's most effective to pump the damage items on him for later.

That being said, there's more I like about the Lone Druid than what I don't. So much more. The Lone Druid fulfills 3 of my top few criteria in liking a hero. First, it can farm, because it has an excuse to farm being not usually compelled to backstab. Second, it allow you to micro more than one unit, which is always exciting. Third, it can neutral creep, and very quickly with little expense, at at low level, without sparing even the ancient creep camps.

One of my top criteria is being impossible to take down, and unfortunately Lone Druid doesn't always fulfill this. True Form does make him one hell of a monster to take down, but honestly reduces his utility by quite a bit and takes time to cast, so it is easy to get caught without being able to cast True Form in time. Rabid does add a lot of movement and attack speed though, so it does boost chasing power and survival skills, and of course increases damage output.

The best thing about the Lone Druid is the utility of having a Spirit Bear though. I'm still exploring new ways to use it though. Right now the Sprit Bear can steal items (something I'm proud to have invented and carried out with moderate success for a period of time), lure and stop creep spawns, creep in some cases, scout for backstabs and enemy locations. Its ability to provide an extra 6 free slots and serve as a risk-free mobile unit also makes it suitable to do things like ward, remote-irritation (like just following the enemy backstabber around to piss him off), and carry cheap aura items like RoB or anything else without having to waste one precious slot for a small item. I remember I once chased down a creeping ES with my Spirit Bear alone in IHCS, keeping my hero creeping on the opposite side of the map, and killed him by burning him with radiance all the way back to his base.

Really cool hero, but I still do have problems with its fragility, and the large stab it takes in your morale when you just can't seem to land any entangling roots when they are needed most.


Well, since I might not be playing in a long time, I'll save the Chen for another time. Isn't that good to write everything in one sitting. Gets boring for both reader and writer.

Haha!!! =D I tried QOP yesterday in pub. Not sure if they tweaked her movement and attack speed, but I find the QOP of the recent versions easier than the older ones I tried. She’s more fluid and faster. Rather easy to use =X … in pubs that is…

It's low on life and armour, so you really gotta watch where you tread, and what's hitting you (i.e. creeps attacking you when you are harassing/attacking opponent heroes is a no-no). I’m also not very familiar with mana costs yet, so I can blink forward and find myself 5 mana short or something. Damage too. I let the BH get away with 40 health a few times.

Anyway it was fun. And in tandem with improving oneself at DotA like Ant is valiantly demonstrating, we should start learning and being able to play all the competitive heroes with some level of competence. After CAPL, that is. I think this will help everyone sympathise with your team mates’ difficulties with their usual heroes, and get an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each hero as well. Yup! See you all tonight!

Sacrificing sleep and procrastinating homework to make for one hellish weekend, here's one cool hero log! Whoo!

Actually I wanted to do one for Chen since I just played it but I foresee that it is going to be a looooong one for Chen.


Hero Log 7/80: Omniknight

Not wholly fun. Seems like a really nice prospect at first because the Omniknight can heal, slow, and most mighty of all, make a target spell immune, which has an impossible to overstate utility.
Unfortunately, his holiness Purist Thunderwrath apparently got his good looks and fine blonde mane by shaving a few points off intelligence. To top that off, his spells are rather mana intensive. That big hammer of his also seems rather unwieldy and attacks really slowly. The worst thing though, is that for a healer that needs to provide immediate healing assistance to allies or some friendly Guardian Angel, the Omniknight has an awful casting animation, and not the greatest casting range on Purify either.

For all the above, GA and Repel are far too useful to put the Omniknight down.

During big battles, the Omniknight needs to enter prepared. The right hero needs to have been repelled before the spells start flying. He must be constantly ready to heal, and of course cast GA as the battle heats up. I can repel, and I stand back enough to not be stunned most of the time when GA is sorely needed. After GA however, when I've tanked my fair share of AoE spells, I heal myself, repel myself, and chase after any hero without a proper escape mechanism.

Degen Aura is probably the most annoying damn aura in the entire game. Except of course, that without a skill to provide hardcore damage output for the Omniknight, I usually end up getting KSed by a "stray" spell or another hungry late gamer.

I went a sort of RK like build for Omni, except without the early game items. More mana regen, more passive play, since unlike RK there is no Storm Bolt for Purist to spam (even with his large hammer, but he sure ain't throwing that around). BoT comes in early with a few bracers, followed by Sange and Yasha. Don't really like Radiance that early since I'm a movement speed whore and need a bit of tanking power since I do actually intend to at least spare a repel for another late gamer. I am a team player, k! Being the nice team player that I am, I even get a Vladimir's Offering to provide friendly aura, then finish it with a Burize, and Aegis for Survival++.

Meh. I wasn't planning to go support on that one. Omniknight's combat abilities, especially with that irritating aura of his and that even more irritating anti magic shield, are too good to pass on. Granted, it does get KSed a lot.

I'm pretty okay with this hero. Not one of my favourites because it's expected to support, there's a rather pressurising role in team battles, and it sort of sucks at farming early game without a really good ally helping you. Not to mention with no reliable nuke and slow attack speed, this guy gets KSed far too much.

What I like though, is his annoying ability to stop teammates from dying, and even better, stop himself from dying.

I really would like to farm faster with him though, but I guess he's more designed to be a support hero. Heck, I like to play him more as a combat hero.

Hi girls. For CAPL-winter let's stick to our conventional roles. We need to work on coordination (on Friday), not new heroes per se. Not yet.

So this means that Tammy will still be the QOP, and Shan will be the Chen. As an alternative for Chen maybe you need to work on a Veno/Enchant sort of hero.

As for the rest of us - I have been told that I would be expected to play Viper/WL solo mid hero. If this is confirmed I will go train the buggers. Which means Jiayi will have to familiarise THD/VS types. If not, I am also okay swapping roles. Cyn, you may have to use Zeus/Pugna and standby SandK. Tam is also ok with SandK but we need her to QOP. May also pick Lina (in this case I use).

As part of the individual 'training' when we can't play together - try to hit 80 kills 80 denies when you hit level 11. It's not very hard but it requires consistency. Do not use spells to farm, and pump your skill build as you would normally in a match (don't +stats all the way). Save the game.

And as for my Tarot card... (I tried changing colours and got a different card, how weird - when it was black it was the Devil, same as Jiayi) anyway Moon sounds good.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

im having a splitting headache so i'll just say abit of stuff on today's training.

i cant zeus. im not aggro enough, im super hum. so yes, i cant zeus. HI CYN, I NEED YOU!

and i think its better for jy to play thd then dawn viper. i think i'll try out thd too.

i'll write more tomorrow, regarding what i think of today's match.

HEADACHE.

Congrats to CYN who wins THE MOST SCARY GIRL AWARD. =D

Ant - you're perfectly normal. You just ain't female so you won't understand. It's okay. *pats*

That test in recent posts seems like a lot of bullshit, you or me could probably tell you more about yourself than anything there, although maybe it only applies for "normal" people and I'm perhaps excluded from that category.

Look out for the new item coming up in 6.41, the FURYFISH!!

Furyfish
Requires:
- BattleFURY
- Blademail
- Mask of MADNESS
- Recipe (3 lumber)

Passive: Randomly leashes out energies of FURY at target, where target is silenced for one hour. Active: Smash icefrog (10000 mana). Instantly destroys icefrog. If mana requirement is not met, it will cast Smash ice, which causes your team's best farmer to suddenly do stupid things.

What a smashing new item.

I won't be doing much battlereporting, since schoolwork hardly makes time for good games (and recently recoverd from a fever, what a great way to spend a weekend and still not be able to catch up on schoolwork being sort of unable to do it) let alone the time to review it, and most of the battlereporting I'll probably try to do for CAPL (fun fun!). Going on, here's the hero log for today, which unfortunately only has one hero because a lot of matches simply leave me with very little capacity to try others.

Hero Log 6/80: Necrolyte

This hero is fun because at full mana it's damn difficult to take him down. The pulses from death pulse can come really quickly, reducing enemy HP and healing you as well. Reaper's scythe is also mostly utterly impossible to KS. Yet another cool thing.

Team battles aren't too hard too. Death pulse is so spammable you just have to be in the right place to spam it and have no need to care about timing. Just make sure you hit enough people and have enough mana to cast your spells. It's always a problem to resist the temptation to reaper that 40% HP intel hero though, instead of saving it for when it's really needed, like on that 3K HP RK.

Necrolyte doesn't actually have any distinct weaknesses. Then again, it doesn't have too many strengths either. Spammable AoE (with no animation time too) is a plus, and so is Reaper's Scythe when used properly. Oh, and I forget about it's staying power in a lane with Sadist to regen mana. That being said, it's not particularly good at survival (the heal helps, but doesn't save from a lot of damage in a short time or a good strength hero tanking everything while hitting you), it doesn't have that much damage output (sans Reaper's Scythe), and it's attack animation sort of sucks.

It's a rather nice feeling though, how a lot of people will underestimate the Necrolyte and get into unfavourable battles with it. With its skillset, going in 2v1 against a Necrolyte isn't that often to your favour unless you have the correct choice of heroes. Its greatest weapon is probably that element of unexpectability when your enemy doesn't account for how quickly Death Pulse can chip at their HP and how that little bit of healing still does quite a good job at keeping you alive.

Oh, but with Death Pulse and Sadist, Necrolyte can farm quite well. That too is always a plus factor.

Item build wise everything seems to work for him. The usual intel items like Dagger or Meka or Necronomicon or Euls all work for him, though I like radiance too once in a while. Skadi as well is lovely but doesn't have that much utility unless you can farm that fast. I guess Dagon works too but in team battles unless you can find that good moment it's hard to pull off and a little too costly.

Fun hero, not very stressful, doesn't require too much micro either. You don't even need to right click, just stand around and press "D". I was actually soloing as a Necrolyte, and it didn't turn out too badly, albeit against a THD.

eh..

my chen really sux ah? t.T

surprisingly..

You Are 33% Scary

You scare men off ocassionaly, but only very weak men. You're a normal woman. You're not perfect, but you're pretty darn close.

Do You Scare Off Men?

though i think im much scarier.

You Are 50% Scary

You're a pretty normal, nice girl... but you definitely have your scary moments. As long as you acknowledge them and apologize, you'll probably keep your guy around.

Do You Scare Off Men?

ant always says i'm SCARY!

TT""

You Are 49% Scary

You're a pretty normal, nice girl... but you definitely have your scary moments.As long as you acknowledge them and apologize, you'll probably keep your guy around.

Do You Scare Off Men?

As my new year contribution to our teamblog, here's another quiz ONLY FOR US GIRLS!!! (And our happy gay friends, if any ^^)

DO YOU SCARE OFF MEN?

You Are 38% Scary

You scare men off ocassionaly, but only very weak men. You're a normal woman. You're not perfect, but you're pretty darn close.

Do You Scare Off Men?

HERES TO 640.

Thinking and language fails around now because I'm feeling deadly sick, been through far too much hecticness for my own good, and am lonely and confused. No really, you won't catch me actually saying that very often on public domain.


Hero 4/80: Enchantress

Yet another hero I love. It's one of those heroes I like to call my classics, since I more or less have been using it and trying new tactics with it ever since its release. It's also a hero I came up with to use in draft matches, and though I might not be the first one to use it in one, I came up with the idea of using it myself anyway, so I'm rather proud of it.

The Enchantress is either impossible to kill, or a complete pushover. It really depends on what the enemy's piorities are. The amazingly low HP on this hero sort of makes her susceptible to focus nukage be it in the early or the late game. However, if you don't kill her within 5 seconds, heal and untouchable means you're going to have to chase her down for a really long time to finish her off.

Team battles are also a little messy with this hero, and there are a lot of decisions to make quickly. Do you go near your friend to heal him or just heal yourself and not waste time in battle? Do you finish off the low HP enemy near you or target the guy further away for maximum damage? Do you use enchant on that creep or save it for when your enemy is running away? Do you even want to use impetus constantly and risk having no mana for when it's most effective? I recently realised I more or less manual cast impetus in no lag situations but a slightest spiking problem or a bit of delay makes me autocast it. It really was a sort of subconcious thing and I didn't realise it until today.

Early game, unless I'm soloing, I tend to go massive support. The person I'm assisting on my lane almost never fails to farm really well. How well I farm though, depends on what kind of creep luck I'm getting and how much the person I'm helping KS' me. Creeps and Impetus are I think the two most consistent and deadly sources of damage in the early game.

Oh, and I love the feeling of invulnerability when I use it in those drafts where the opponent simply can't touch you. I simply love that feeling. Plus Enchantress allows you to micro technically up to 8 other units at one time, although usually I'm very contented with 1 or 2. Microing more units than just your hero alone is fun!

Been trying a few things on enchantress, and she really needs that unique balance of survivability, attack speed, mana, and damage. I tried BKB with mass attack speed once, and I could easily clear the weaker heroes in a flash but by the time I got to the stronger ones I was out of mana to do much damage. Dagon is something I have to work with. Heart and Radiance and Guinsoo seem so far to be the items I have the most consistent results with. Skadi is surprisingly ineffective, and I have to try Linken's some day.

To top things off, I've seen a couple of really bad Enchantresses, so I feel happy knowing there are players worse than me. Unfortunately it isn't quite as impossible to die nowadays since more people are learning how to deal with her. Heck, I still think she pwns.


Hero Log 5/80: Sandking

Hoho. I have told you I have a problem hitting those target point spells right? Sandking is actually not that bad.

Well, it was rather bad last time. I had around 50% Burrowstrike missing rate, whether the target was intentionally dodging or not. I'm actually hitting more burrowstrikes now, simply because I only take them when I think it's not too difficult to hit.

Somehow I've always been fortunate enough to land myself in a rather good early game state with a good lane in all the matches that I've used Sandking. Dagger comes up before it's too late to get it, and after that things are usually a breeze.

As much as I hate missing burrowstrike every so often, Sandking is one hero I love to play as long as I get a good early game foundation, because with blink dagger, it's basically am a Strength hero with 3 escape mechanisms, which very few heroes can rival.

I admit I play Sandking very differently from a lot of people. For one, I actually stay put in a lane and move around after level 6. Mostly this is because my teammates are whining about why I didn't move around before then. See, pre-level 6, I can't hit burrowstrike for nuts unless the enemy is stunned, slowed, or right beside me.

I can't start the battle with epicentre. Never. In fact, most battles I only am able to epicentre at one time, and that's just as the battle begins. I can't catch any heroes in epicentre after that, and I can't find the correct moment to do it before. I do get off rather good ones once in a while though.

I epi-blink-burrow more than burrow-epi most of the time, not just because it's easier but because I usually can't hit burrowstrike unless the enemy is already slowed by epicentre.

I don't learn caustic finale, and I also don't ever use burrowstrike to KS creeps. In fact, I find it freaking annoying when my teammates do it because they basically ruin your entire creep farming momentum with 2 clicks. The worst thing is when they come out all well farmed with a Heart and Aegis.

Quite frankly, I think the Sandking has little use in battle after epicentre with those items. Maybe a little bit of tanking power, but the Sandking is far too slow and sluggish to do much damage by hitting enemies. I mean, the Sandking really has enough survival power. What he needs is items to help his team. Guinsoo, Necronomicon, Meka, perhaps Radiance at the worst if damage output is required. I've been using Meka and Guinsoo quite often in the few games that I play Sandking, and recently tried Necronomicon. I also went Skadi once, but it didn't really help that much since there wasn't much chasing to be done.

Yeh, not learning casutic finale also makes room for other nicer item orb effects.

hi all,

asterisk* will be training at egames on one of the evening next week. (tuesday to thursday, 8pm). if you'll like to play a friendly with us, please leave a comment in the comment box at the end of this post. please include your name, contact number, msn, and team name(if you have one). first come first serve, thanks.

and i meant comment box, not tag board. any request on the tagboard will be ignored.

*edit* opponent found.

some pics from the most viewed list in dotasg... lol... both from the new year's compie at e2max in 2005. 1 year ago!

kelbro ant's and my fellow commentator, now in NS. with Jas aka morbidfat! <3>

i'm not sure who... but looks like me on the left, shan on the right. and ice in the middle. ice + 2 gals = woot or?!

Everyone things that they are more complicated than everyone else they see around them because they only know themselves and haven't even thought about what goes on in everyone else. Which explains why a lot of blogs are filled with angst and stuff that probably feels a little better going out but doesn't make anyone any better or help him in any way. You are special and unique, don't get away with thinking that everyone else isn't.

Above paragraph isn't triggered by any event, merely an opinion I've been wanting to give that sort of hasn't had the avenue to be said. Clears my mind.

Hero logging starts. Every hero I played starting from last sunday, which I haven't played yet since then, I will post about it and my notes on what I feel about it. Actually I'll do the same with heroes that I've been using for months and are now obsolete, perhaps. If you're looking for a guide, you won't find one because no one should play like me even if the same circumstances arise. If anything, you should play better.

3 hero logs today, 80 heroes in total I hope to cover, not counting the new ones in 6.39. School is at its worst, but I'm squeezing a few games over a few days.

Oh, and speaking of which, I did a BattleReport for CAPL for a slot since the shoutcasting machines couldn't connect to the network for that game. Also did two commentaries after that, following CCC through all their matches in Open Category Season 1 Week 1. Commentaries and BattleReport available at the CAPL website, www.capl.com.sg


Hero 1/80: Skeleton King

This hero is a lovely melee hero. Aside from large size, not the best attack animation (though I believe it was improved from last time), and the really low attack speed, this guy is definitely on the list of heroes I like, and somewhere among the top of the melee hero list.

Unlike RK, there is no tactical GSing to be done. Crit is permanently with you, costs no mana, cannot be purged, nor debuffed in any manner. As such, my weakest element of combat in team battles, choosing when to cast what, doesn't affect usage of this hero. Plus the ability to stun is always good because it really is irritating when you're chasing someone down and can't reach him because you can't slow or stun him.

Vampiric Aura and Reincarnation are really the bomb though. I can actually play aggressive with this hero (WOW) in team fights because by all means, I don't mind you wasting everything on me and dying once because I'll just pop right in again.

Oh, and critical strike. Did I mention this already? Life leech and critical strike just aren't meant to be together. Stack a good life leech item (if you farm enough) and the Skeleton King is set to be a Naix with much more damage output (assuming you reach your opponent). Really, crit strike is as good as GS. If you're lucky enough, with similar items, and of rather high level, you can take down an RK that has GS'ed without using Reincarnation. Plus, all damage items boost crit strike, whereas GS is only boosted by Strength items. That rapier helps me crit for 4 digit damage! But what does it do for GS? NOTHING!

Early game is a bit difficult though, seeing as how SK isn't as fast as RK for animation and attack speed, meaning backstabbing and farming isn't as easy if the first 10 minutes of momentum isn't established. Bolt does help a lot in possible backstab playstyle if lane control doesn't work in the early game though. Generally though, I don't lane control well with melee heroes until the first 10 minutes of momentum is established.

Everything seems to work well with Skeleton King. Battle Fury works, Sange and Yasha does the usual, Radiance is awesome, even Skadi is fine. I think attack speed is really important though. This guy has really low agility.

In conclusion? Skeleton King is definitely my kind of hero. No need to make decisions in battle, just right click, and no need to be scared of death. Definitely kick-ass.


Hero 2/80: Warlock

Warlock is another hero I think I can sort of use. I usually do well if my early game momentum is good, but am practically useless if I do badly for the first 20 minutes in the game. Warlock sort of ensures that unless your opponent lets your entire team farm and aims you with more than half of their team, you can't do too badly in the early game.

Minus point of Warlock is that this guy is far too easy to KS, with all the DoT and what spells. Plus Diffusal Blade dropping you from almighty hero to just another fly on the battlefield really hurts your morale.

I have been cursed with the inability to hit most spells that target an AoE. Fortunately, it's very very difficult to miss Infernal. Battle decision making is easy as well, unless the opponent has a Diffusal Blade, in which case you usually don't feel any pressure since that Infernal would have died anyway. Drop the Infernal, find the opportune moment to cast Fatal Bond, and check for any good targets to cast Shadow Word on. Unfortunately my Warlock has been getting aimed at quite a lot lately so I don't usually try Upheaval in battles.

So this guy can heal, has a lot of health, and can drive people away with Infernal. Nearly impossible to kill early game, which is something I like a lot. Plus I can stay in a lane all I like most of the time since lane control early on in the game is no problem at all.

Also, it's always fun to micro more than one unit at a time, although Infernal doesn't require that much clicking, it's still nice. I like microing more than one unit at a time. Really.

Downside is that Warlock gets pretty useless late in the game. I have been trying a few item builds for a late game Warlock, but at most I could only take down one late gamer, not carry the team. Really, I've gone about everything on this hero and have at least 4 choices of item builds to go in any draft. Versatility makes for even more fun too. Awesome hero, except I feel useless late game.


Hero 3/80: Visage

Actually it's Necro`lic, but I have no idea what that word means, so Visage sounds better. This hero is like my dream hero. Next to maybe Bear or Enchantress. Let's go down the check list.

Difficult to kill? Check. Mostly because Grave Chill makes the Visage one difficult mofo to catch, and well placed Revenants make it difficult to reach him without proper hero choices or a lot of sneakiness. Add that on to the fact that Visage, being a late gamer and a possible tank, usually goes one or more big Survival items, usually a Heart.

More than one unit to micro? Check. Of course sometimes there are far too many units to micro effectively, but Revenants usually have enough health for me to micro them to safety if they are far away, and it's especially fun to dodge AoE spells with Revenants.

Ease in battle? Check. Grave Chill, select Revenants + Hero, autocast Soul Assumption, and right click on something. Occasionally if you're being slowed and the target hero has a lot of survival power, maybe some Soul-Assumption-Click chasing is neccessary.

Ability to neutral? Check. Somewhat. Creeping fast with low level Revenants though, is an art I have yet to master.

Excuse to stay in lane and farm? Check. I'm a late gamer! I can't backstab anything much anyway! Well, okay, this isn't really true, but Revenants make the Visage one difficult mofo to out-micro once they are up.

Early game power? Not really check. Grave Chill helps in backstabs, but you need a really strong ally to make up for your lack of a damage output or a nuke. Soul assumption helps in gaining life but again only when the later levels are reached. Farming if momentum is right in the first 20 minutes or so is a breeze, but getting there is usually more difficult than most other ranged heroes.

KSability? No check, but with Grave Chill and 7 Revenants and Soul Assumption, unless you are superbly underfarmed, you'll deplete most of your target's health anyway before getting KSed.

And of course, playing a late game hero makes me feel powerful, especially one that can win another late gamer even while being slightly less farmed. In late game, at least.

Did I mention that it can neutral creep? Amazing hero, it just isn't the best early game and loses to the likes of Chen and other stunners early on since they can catch up and pwn him even with Grave Chill.


Three heroes that I can use. I plan to cover most of what I can use before venturing into the stuff that I'm not sure if I can use or outright suck at.

:(

Musica leaves out the i in zenith, makes it seem like part of a counting process.

Been doing casting over the weekend, nothing much to say really. Open category teams all more or less are using the same heroes. Honestly, not the best matches for one to watch. The game of CCC against MIX was probably the best of the bunch though.

That being said, solo casting does make your throat rather dry, because Tammy got sick and couldn't cast. So I log on to MSN in between casting matches, and get word that Musica got online on MSN while I was casting.

Bleh.

I'm going to try out something I call "One hero a day". Basically, as much as possible, I will use a new hero for every single game in a match until I have used every single hero in the game in a match. Not only do I have something to write about, but I know what heroes I completely blow at, and what heroes completely blow in a match whether I blow at it or not.

Let this be a start! I shall first list down all the heroes that I haven't used a single time in a proper match.
CM // Naga Siren // Earthshaker // Stealth Assassin // Slayer // Juggernaught // KOTL // Ursa // Tinker // Phantom Lancer // Techie // Beastmaster // Alchemist // POTM // Luna // Troll // Rhasta // Panda // Centaur // Dragon Knight // Anti-Mage // Omniknight // Tormented Soul // Magnataur // Chaos Knight // Lycanthrope // Broodmother // Phatom Assassin // Medusa // Nerubian Assassin // Slithereen Guard // Faceless Void // Lifestealer // Oblivion // Leviathan // Butcher // Axe // Bloodseeker // Spectre // Destroyer

That's a whopping 39 heroes. Wow. Considering that many heroes I have used were in IHCS matches, not AP Draft matches in SG, the list is a lot longer. Note that this list is for version 6 only. Actually I probably played a few of those heroes in matches before but if I don't remember it, I probably should play them again.

I'm going to mostly skip those heroes that require pre-emptive aiming, like Pudge, Pugna, POTM (well that one's not too bad), and Slayer.

Of course, I'll always be trying those other heroes that I've already played, and slowly eliminate hero by hero off the list.

In particular, there are already a lot of heroes in the list above that I think are draft match worthy and I can play. Will test soon.

asterisk* zEnth

yo! i'm back!. in australia at least. i managed to get some time off to come over to a lanshop and blog a lil. its been terribly busy here trying to get the house up and running. yea. i miss all you guys loads. wish'd i'd be able to go back and be with u guys again. anyway i gtg now. talk to you guys online once i get my computer up and running here yea. cya!

Probably my shortest post ever.

I miss Musica! He's supposed to be blogging or online! Though maybe for the first few months it might be better for him to focus more on settling down there instead...

I miss GPS too but I also miss him not feeding so much.

I'm checking out some GGC competitions. One in Australia with finals in Sydney, but I'm still in the process of inquiring if it's Australian-only. One is CEGL, but I'll have to confirm with the rest of the team and find out more details (e.g. do we actually have a decent host) since as of now I don't think there are even any prizes (bad thing, though with that kind of delay we'll probably get I don't think we'll win anything). Next, CEVO I think might have a new season of DotA, and those definitely have prizes, but again we probably can hope only to go 1-1 against top teams using GGC and pray that we host the tiebreaking round.

The world wants a bigger DotA LAN event. My world, at least.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CYNTHIA!

I LOVE YOUUUUUUUU!

Originally this post would be a report on our finals game against Geminga* in RGN Season 3, but it seems that VoD's of it have been posted up. Replays of previous matches also were posted. I guess those interested can watch it and I don't have to write anything. Whee.

There seem to be quite a few match requests, but unfortunately the best ways to get a match with Zenith are to either...
a) Meet us by chance in a competition
b) Meet us by chance on IRC on the hideously rare occasions where we are all playing together
c) Get to know our key players and then ask.
d) Get to know one of our not that key players, then ask when he and the rest of team Zenith is actually not in a match and can play.

Key players here being LuX and ice, because if they agree to a match with you (assuming you challenged Zenith), the rest of the team should have very little problem with it. Contacting Tofu or me for a match depends on how much time is given until the arranged match (too short and we can't contact them, too long and we can't be sure if our schedules are free), and pretty much only nets a 50% chance even if the team is free, because there's a large chance that I'll be too lazy to convince the rest of the players to play an arranged match, and also a chance that they won't be that interested (mostly busy doing other things I think).

Well, my MSN is always available for anyone who wants a match, and you can find it out by just hovering over my name in the tagboard. Chances aren't that high that doing so will net you a match with us though, since we're mostly schooling on weekdays and having tourneys or going out on weekends, if not already occupied in our own individual matches.

You could try asking on IRC too... but chances aren't that high either. I mean, not many teams actually train together as a full team more often than not.

For the sake of completeness, here are some methods that have a higher chance of getting a match with us but which you should NEVER EVER try. They probably work when used in unison with each other. You could...
a) BM all of us.
b) BM Tammy.
c) Challenge us to a sidebet match.
d) Convince us that you flew from overseas just to play with us.
e) Kidnap one of us or our close relatives, except for Tofu because we probably would love you more for it.

zz... i typed out the last post twice. guess it wasnt fated to be posted. lol...
anyway, i shall try one more time. if it fails, then i'm not gonna bother again.
happy back to school day kiddies! work hard esp those sitting for major exams, the A's, O's, N's and IB. lol...
***
for those interested in ihcs, go check out http://www.dotasg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=464 or go to http://z13.invisionfree.com/IHL_Euro/index.php?showtopic=3444
to get ggclient, its something like yawle and lancraft, go to www.gg-game.com
to get vouched into ihcs, as well as invited to #ihcs2 / #ihcs on quakenet mIRC servers, go to http://z13.invisionfree.com/IHL_Euro/index.php?showforum=11

***
all i can say is that its not that straightforward to get into ihcs. but its worth it, just deal with the lag.

details of hq compy, copied from x3m forum. sad to say, girls team wont be taking part this time round due to other personal commitment. so maybe cynthia and i form mixed team or something..

Prize money: 1st prize $2000 + 100 free hours per team
2nd prize $1000 +100 free hours per team
3rd prize $500 + 100 free hours per team

Dates : 28th Jan, 4th Feb and 11th Feb (all on Sundays)
Finals is on 11th Feb itself

Reporting time : 8.30am to 9.15am
Late-comers will be automatically disqualified

Closing date for registration : 18th JAN

Registration fee : $35 per team

FREE MEMBERSHIP WILL BE GIVEN TO EACH MEMBER UPON REGISTRATION

Venue : HQ3 at Chinatown (near Chinatown MRT)

Match-ups and groupings will be released on 22th Jan on website @ www.hqcybercafe.com

Map Version : DotA 6.37 5v5 -AP Best of 1 game to win

I think I was the first person to use Visage in competitive play. Back in March, I could only really play two competitive heroes, Lich and QoP, and the only reason why I was considered able to use QoP was because I had to play something that I didn't completely feed at if Lich was taken away from me. Well, I could Silencer and VS too, but they weren't being used by us much in competitive play then.

Well, with that story, let us proceed to our semi-finals game in RGN Season 3 against Rev0.

Our first 3 picks are probably something we won't do against any other clan. Losing the coin toss, we end up with Chen, Zeus, and RK as our first 3 picks, picking them effectively just to deny Rev0 these heroes. It does allow them though, to get Warlock, QoP, and THD. They get Veno on their 4th pick, and after contemplating for a really long time we finally picked Sandking as our fourth choice, seeing AoE as a rather important factor.

Their last pick is unexpected when they pick Slayer. At this point, we start assigning heroes.

Tofu: Ok, ant zeus solo mid.
Ant: No no I can't solo warlock with zeus.

See, I'm mostly fine with Zeus solo in a 2v1 or a 3v1 situation, because I can just use Arc Lightning to farm and what I'm expected to do is simply to not die. In a 1v1 situation though, I don't have that 1v1 experience with Zeus to actually control a strong opponent, not just humji and farm.

Tofu: Okay, ant play RK!
Whole team: NO!

I actually think I can RK pretty fine, except it's probably nowhere near ice or even Tofu or LuX's standard. For the most part my RK is blacklisted because of some hiding incident... which wasn't actually that bad but I won't elaborate on it.

Tofu: Ant can chen right? I mean he can enchantress...
Ice: I can Chen better then him with one hand and one eye (note: THIS IS PROBABLY MORE THAN TRUE)

See, the difference between Ench and Chen is that Ench can just suicide all her creeps and pioritises more farming and surviving than backstabbing (since you can never be ensured to have a good backstabbing creep when you reach a faraway lane to backstab, whereas Chen's creeps are permanent so you can rely on it more).

Tofu: Ant SK is not bad wad...
Ant: ROFL NO (90% Miss Burrowstrike FTW).

I've done some pretty decent Sandkings actually, but seeing as how Sandking is really the hero here that makes or breaks us, I'm not exactly willing to take it up. Add in lack of experience and the fact that my Burrowstrike hitting rate is on-off.

So, left without a choice, the last hero pick goes to me. LoA was a consideration but triple melee isn't desirable. Viper is possible but for one I'm not too confident with it, and Slayer sort of scares us from choosing Viper. The same goes with Bear. Thus, we opt to sacrifice a little bit of lane control in favour of late game power and survivability as well as hero allocability for me and draft Visage.

I solo mid against a Warlock and actually do rather decently. With Gargs up at level 6, I'm farming and denying well enough to drive the Warlock off the lane when he wishes to farm faster. Veno QoP from Rev0 at top lane is however, losing quite badly to SK and Zeus. LuX does amazingly well early game and never loses his momentum throughout the game.

For the most part, LuX and Musica are pwning around the map while ice mixes farming and backstabbing. For the most part he actually takes much less creeps than me, but makes this up by stealing all the hero kills. My lane is always surprisingly deserted. Everytime I go to a lane to farm, it doesn't take more than a few waves before the enemy hero decides to go backstab another lane or find better farming prospects elsewhere.

Tofu's role is more or less bait. I have no idea why, but the means that Rev0 are using to take down Tofu's Zeus are far too extreme for their own good. In a "LuX tells Tofu to go get caught and Tofu miraculously listens" moment, he gets simultaneously BLINKED AT, Infernalled, Ice pathed, Macropyred, Dual Breathed, SSed, Poison Novaed, and finally SONIC WAVED, effectively clumping all the enemy heroes together without their ultimates and blink for LuX to happily blink in with Epicentre and clear them.

This game wasn't really as close as we expected. Rev0 holds out very well, seeing as how ice and me are far too well farmed for them to stop around 40 minutes into the game, and that the QoP, despite having a long time to free farm in her lane, has been caught a lot and thus isn't very well farmed, but once their ultimates are used they have nothing else left to take us down. The Sven more or less finishes all of Rev0's heroes, unfortunately giving no credit to the Visage that is flinging skulls at them and doing most of the damage while the RK walks up to them. I do manage to get one KS from radiance though.

Game doesn't end that quickly, but it ends convincingly enough with pretty much no chance for Rev0 to have won. A short writeup since I spent most of the game farming empty lanes against no one so I'm sort of blur as to what happened around the map.

Well, replays should be released anyway for anyone interested to watch. If anything, take a look at the replay of the quarter finals against Etny.

As for the finals game though, I'll cover it tomorrow or something, and hopefully I remember what was going on around the map. It was definitely much more exciting but there isn't a replay, so expect a more detailed writeup. I won't be as sleepy when I write it either.

On friday, minutes before drafting for our quarter finals match against Etny, Musica comes in and wants to try his radical new draft.

It involves Enigma, Juggernaught, Enchantress, KOTL, and Ogre Magi.

We are like "WTF?!" and so after winning the coin toss, promptly choose Warlock as first pick. LuX, noticing that Musica is about to cry from being rejected or something, proposes that we redraft so that Musica can try his radical new draft. Of course, it isn't nice to redraft, so we give Etny both first pick AND sentinel to make up for it.

Etny picks Viper first, and Musica immediately picks Enigma.

Cue surprised looks, Etny doesn't take too long to draft QoP. Musica goes on with Enchantress.

More surprised looks. Etny is either surprised or happy or scared or something. They take a really long time to pick their next hero, THD. KOTL is immediately, without hesitation, drafted for us.

Cue a really long wait before Etny, in a move we actually anticipated, picks Earthshaker.

Tofu:"Ogre Magi. And write Juggernaught down too as our last pick because they won't pick it."

They pick VS, landing Musica's Enchantress soloing mid against Viper by his request (otherwise it would have been me). LuX's Enigma performs well as usual at top, and Tofu's Juggernaught does surprisingly well, albeit with rather bad early game. My Ogre and ice's KOTL go up against VS and THD at bottom lane, and we get off to a rather bad start as well, but soon proceed to own the lane.

Actually it's more of ice getting everything. Where Ignite and Fireblast are used mostly to harrass heroes, ice kills mostly creeps with illuminate (occasionally hitting heroes too, at least). With the exception of one or two ignite burn kills (as a result of ice probably misestimating illuminate damage), about every kill goes to him.

I would probably be pissed except that this is a rather usual situation with ice. Basically, if he stays in my lane, he farms everything at my expense, which is most of the time, a good thing. Take for example, when Viper takes over THD and proceeds to choing me with VS. Ogre with PB being rather fat, I survive for long enough to take the Viper down by a lot of health with whacks, Fireblast, and Ignite, and distract him for long enough for ice to land an illuminate, and walk up to me before MISSING MEKANSM (albeit partially because I got swapped by the VS). Well, it ends with me dead and ice getting a double kill with barely a nick to his health.

On a KOTL, ice farms radiance (for a hero that should spend most of his time staying at the back and illuminating and not being in the middle attacking?) and we push. Juggernaught and Enigma are very well farmed, but lack of reliable AoE makes it rather difficult to push in, especially since our primary late gamer, our dear beloved Enchantress, is pretty much farming badly.

Ice's mana leak does render the QoP pretty much useless though, and with Skadi and nothing else she really lacks damage output. Viper is also useless because he has no damage output. Juggernaught on the other hand has been really farmed, and so is the KOTL. A good catch at bottom lane after a few failed pushes brings us the win, although perhaps not as convicing a win as the previous two matches.

happy new year all.. wishing all of you many happy returns of the year and
of course to xMusiCa aka moosica aka moomoo aka justin aka tintin who's leaving for australia today.
good luck to you and your future endeavour! =)

Continuing on, we fought with Nightmare for our next match. First draft nets us QoP, Viper, LoA, Zeus and Chen, against Medusa, Warlock, Veno, and two more heroes that forgot. I think they had THD and Sandking or something but I forgot.

Mostly the reason I forgot is because the third match was played in only one day and was kind of so funny that I forgot most of what happened in the second match. Will cover that in one post, but NOT TODAY!

Early game is quite bad, with Musica's Viper actually doing rather badly early game (with a chen support too!). Even bottom lane, with LoA and QoP up against Veno and Medusa, isn't exactly doing that well, with them being able to keep us at bay, at least for a while.

Things start to change around level 5 to 6 though. Wandering Chen nets a lot of kills, along with high level shield and the imba irritatingness that is LoA + QoP. Viper actually farms stuff. LuX's Zeus at mid starts to WIN the Warlock.

Musica is mostly farming around the map and not being involved in battles. The next time I see him involved, he has a Reaver and a Relic on him, but the game is pretty much over by then. A lot of catching leaves us very well farmed and having a rather huge level advantage. Even with rather bad early game, we suffer extremely few deaths while netting a huge amount of kills later. With Tofu getting a Skadi, we push fast and get the mid set of Raxes down and a win comes soon.

Cool moment of the game comes when LuX is ganked by a lot of shit, and having a rather low hp build. Looking as if the Zeus would die at any moment, ice heals with Chen's ultimate, and then runs in to heal again with a Meka, as the Zeus is still persued by the Venomancer and taking all that damage from Shadow Strike and Poison Nova. Still being persued, the Venomancer launches a final projectile to finish the Zeus off, but suddenly a LoA teleports in, and shields the Zeus just before the deadly projectile hits, and coils for good measure as well.

It was a rather close save.

RGN season 3 ends quite well, rather convincing wins on all matches. I'll be doing one match per post, because I predict that I won't be able to get all 5 games done in one row. Since there isn't a replay for the finals match though, I probably will try to get it up as soon as possible to avoid forgetting everything.

Game 1 of RGN season 3, we play against Art of Seduction. They first pick, leaving us on the Sentinel with Visage, Beastmaster, Chen, THD, Warlock. They had QoP and Sandking, but I pretty much don't remember anything else they had. In fact the only reason I remember QoP was because she was in my lane, along with Sandking, who in an unforgettable moment, goes back to his base at level 2, returns at level 2 and immediately proceeds to be reduced to 50 HP being attacked by nothing but creeps.

Oh, I think they had Enchantress and Viper too. Can't really remember their last hero. I was rather busy farming neutrals and KSing the occasional last hit. In all honesty, I didn't see most of their heroes because they died too fast or were already dead when I decided to enter battle.

A missed burrowstrike on Musica's chen as he enters to ward creep spawns, followed by quick backup from LuX, leaves first blood on LuX's hands. Miscommunication results in me entering top lane late to solo against QoP and a latecoming Sandking.

I seriously have no idea what's happening around the map, except that the other team is being pwned rather badly. Had rather bad micro that day though. In a rare moment though, I manage to use my gargs to spot a Sandking hiding in the trees, and KS ice by landing a last hit just as his wild axes approach it. Chen comes up soon too for more help, and I just farm.

I don't know what else was happening around the map, but I could tell that we were pretty much winning because when we pushed the other team I think had got around half the XP we had. Not half our levels, but probably close enough. Game ends rather promptly.

Oh right, the opponents had RK too. I digged up this thread with their RK posting some funky stuff. I shall quote in chronological order. The quotes are taken from SEPARATE posts though. I'll say no more and leave them here in their entirety.

xia0drich:
"wee why u nt happy arhs? limpei the sven on team AoS, what hide behind monitor ? wan come and try?"
"clan fedx paikia team? nabei buay song come bnet talk la hor , if still a hot we change to phone , and if relli cannot den we talk outside.. find me in bnet kok.drichable I WAIT"

Nothing much yet, but from here I finally remembered that AoS had a RK!

and I can't remember what this 'wee' person did for this reponse, but going on...

xia0drich:
"i have grudge on u wee , u fucker u come out n talk la"
"btw zenith got 1 fucking nerd.. FUCK YOU ok dare to laugh? i break ur jaw see how u laugh?"
"ok la , peace all kay? i nth to do = = internet lagging like cock , need to entertain myself .. anyway i flame the zenith kid is cuz he laughed at me when i leave game."
"wtf? u dunno? theres onli 1 fucking nerd on that team , he keeps smirking after he kills someone frm AoS"

Eeeek. Someone is getting angry!

Warning: This post may contain liberal use of the F word, but if you're reading this now you probably already know it and the warning comes too late anyway.

But wait, he has one final comment to wrap up!

xia0drich:
"knnb pro in dota big fuck? saw him at kopitiam keep on diao him dun dare smirk this is zenith for u man.. FUCK YOU ANT GO FUCK ANT.. btw u wan start wit me i anything one"

Now, I'm considering my choices here. Flaming back is never an option because no one wins a flame war, and I don't plan to give him one. Of course, I can sit back and simply not do anything but that won't make me that happy, and with quite a few people defending me on the forums (wow), I feel at least a response could be given.

Ant:
"Your discontent is noted. Perhaps I should have changed my behavior and instead of being happy at winning, I should have grieved and mourned for your sad sad loss.
"Nooooo!! Why did I have to kill your hero! Why GOD WHY!!! *sniff* *sniff*""

If you don't already get it, I wasn't exactly trying to be serious in that post =.="

xia0drich:
"fuck you ant"

I could point out that "ant" without the first letter capitalised refers to an animal not a name, but I fail to expose this wordplay as the thread gets, AMAZINGLY, closed by DotaSG mods. I think this is the first time a thread actually has been closed. Wow.

And that's all for the first game, and post-game drama.