Jonathan 'Loda' Berg has been part of the competitive Dota scene for as long as there's been a scene to be part of. He was the man holding the Aegis of Champions aloft at the end of The International 2013, and his team Alliance are one of the most effective, efficient, and idiosyncratic teams in the world. I first met Loda at TI3, when I interviewed him the night before the grand final. That interview became this article. After Alliance's loss to tournament champions iG in the semi finals of ESL One Frankfurt I spoke to Loda for half an hour about the current metagame, that incredible match against Cloud 9, and the way that winning TI3 has affected Alliance for better and for worse. This is a long interview, but I think most Dota fans would appreciate seeing the whole thing so you'll find it all below.

How are you feeling after those games against iG, and what's the plan now?

We feel quite well, actually. Usually S4 picks but this event, since it's so close to TI... it's not like we're holding back but we let EGM pick instead. Just to throw things around a bit and not show any of the things that we've practiced. So, yeah iG is a very good team and we can see what we did wrong. One of the things you always realise when you play against the Chinese is that you can't ever be greedy at all, because Europeans rely on ultis long cooldowns and the Chinese will always go for a lot of heroes that are strong throughout the whole game.

For example, what they did in the last game against us is that they saw that they had stronger roaming potential. Even if they had a decent chance to play against our trilane they chose to dodge it because they saw that we didn't have heroes that could rotate as well as them. They'll almost always dodge the trilane that way not to go aggressive against us, but rather to dodge us going aggressive against them. But it feels okay, actually. I don't think any of us are extremely cut up about it.

I've seen you play well when you lose one lane by capitalising on your advantage elsewhere. Today it felt a little bit like you were being 70% efficient everywhere, and that slowed you down.

Yeah, I agree. Today in the first game we won like one lane maybe, which was the bottom lane, but they had a solo Doom there who could just go jungle and eat creeps and get back slowly. Then when you get picked off in one lane your whole rotation gets fucked up. We wanted to switch our trilane to top but then one guy gets picked off somewhere along the way, then I TP top but we don't have our two supports there because Akke had to roam mid to remove a ward, then I get picked off top.

They're very good at stopping your momentum, but I think a lot of today was about the draft. I think everyone feels that way. We should never have picked Lone Druid for example it was quite greedy. We should have put the Batrider on top lane and he could just switch to the jungle for example. Then you have a strong hero mid that can affect the game a lot.

We've seen a lot of Brewmaster in this tournament. Like, everyone is running it and almost every western team is being punished for it. Or at least, for every game where it does well there's a game where it doesn't.

Yeah, for sure. For example the last game I feel what we did wrong was pick a carry like Silencer who is not very mobile and Brew... he is extremely good at taking control of the game but you need to have other heroes that have a lot of damage output and we kinda lacked that. When you're playing Silencer, you want the other four to roam around and fight with the global. For us the Brew could initiate, clap, ult, but even with the global silence we couldn't really kill them during that so the only times we got a kill was when we went for a solo kill with the silence rather than go for a fight with the Brewmaster ultimate. That was one of the big problems in the last game that we didn't have the right heroes.

As I said, the Chinese rely on having heroes that can do something at all points in the game, where a hero like Silencer would probably get stronger in the lategame with an Aghanim's, maybe a Refresher or Hex, something like that. At the same time you can just be countered by BKBs which they did quite effectively.

Were you expecting iG to change up the way they played so dramatically from yesterday? Their approach to Mouz was just constant push.

We kinda thought that they would go for push in the second game, but no. They have two playstyles they either go for an all-out push or... it's like this. iG, if you analyse them from an objective view they don't rely a lot on their carry. They put him on heroes that are strong early-mid and also quite hard to kill. They pick Doombringer for him, they pick Lycan as part of that push strat, they pick Pugna for him, but it's not like a carry Pugna.

They put him on heroes that are strong in the midgame and I think they do that really well because they have five heroes that, as I keep saying, are always active. Even if they're not active they can be active. That's what they do well.

Moving on to a happier story, then that game last night . When I spoke to you last year you explained that there are points in games where you feel confident that you've 'got' it you might not have it now but you've got it in twenty minutes. Did you have that feeling last night? Because it was fucking close.

Er... not really. We had a strat where we ran Skeleton King . He's a carry that really peaks between thirty and forty minutes and that game went on to, like, eighty minutes. We felt that they should have had that game because they had, like, two hardcore carries in Ember and Void and they had PotM as well.

We felt that we could win the game, but... it was just about me and EGM creating space just so that Bulldog could split push one of the lanes. Then we'd, like, try to soak them up so that we could get a rax. They had better lategame for sure, but then we just outmaneuvered them I would say. Honestly, I think if they'd have just played a bit better, had better item choices they should have won that game. If I was in their position with those heroes in the midgame I'd be quite content.

It felt like they never got the teamfight they wanted.

Yeah. Yeah, actually exactly like that. We made them waste their big cooldowns.

That's kinda the story of this whole tournament. It's interesting.

Yeah, it is interesting. We went to China one month ago and it was the same thing there. We realised that you can never get greedy in that way against the Chinese because they will punish it for sure. They are very good at baiting you and just dodging the fights. If you're pushing a tower they've got a Bristleback who has been getting quite good XP against a trilane. It's not so easy to jump on the Bristleback over the tower they'll be ready behind him and if we go for him we could lose the fight. We can't kill him fast enough, and they'll punish you. The Bristleback is something that they pick against the Enchantress, for example. I've seen it over and over again just put him offlane while the Enchantress is there and he's quite hard to kill against just two heroes. We didn't really have the right set up to punish him. Maybe if you went for a stun carry, or a Centaur, a midgame carry something like that.

You've really been favouring that, right? The stun carries.

We switch it around a bit. At DreamHack we did that. Here we did that a little bit as well. For me personally, I like some of them. I dislike some of them. With a hero like Wraith King, I know that my clock is ticking. I have very good farm but it doesn't really scale that well. You want to create chaos in the teamfights, you want to get that reincarnation so you just go in soak up damage, then you keep picking people off.

But I think you need to switch it around a bit against different teams. Against the European teams it's very good to have these stun carries because European teams tend to be a bit greedy, you can push them a little bit.



The last time we spoke was the eve of the TI3 final. How has that win changed the way you've trained over the last year?

It's changed a lot. Six months felt like a waste of time after TI because we didn't have the same focus, we didn't have the same drive to win smaller tournaments. Even if you try to get that focus it's hard to really be hungry to win these tournaments. For sure, every tournament now has good prize money, but it's just not really the same thing. It's only been in the last two-three months that we've really been able to get the drive to become good again. I kind of predicted it I was talking to my team about it but it can be hard to keep the team motivated, even myself, sometimes.

Last year, almost everybody I spoke to said that it's not the money, it's being the best at something.

Yes, it is that's what I mean. If you won TI it's not like "I won a lot of money" it's "I won the World Cup". Why would we want to win the... I dunno, the Swedish Masterchef or whatever? We would probably still win it, though.

You basically did. But has that attitude changed? I mean, this extraordinary new prize pool it's so much bigger.

In a way, but I think that either way we'd have started focusing a lot more before TI. I think everybody gets motivated by that, no matter the prize pool. But sure, the prize pool is extraordinary. That's good and bad, I suppose. It puts a lot of pressure on teams.

I'm very interested to see what happens after this year's tournament, because someone is going to walk away with enough money to do whatever the hell they like, training-wise, and whatever they like with the other tournaments. Do you think whoever wins this year will be affected by the same thing that affected you, but on a much greater scale?

I think every team was affected by what we were affected by. I think Na'Vi were affected by it, I think that iG was affected by it. After they won TI2 they were performing quite decently for, like, half a year then they went into a slump that they didn't get back from even at TI3. If you win this kind of money, you should just go away for a while. I think that's a better approach, just to stop playing for maybe three months. Then you come back and you know that you have to train very very hard to become the best again.

If you only take a short break you come back and you play scrims but you never have that feeling like "we really need to out think them, we really need to out draft them". We play these online tournaments where last year we'd be super, super focused and so motivated to win in the finals, but even now, when we've been doing so-so, it's hard to want to be the best when you've already got to that point.

Last year you had something to prove you had people to take down. Now you're the guys that people want to make a statement against. That must be a lot of pressure.

Yeah, for sure. At the same time, now we've been losing for a while so hopefully we'll be something of an underdog, heh.

It bothers me, the way the community sometimes reacts to the way you play the whole 'rat Dota' thing. It seems like such a misunderstanding of how sport works.

It's... it's just a result of you being bad and not really understanding. Pro players don't look at it the same way. Pro players don't feel that rat Dota is a worse way to play than any other way. It's a skilled thing that you can pull off or you can't. If you look at League of Legends, for example, rat Dota or whatever you want to call it is pretty much something they hype. If somebody split pushes well in League of Legends they're like "oh my god, they're playing so well".

I don't know. I mean, you can take some offense from it but I don't know that we care so much. We live in a world where people are stupid.

Ha. That's true.

No, but it is. So many Dota players are bad. So many of the casters are bad if you compare them to pro players. I'm not saying that out of arrogance, it's just how it is. It's just the top 0.1% of the players that are good enough to understand all the aspects of the game, and if it was easy to play split push and rat Dota everyone would do it but they can't. That's enough proof for us that it's just about outsmarting your opponent.

I wonder if it's because it's less visible than a gank or a teamfight or something.

Yeah, exactly. People hype stuff that is obvious to the eye. If someone goes for a solo kill "oh, he's really good." People see what is easy to see, and casters see what is easy to see. Casters say a lot of wrong stuff a lot of the time as well they analyse situations wrong.

There was a moment a huge teamfight right at the end of that second game against Cloud 9 that went from the bottom of the Dire offlane all the way up to mid. Teamfight ult after teamfight ult, but the whole point of it was where the hell's Bulldog? And then their rax is gone.

Yeah. It's just about outsmarting them. They had some TPs on them so we cancelled the TPs. We just want them to make mistakes. They get more and more stressed and the mistakes came. The time when they went all-in on our throne wasn't the right decision to make. They should have just went for our rax, backed off, kept going for the lategame.

They really wanted to end it.

Yeah, they really wanted to end it and you can see that they... I think maybe they're just not experienced enough. A Chinese team would wait ninety minutes instead of eighty.

What's it been like having WinteR here?

It's good. He hasn't been here very long, and as I said we don't want to show too much at this event, but for sure it's good. WinteR is an ex pro player, and he's good enough to understand every part of the game and bring good analysis to the table. Because we have people that don't speak up a lot after the game even if they have a point that they thing is good, they don't really talk about it. It's frustrating for myself it's almost like I'm sitting there and whining because noone else is responding. The good thing about WinteR is sometimes he will either agree with me or point out another part of the game where it's like "if you guys had rotated in the early game it would have put a lot of more pressure on their draft".

For me, it's nice to have someone who can come in from an objective point of view. I feel the same way I wish my team would tell me "oh, you did this wrong. You should have done this."

Last year you said that you guys were good at not falling into the trap of flaming each other.

We don't at all. I don't think the others feel like I'm blaming them it's just how we are as people. Communication is something that you have to practice. You have to be honest and it's a hard thing, sometimes. We are all honest towards each other, and if I say something that somebody disagrees with they will tell me, for sure, and I wouldn't be offended by it.

In Dota, it's never just one choice. It's ten choices and you have to go for one of them and make sure that everyone thinks that that choice is the best one.

And that everyone does it, right?

Yeah, that's something we've been working on. If we make different calls... we used to be extremely good at Rosh and we've become good at it again but for a time we were very bad at fighting around the Rosh pit because we went for different decisions. One guy wanted to finish Roshan, one guy wanted to bait them to go for us, then we'd split up in the fight around Rosh and rather than get one of the things we end up losing both Rosh and the fight just because of miscommunication.

That was also one aspect of becoming as good as we were. When you win TI people feel that... me as well, you feel like you've just won the World Cup or whatever you want to call it. Every feels that they're good enough to make the right call but maybe they don't speak up enough to make it happen. It's more like... instead of having one mind you now have five different minds.

So success turns you into individuals rather than a collective.

Yeah, exactly. Sometimes you underrate the importance of just saying stuff rather than thinking that it's obvious.

There's not a lot of time left before TI. What's the plan, now?

This year's TI is best of ones in the group stage so we'll need to prepare in a different way. Playing best of one is not really the same thing as playing a best of three or best of two. Other than that we'll just keep preparing as we always have, try to be ready for anything I suppose.

Are you feeling confident, then?

Yeah, I think so. Same thing as last year I feel that TI pretty much gets decided after that first day. If you go there and get the right feel for the tournament then you'll keep doing well. A team that is extremely good can lose the first day because they get some all-in strats that somebody has been preparing for a long time, but if you look at it they're probably the most skilled team in the tournament. Some teams handle that in a good way where they'll just come back the next day and do well, some teams fall down and start blaming each other. Whatever happens, we are all confident in each other and we know that we are good enough to go as far as it takes. So, yeah we're not afraid of going to TI.

Do you have any shout outs you want to make?

Yeah, sure. Shout out to all of our sponsors. HyperX, Monster, XMG, Logitech our new sponsor. Axe, of course. A lovely fragrance! Also, Planetside 2.

Thank you for your time.

If you missed the tournament this weekend, you can find write-ups of both days here and here. Check out my interview with Pajkatt from Mousesports for more thoughts on the meta in the run-up to TI4. Images courtesy of the official ESL Twitter account.

Images courtesy of the official ESL Twitter account.

'Timing' has been the watchword of this entire tournament. It was a concern this morning, when another late start threatened to force the entire show to run long, with the last quarterfinal match - Na'Vi vs. EG - not starting until 10.30am. It was a concern when the arena's internet connection went down and when Fnatic's voice comms broke for twenty minutes. It was a concern in-game, too, as the strengths and weaknesses of today's greedy, ult-centric metagame came down to who had power at the exact minute when it counted.

Timing problems caused a fair amount of heartache today, but I also got to see a terrific showcase of what the best Dota 2 teams can achieve when they're moving to their own rhythm. In addition, the event itself held together despite the technical problems to deliver one of the best large-scale e-sports experiences that Europe has seen since TI1. Great casting and analysis and a hugely engaged crowd made Frankfurt a great place to spend a weekend - and I'm not just saying that because I've been surviving on beer, sausages and energy drinks since Saturday morning. Well, mostly. The point is: it's gone midnight and I've got games to discuss, so let's get into it. As ever, spoilers below.

Na'Vi vs. EG

Everyone was waiting to see how Na'Vi would do against the team that beat them 3-0 earlier in the week. EG stuck to a familiar set of heroes for game one, picking up Storm Spirit for mobility and control and matching him with Enigma and Tidehunter, giving them the teamfight ultimates that have defined this tournament. Na'Vi's draft had echoes of Alliance in its focus on the pushing power of Funn1k's Nature's Prophet and got greedier from there, with a farming Faceless Void, mid Invoker, and support Doom. Puppey's support Disruptor was effective but not such a hindrance to EG's pushing and farming power that he could grant his team painless passage into the lategame.

All those tower kills gave EG a healthy advantage across the board, with zai's Enigma in particular benefiting from having all of his major items - and more - by the twenty minute mark. Na'Vi's draft was built for teamfights but EG gifted them no easy kills. The game felt close to a long time but chiefly due to Na'Vi's ability to fight from a disadvantage - eventually, slowly, EG ground them down.

Game two seemed like a return to form for Na'Vi when Puppey's Chen secured first blood with a jungle harpy (of all things). Plays like that - and virtuoso ganks in general - are why Na'Vi are so passionately loved, but they've been outdrafted an uncomfortable number of times lately and that's what happened here. Funn1k attempted a Bulldog-style Nature's Prophet again but struggled to be effective against a Storm Spirit and Tiny/Io combo that proved to be just as good at taking rax when nobody was looking. XBOCT played Anti-Mage but couldn't win the farm war against Tiny, a hero who is perfectly happy to go toe-to-toe with AM in the late game. Without a Black King Bar, Na'Vi's carry just couldn't sustain a presence against substantial lockdown.

An unusual Elder Titan pickup by EG made it even more difficult for Na'Vi to survive when the game ran long, his Natural Order aura making delicate heroes even more vulnerable to EG's fully operational Tiny/Io battlestation. After a long back-and-forth in the late game EG eventually claimed the advantage, taking the set 2-0 and sending Na'Vi home. I saw many slumped shoulders in yellow hoodies afterwards.

iG vs. Alliance

In the first match of the semis iG gave the world a demonstration of how you go about dismantling Alliance. Banning Io and Nature's Prophet is part of it, but iG's strategy went deeper than that. They solved the problem of Alliance's current playstyle by refusing to fall into the obvious trap, which is committing everything to shutting down one of the Swedish team's lanes. Alliance are as strong as they are because of their map control: force Bulldog to play at 20% efficiency and S4 and Loda will get 150% out of the rest of the map. Force all of Alliance's lanes to operate at 70% efficiency, however, and they have a much harder time in the mid game.

iG did just that, with on point, persistently aggressive drafts that denied Alliance much needed map space. Ferrari_430's supreme Ember Spirit was a constant nuisance, and excellent Nyx Assassin rotations by YYF in the first game shut down not only Alliance's supports but S4's midlane Batrider too. The Swedes proved that they were capable of pulling out plays from the back foot, but the Chinese team kept up a degree of pressure that denied Alliance any hope of retaking the map.

Game two acted as more evidence against Brewmaster as a competitive pick. Teams love him, and his potential impact can't be denied, but that simple counter - press the attack when his ult is down - has caused problems for the teams that ran him throughout this tournament. I wouldn't be surprised if his place in the current meta was reconsidered after this weekend. He's great to watch, and dangerous in the right hands, but S4 looked like he was trapped in the hero in game two against iG. When Primal Split is on cooldown, he's just not the same hero.

This match demonstrated just how versatile iG are. Their early game plays discounted the notion that yesterday's steady push strats could be lazily categorised as 'Chinese Dota'. They knew how to unsettle Mouz, just as they knew how to topple Alliance this afternoon. It's a shame to see Alliance lose their recent momentum, but it has been very exciting to watch the return of a giant of the Asian scene.



EG vs. Fnatic

With iG's place in the final decisively secured, it remained to see which of the surviving western teams would face them. Game one made that question look simple: EG banned out Fnatic's all-important Io and seemed to bait out Excalibur's Meepo. He plays the hero better than anyone - and has single-handedly turned around games for Fnatic with him in the past - but here it was a disaster. He thoroughly lost the midlane against Arteezy, who killed him solo with Tinker. Focused rotations by EG assisted by good farm across the board made this a straightforward win for the Americans.

Fnatic made EG work for every inch of ground in game two. Augmenting a push-heavy draft with major teamfight ults - Chronosphere, Poison Nova, Black Hole - meant that they could get something out of every engagement despite an initially strong performance by Arteezy on a midlane Outworld Devourer. The game ran long, and it was a close-run thing all the way - particularly as Fnatic seemed keen to push their advantage too far in many cases. But eventually that teamfight power was enough to exhaust EG's supply of buybacks, and with their barracks gone there was only a limited amount of time left on EG's clock.

EG let the Excalibur Meepo through again in game three and it was only through a few impressive early jukes that Fnatic managed to survive the aggression designed to shut him down. Fnatic managed to claim a decent advantage in the early game, but couldn't control Universe's Tidehunter. As soon as that Blink Dagger came online, he was able to create space for Arteezy's Templar Assassin and mason's Doom to do substantial work. Fnatic held on thanks to Excalibur's Meepo topping the gold and experience charts, but it was all on him.

In an inverse mirror of the first game, EG were able to eventually grind down Fnatic's core heroes to the point where they could easily storm through several lanes of barracks at once. Hann1's Earthshaker was essential to slowing EG's pushes - a trick picked up from the Chinese teams - and great teamfight play kept them in the game, but one death from Excalibur without buyback cleared the way for EG to march into the final. Fnatic proved that they're one of the most dangerous teams in the world at the moment, but EG demonstrated how powerful multi-core lineups can be in these long games.

EG vs. iG

The final was a real test for EG. It began almost immediately after their semi-final match against Fnatic. Playing three best-of-threes in a single day is difficult enough without getting the kind of break that iG had enjoyed since their lunchtime victory over Alliance. But if there's ever been a player who could pull his team through anything, it's Universe. EG's offlaner did extraordinary work in the first game as Faceless Void, landing perfect Chronosphere after perfect Chronosphere while achieving respectable farm in a difficult position. iG drafted their familiar push lineup - Pugna, Enchantress, Shadow Shaman - but it wasn't enough.

Level-hungry core picks by EG - Void, Brewmaster, Razor - were bought space to farm by the incredible ganking combo of zai and PPD on Sand King and Mirana. iG regrouped and managed to push all the way through EG's mid barracks by the 20 minute mark, but a series of phenomenal teamfight performances around Universe's Chronosphere led to wipe after wipe for the Chinese team. Fifteen minutes after iG broke EG's base, EG returned the favour - and took a second lane of barracks a few minutes after that. Knowing that they were beaten, iG called it.

In game two EG opted for familiar strategies, drafting a farming hero for Arteezy - Phantom Assassin - and surrounding him with backup: Sand King, Batrider, Doom, Bane. In response, iG pulled out an aggressive lineup similar to the ones they beat Alliance with. Ferrari_430's Ember Spirit was the perfect setup for Sunstrikes from Luo's Invoker who was otherwise left to farm a lightning-fast Necronomicon 3 on the safelane. Credit goes to PPD for the hot jukes of the tournament, evading a three-man gank through the jungle before denying himself with Nightmare. But it was a small victory in a war that iG controlled decisively as soon as Luo joined the fray. It was obvious that EG didn't want to give up on the chance of a 2-0 victory, but it wasn't coming. The GG call came after 25 minutes.

Game three was as close to a perfect game of Dota as you're ever going to see. This isn't a game where perfection is really possible, but iG did everything they could to challenge that notion. EG picked up much of the same draft that they'd used to punish Na'Vi earlier in the day, combining Tiny/Io with Elder Titan, a farming Sand King, and a roaming Mirana.

It should have worked. It should have got them something, particularly in the late game when the Tiny/Natural Order combo came into its own. iG denied them a lategame. The problems started early, when it became clear that Ferrari_430's Queen of Pain could manhandle the Tiny/Io with impunity. Ganks came from every angle: YYF's farming Faceless Void. Perfect Sunstrikes from Luo on top of X Marks The Spot setups from ChuaN's unorthodox support Kunkka. Whenever EG looked like they might secure a kill, a Disruption from Faith's Shadow Demon took away their options. Precise, immaculate plays. iG executed flawlessly and gave nothing away: a single tower kill by Arteezy was enough to elicit a cheer from the crowd - and that was after twenty minutes.

Eventually, EG went all-in on Roshan in attempt to win themselves a way back into the game. iG punished it hard with a full five-on-five teamfight in which the Chinese team lost nobody at all. EG ceded victory - and the tournament - to iG after 29 minutes. The final score was 22 kills to zero. It was a tremendous statement to make in advance of TI4: EG are the best team in the western scene at the moment, and iG outplayed them in every conceivable way. The crowd was chanting "ChuaN! ChuaN! ChuaN!" as the Chinese veteran lifted the trophy, and with good reason.

If you missed our account of yesterday's games, you can read it here. Be sure to check out this interview with Mousesports' Pajkatt while you're at it, and check back in the next few days for an in-depth interview with Alliance's Loda.

Image via the official ESL Twitter account.

Per Anders 'Pajkatt' Olsson Lille has been playing competitive Dota since prior to the first International, which he attended with Online Kingdom. He played for LGD.int at TI2 and will return this year with Mousesports, formerly Team Dog, who earned their place in TI4 with a fantastic performance in the European qualifiers. Yesterday, they got knocked out of ESL One Frankfurt following a close-fought and very exciting series of matches against Invictius Gaming.

I spoke to Pajkatt an hour after the game to talk about that first blood, the reasons why they lost, the danger of Pugna and the plan between now and TI4.

It was fantastic watching you guys play, even if it didn't quite go the way you wanted. Nonetheless, that Axe double kill is going to be one of those things that people are going to be sharing for a long time. How did that feel?

It felt very nice. Axe against Lycan is something we've played a lot. Lycan can't really do anything against Axe, because of the spin. He's just got right clicks, and his wolves, and that's more right clicks more chances to spin. Then they come mid with two heroes that can't really do anything. They had no spell damage, and Axe is really tanky. So when they go in close and they have wolves and creeps there, you just start spinning. It was... really nice.

I stood up and tried to get the crowd going and ripped my earphone out. I had to pause because when I plugged it in it started to make some weird noises. But it was really nice.

The dangers of showmanship, right?

Yeah, that's what it is.

There was no RNG in that encounter, right? Were you confident that they didn't have the burst damage to take you down?

I knew that if they went in like that then they were going to die. Three people on me... yeah, they're going to die.

Given the way the rest of the game went, are you still happy with the Axe pick?

Definitely. We lost that game because of a mid fight that we took without the panda ult and we lost like four people, five people. Later they got Rosh. The easiest thing for us to do would have been to go safelane in that game and they would have had a offlane Pugna against three heroes and he'd have got nothing and we would have stomped the Lycan mid. We could have also gone offensive creep skipped with Axe and taken the tower fast.

But the Axe pick was not the problem. When enemy teams pick Lycan, Axe is almost a total counter. I question myself now about why we didn't pick it in the third game. You make mistakes in drafting... it's a shame that it's single elimination because you take things from these games, and maybe we could have come back tomorrow and played for the better.

We also could have learned something for this third game... they ended up with Lycan and Pugna twice in a row. We should have stopped that in the first ban phase. The Lycan wasn't really the problem, though he's just some guy with wolves, scouting us but the problem was always that Pugna with their supports. They could just take our towers without us being able to engage.

We were banking on high cooldown spells. When you do that against this Pugna hero... they die but then they're back, and you have no spells and they take your tower. Then they go to the next tower and they have more items and maybe you kill them again but then you're on cooldown, and so on. There's an issue there. You can't draft these high cooldown heroes against them.

It was a huge transformation from game one into game two night and day. What was the nature of the discussion between those two games? What turned it around so dramatically?

I think there's a large difference between first and second pick, which helped us we got the PotM . In the first game, I don't think they rate panda that high but we haven't played Chinese in forever. In these games, you don't know how the enemy rates different heroes. We rate panda high and they didn't. We could have taken Axe/PotM, denied them the PotM, but we didn't. Next game we got the PotM and it's one of our most played heroes.

We also decided that we were going to pick 'us' we're going to pick what we're comfortable with. Axe is comfortable but this was a complete lineup that we've played versions of so many times that we know exactly what to do.

Do you feel like Bane has a place in a lineup without PotM? You didn't pick him when you could have done in the third game.

Bane without PotM is not the same. He's good for setting stuff up Bane/PotM, Bane/Slark. He's a guy who sets up things, he's strong in lane, he's tanky. But you kinda need to make use of him early on. He needs to get a lot done because he only has single-target spells. He doesn't scale in some ways like a Rhasta or a Sand King. You need to use his laning phase, and the easiest way to use that is if you have a PotM, obviously.

Plus the combination you can set it up from anywhere because PotM can come in, like, five seconds late and still land that arrow. You can pick Bane otherwise, but it's situational.

You guys really favoured the panda why is that the case right now? What do you feel like it's giving you?

We're just comfortable with it. MSS plays a good panda. You can take these fights he just keeps fighting, and enemies are scared to fight so they don't go for some towers. The problem with panda is when they realise that they can just fight and die and fight again. We know that now that if you just keep fighting through panda ult then he has a problem. But we've had a lot of wins with that hero, and a lot of success.

It seemed like your solution for how to beat iG in every case was always going to be aggression. Is that something you might reconsider?

No.

Always aggressive?

Yes. For me, we lost the series only because of the draft. I think their play is nothing fancy, nothing we haven't already played against. It's only another team. We lost two games because they got some push strats and we couldn't really deal with it. The Pugna pick fucked us both games. The thing we can take from it is we can either ban the Pugna in first phase or take it ourselves. That's something we should do for sure.

Reckon you've got a place for it?

Definitely we need a plan to take it at least when they've got this Lycan, you know? He's not scary on his own. But combined with the right heroes, he's really scary. I would say that we lost the series because we didn't do 'us' all three games. We half-and-halfed it. I think we could have won game one, we had the draft, if we didn't fail those mid goals. But game three was lost three picks in. There was not much we could do.

To wrap up what's next for you guys?

We're going to bootcamp in Berlin for a couple of days and then we're going to go home. We have one day when everybody goes home to their houses and families and then we're going to fly to Seattle and play TI.

How are you feeling about it?

I think it's going to be good. Personally I just want to play more and more LANs. Besides MSS, all of us have played a lot of LANs but we haven't played LANs as a team and I haven't drafted in that long. It's something you need to get used to, because drafting at home and drafting at a LAN is really different because there's something on the line and you only get these three games. You're more scared, you're more intimidated, which limits you. It limits your mind so you don't think of these clever things that normally, sitting at home in your boxers, both feet in the air, you'd think of.

You're held back by your trousers.

Yeah, gotta do an iceiceice and play in your boxers but when you got to LAN you have to be more confident. It's hard because there's a big crowd and you only get a couple of games. There's a lot of people watching and these things go to your head, even if they shouldn't.

With that in mind, though, the crowd here fucking loved you.

I love them too. I love playing with the crowd. I think Dota's supposed to be played with a crowd this is what makes me happy, playing Dota. Going to events like this... there were some hiccups but when you get to play on this stage with this crowd it's worth it a hundred times over. This is the way Dota is supposed to be played. It's strange, but it makes it so much more of a fun sport. It feels like it matters.

Thank you for your time. Any shoutouts?

I want to shout out to EpicGear, BenQ, Mousesports, and to my family and friends back home in Sweden.

Images courtesy of the ESL Twitter account.

What an incredible day for DIGITAL SPORTS. You get used to the idea that these events are always going to get bigger; that the next step up is always going to mean a larger stadium and more impressive production values. But there's something pretty startling about seeing games played at the highest level in an environment like the Commerzbank Arena. It's more than you get from attending other kinds of large gaming convention: it's not just about having something in common with thousands of other people. It's about the catalysing impact of sport, the way a hobby can grow and grow and grow until it becomes a spectacle.

Today I became freshly aware of the effect that sport has on a crowd. Even as a handful of people crept away from the games to watch the World Cup, the energy in the arena was astonishing. I figured I'd seen the biggest crowd response I was going to see when S4 landed that million-dollar coil at the end of The International 2013, but ESL One came close to topping that with its first kill. It's the best soundtrack you could hope for, like watching Dota in the company of a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm that really likes it when wizards die.

If you missed any of the matches, VODs are available here. Otherwise, lets talk about the games. Needless to say, I'm going to spoil the results.

Mousesports vs. Invictus Gaming

The home crowd was on Mousesports' side before they drafted Brewmaster and Axe in their first picks in game one, which is saying something. The new Mouz, formerly Team Dog, are slicker and more aggressive than the previous lineup to carry that name. Aggression is more or less their identity, and that first game draft, which also included Bounty Hunter, Leshrac and Shadow Demon was designed to win the game fast and hard. It almost worked.

The tournament got off to the most exciting possible start when Pajkatt's midlane Axe, who had been handily outlaning Ferrari_430's Lycan, got jumped by IG's support pair of Earthshaker and Shadow Shaman. What should have been a routine gank mid turned into a disaster for the Chinese team when it turned out they couldn't actually bring the Axe down before his Counter-Helix spins wrecked them; three spins and two dunks later and that three man gank had become a first blood double kill for Mouz.

But momentum easily won is easily lost, and over time it became clear that IG had drafted specifically to control the tempo of the game. ChuaN's Earthshaker was the bouncer at the entrance of every engagement Mouz wanted to take in the midgame, slamming the door shut with on-point Fissures every time Mouz tried to press the attack. IG efficiently secured farm, towers and Rosh kills while Mouz's gank lineup fished for kills, taking advantage of the long cooldown on Primal Split to minimise the impact of the Brewmaster. With Pugna and Shadow Shaman ensuring that IG could take towers whenever they liked, Mouz desperately needed counter-initiation that they just couldn't reliably get from a Bounty Hunter or Leshrac.

It was a very different story in game two. Mouz picked up the Bane-Mirana combo, securing themselves a dominant start and lumbering IG with the most unhappy Razor and Faceless Void you're likely to see. MiSeRy was the clear MVP for his Bane play, creating space everywhere with max-range Nightmares, Fiends' Grips from nowhere, each setting up a Sacred Arrow or Ancient Apparition ult. IG doubled down on protecting Luo's Razor, which bought them some time, but all the while FATA built up a Viper that the Chinese team just couldn't deal with. It was a phenomenal performance from Mouz, ending after 36 minutes with 40 kills to 7.

Then, after picking up a head of steam, Mouz returned to their game one plan for game three. Denied the Mirana, they went for Brewmaster with Tidehunter, Lich, Ember Spirit, and Ancient Apparition. IG played what they knew, picking up Earthshaker, Lycan, Storm Spirit, Pugna and Rubick. Despite being close on kills and towers for the bulk of the game, Mouz struggled to unseat their opponents in teamfights and couldn't ultimately overcome the fact that they'd been outdrafted. IG's relentless pushing power forced Mouz into a reactive rather than active posture: as much a the western teams love Brewmaster at the moment, he acts as a fairly good barometer for when things are going badly wrong. If Primal Split is being used to clear out a Pugna ward, you've probably already lost. The crowd didn't want to see Mouz go, but go they did. They proved that IG are beatable, but IG proved that clutch plays mean nothing if you don't have a plan to end the game.



Fnatic vs. Vici Gaming

For all the drama that currently surrounds Fnatic's ability to play at TI4, their first game against Vici felt like a powerful statement of intent. The original four members of the team - Hann1, N0tail (alright, BigDaddy, whatever), Trixi and Fly - totally controlled the pace of the game while their standin Excalibur farmed happily away in the corner of the map. Vici respect-banned Excalibur's Tinker and Meepo in every game, leaving BigDaddy (uh) free to pick up Io. He and Hann1 are the Riggs and Murtagh of professional Dota: their Io/Tiny midlane combo held Vici to the fire relentlessly at every stage of the game. Despite a few familiar pace-controlling supports coming out for Vici - Shadow Shaman, Earthshaker - it was BigDaddy's Relocate timer that set the rhythm of play. If they couldn't get kills, Fnatic would take towers, and despite a few dodgy trades late in the game the win came to them comfortably.

Vici let almost the same Fnatic draft through again in game two but countered with Lycan, Ember Spirit, Shadow Demon and Tidehunter while taking the Mirana for themselves. Excalibur adopted a more active role on Slark as a consequence, which effectively removed Fnatic's safety net: there was no comforting bed of money to fall back on when things went south. A fair few misplays in the first half of the game - errant Pounces, Sacred Arrows coming in slightly too early - suggested at nerves all round, but overall Vici were much more effective at slowing Fnatic down long enough for Lycan to farm. Hann1's Tiny was a concern throughout the game, again, but on-point Disruptions from Fenrir helped Vici turn teamfights in their favour. Like Mouz before them Fnatic struggled to control Roshan, and eventually there was no choice but to relent before Vici's relentless Lycan push.

Fnatic stuck with Tiny/Io in game three but swapped out the rest of the lineup for Brewmaster, Venomancer, and Lich. Vici took the now-standard Pugna, Shadow Shaman, Earthshaker trio again alongside Doom and Bristleback. The strength of Fnatic's draft was its flexibility: even when Vici seemed to have the upper hand, there'd be a Poison Nova or Chain Frost to ensure that Fnatic got a decent trade out of any encounter. This created a stalemate in the midgame but Fnatic were ultimately in the lead: they got better at securing objectives and took advantages wherever they could find it. Fly's kill-securing Lich broke the record for the most kills in 25 minutes on that hero, ending the game with 14 kills to a single death. Despite an intelligent and coordinated defence effort, Vici's defences eventually gave way to Fnatic's endless siege.

Alliance vs. Cloud 9

This was the most extraordinary match of the day, and the one you should go and watch right now if you've got two hours to spare. Despite a relatively unusual Skywrath Mage pick, Alliance drafted a very comfortable lineup in game one: Chaos Knight/Io with Storm Spirit mid and Clockwerk on the offlane. Cloud 9 drafted Tinker with Brewmaster, Jakiro, Lion and Nyx Assassin, but the supreme mobility of Alliance's draft made it very difficult for them to find the space they needed to play effectively.

EternalEnvy's Tinker struggled to find any farm in the early game as Loda's Chaos Knight picked up a killing spree as part of Alliance's now-standard aggressive trilane. Later, if Relocate ganks couldn't pick him off then Storm Spirit or Clockwerk would - AdmiralBulldog in particular deserves credit for a Clockwerk performance that demonstrates that all that work expanding his hero pool has been worth it. The tipping point came when Bulldog began a great teamfight behind Cloud 9's tier two towers with a max-range hook, creating space that Alliance used to immediately secure Roshan. Ending after 33 minutes, the match felt like one of Alliance's more confident victories over Cloud 9 in the DreamLeague finals.

Game two was the opposite. Cloud 9 built a lineup with phenomenal built-in redundancy, playing to each of their talents to ensure that they always had a way to shut Alliance down. Enigma's Black Hole; Bane's Fiends' Grip, Faceless Void's Chronosphere; Ember Spirit's mobility, lockdown, and AoE damage; Mirana's Moonlight Shadow and Sacred Arrows. Despite Alliance getting off to a good start with heroes they excel at - Bulldog's Nature's Prophet, S4's Puck, EGM's Io - they just couldn't secure the advantage over Cloud 9's superlative play. Loda's Wraith King gave them some space to lose a battle but win the counter-attack, but Cloud 9 always had a way to back off or secure an additional kill. Pieliedie deserves a lot of credit for his Bane performance, which - like MiSeRy's earlier in the day - makes a strong case banning the hero outright. He enabled kills on Bulldog and S4 that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

Eventually, however, despite a 20,000XP deficit, Alliance started to pull it back. They played the very specific kind of Dota that Alliance excel at: western-style clutch plays with eastern efficiency. They picked up an Orchid on Bulldog followed by Scythes of Vyse on Bulldog and S4, which gave them the disables they needed to survive Cloud 9's ults. Then came the Necronomicon, the Refresher Puck, and what followed was the longest and most exciting game of Dota I may have ever seen. It ran to eighty minutes and ended on two of the most extraordinary exchanges. The first was a long teamfight that ran from the river on bottom lane up through the Dire's secret shop to mid, with Chronosphere and Black Hole both being used to slow Alliance's assault. Incredible plays from both sides trading back and forth until the camera panned north to reveal Cloud 9's middle barracks gone, and AdmiralBulldog making off like a bandit. The second encounter began as Cloud 9 went all-in on Alliance's tier 4 towers, leading to a heart-in-mouth teamfight around the Swedes' exposed ancient and ending with a turnaround that we'll be talking about for the rest of the year.

The final quarterfinal match between EG and Na'Vi will be played tomorrow morning due to a late start today. Check back tomorrow night for a full report from the final day.

And, thus, the Dota 2 community did buy many internet sticker books. And yea, they did fill those books with non-corporeal points. And so, Valve did set aside 25% of each purchase creating an International prize pool of $10 million, and much wealth and happiness for their own accountants.

Essentially, the community has spent over $33 million on these virtual souvenirs. It's comfortably the biggest prize pool in e-sports history, and all with Valve contributing 'just' $1.6 million to the initial prize pool. It's a huge achievement, and one that should result in fierce competition for the top prize.

What we don't yet know is how much that top prize will be worth. The distribution of the pool is yet to be announced, although Chris is a strong believer that, this year, Valve need to make changes.

As part of the money raised, the community have unlocked all stretch goals currently set. You can see the full list of what Compendium owners (and the entire Dota 2 playerbase) have unlocked by visiting the Compendium mini-site.

Later this afternoon I'll be heading to Germany to begin a weekend of coverage of ESL One Frankfurt, the last major Dota 2 tournament before The International. It's shaping up to be really exciting. The scene is in good shape, with varied and exciting play coming from a broad range of teams. Eight of those teams Alliance, Na'Vi, mousesports, Fnatic, Cloud 9, Evil Geniuses, Vici Gaming and Invictus Gaming will be competing in Frankfurt for a crowd-boosted prize pool of over $200,000. I sat down with fellow Dota nerd Janusz Urbanski to go over our predictions for the event.

Chris: ESL have made a lot of noise about having all three prior International champions at the tournament Na'Vi and Alliance, who received automatic invitations, and IG who arrived through the Chinese qualifier. I think the story of ESL One will, at least in part, be about which teams go all-out for that prizepool and which hold on to something in advance of TI4.

Alliance are bringing in WinteR as their coach for this tournament, which suggests that their summer campaign is properly under way. They made a confident return to form at DreamLeague and if they can maintain that pace here then I think they have a shot at taking the whole thing they're my pick out of the returning champions. The great thing about competitive Dota at the moment, however, is that it isn't dominated by one or two teams.

Janusz: Alliance had a rough patch earlier in the year, but recently they have started to look like the team that won TI3 so convincingly, a worrying prospect for the other teams. As ever, however, Na Vi can never be counted out. They have played well throughout the year, both online and on LAN, and I m sure we can expect the Frankfurt crowd to get behind them.

Na Vi are up against EG in the first round, though, and this talented EG lineup have proven they can beat any team in ESL. I wouldn t be surprised if they treat this as a dry run for TI4.

Chris: It'll be really interesting to see how EG do. If they keep to the form they've been on recently then the tournament is theirs to lose, as far as I'm concerned their 3-0 victory over Na'Vi in the D2L Western Challenge attests to their dominance, and arguably they've had a greater impact on the metagame than any other team in the last year. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this is mason's first LAN of this scale he's hardly seemed to be the type to get dragged down by nerves in the past, but it's hardly trivial to find yourself in front of a stadium full of people a few months into your pro career.

What do you make of Cloud 9's chances? Their run of second-place finishes in the last couple of months suggests that they're unlikely to win the whole thing, but they've proven that they can beat anybody on a good day. I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish high.

Janusz: Cloud 9 don t lack for talent, but can t seem to clinch the win when it really matters. Their farming style may have become a bit predictable and could be punished by the top teams. Going up against Alliance so early will be a tough challenge, but if they can win that match they have a solid shot at taking the tournament. I think they want a big win at this point, and getting one will boost their confidence no end.

Mouz are my 'dark horse' pick, as they ve started to look really dangerous in the last few months, but have yet to prove that they ve got what it takes to win at the highest level. It will be a tough first round matchup against a resurgent IG. Do you think they ll get past the Chinese TI2 champions?

Chris: You can't count Mouz out, but I agree that it's a tough matchup. That said if Mouz do beat the Chinese team then they could do well overall they're fully capable of unseating the best western teams, and playing in front of a home crowd should ensure good performances from FATA and paS. Facing Alliance or C9 in the semis is never going to be easy, mind.

What are your thoughts on Fnatic versus Vici Gaming in the quarterfinals? Fnatic are continuing their run with Excalibur standing in for Era, which has been going fantastically for them. They've got incredible versatility and control and I'd expect them to do well in front of a home crowd. Last night's news about them being potentially unable to compete in TI4 could mean they double down on their efforts here.

Janusz: Fnatic are renowned for their stable roster so I was worried how they would do without Era, but it seems to be going well so far. They re are a great team and deserve a win, but they will need luck on their side if the other big teams play their best. Fnatic will be playing Vici Gaming first though, which is a game they can win. VG are a strong team, but like Cloud 9 they just can t seem to win tournaments.

VG do have Sylar, however, an intimidating carry that has had a few stand out performances recently and could make a big impact. Are there any players you are particularly looking forward to seeing play?

Chris: I like watching Hann1 and I'd like to see Fnatic run him on the offlane again. Otherwise, it's all about the support pairings Zai and PPD for EG, Akke and EGM for Alliance, Puppey and Kuroky for Na'Vi. I love me some rotations.

How do you think Na'Vi will do? EG beat them handily a few days ago despite Na'Vi getting a comfortable set of heroes in the first game Dendi Puck, Puppey Enchantress, XBOCT Lycan and that doesn't bode brilliantly for them in the quarterfinals at ESL. We could see them knocked out very early. On the other hand, they're Na'Vi. Coming back from a disadvantage is what they do. If Puppey's sitting on an EG-beating strat, this is when we'll see it.

Janusz: I m not too worried about Na Vi to be honest. They re one of the best LAN teams and have so much experience playing in high pressure matches. It s true that they haven t looked their best in the last few tournaments, and EG will go into the matchup with a lot of confidence, but Na Vi are bound to put up a good fight. As you say, Na Vi are known for coming back from behind and somehow finding a way to win, which should make for a thrilling match. It s a wide open tournament and Na Vi can beat all the teams playing, so I look forward to seeing them take to the stage.

Check back tomorrow for more coverage from ESL One.

Three Lane Highway is Chris' sometimes serious, sometimes silly column about Dota 2.

Last week I wrote off the concept of MMR as part of a not-entirely-serious list of 'meaningless' numbers in Dota. My thinking at the time was that discussing the problems raised by ranked matchmaking at all was going to attract a particular attitude in the comments, so I'd be better off treating it as a punchline. That was an error. I tried to use irony to mask something that I think and care about rather a lot, falling into the same trap that I'd accused certain competitive players of falling into only a week earlier. Sly winks don't carry well on the internet, and when you're discussing the relative worth of somebody's internet wizard skill rating it's fair to assume that most readers are going to take it pretty seriously.

This week I want to unpack that original point in a more detail without the protective cladding of irony. For the record, though, 'meaningless' is a self-consciously overblown descriptor to attach to any number or value. Of course a player's matchmaking rating has meaning. What's worth discussing is how that meaning influences the community and the types of discussions that take place; how it alters people's playstyles and their relationship with the game; how much value it really has.

My view was that Dota 2's MMR system has a disproportionate impact relative to its usefulness. That it is both important and a little hollow, which is tricky territory to navigate in any context. It's something that people invest a tremendous amount in when I'd argue that their efforts would be better directed elsewhere. It has the capacity to upset and divide people beyond the extent that Dota 2 is already capable of dividing and upsetting people. I believed then and still believe now that there's a subset of players that regard MMR with a dogged gravity that distracts from what's interesting about the game.

What I failed to take note of is how it is possible to process your MMR into something workable and useful. I still believe that, taken at face value, MMR has promoted a lot of bad behaviour. But I've come around to the idea that it's possible to grapple with the data in a way that is ultimately good for your experience of the game. Getting there, however, means accepting that Dota 2 isn't a single game with a single progression path: it's a hobby with dozens of legitimate approaches. Custom game modes will eventually make that fact obvious. For now it's something that players have to work towards themselves, even as a substantial portion of the community sets out to tell them that the way they play is wrong.

I don't believe in the 'trench' or 'forced fifty'. Enough studies have been done to prove that the MMR system is fairly good at placing players where they belong. In particular, kyuronite's experiment shows that a good player will eventually climb or fall to the place they need to be in. MMR becomes interesting and problematic at the point when a player decides that they're not happy with where the game has placed them. The default response of many is to blame the game or the people they're placed with. More level-headed players are likely to follow the advice given here by SirActionSlacks, assuming a support role that gives them maximal control over the outcome of the game. You might be able to achieve the same thing while playing independent heroes like Nature's Prophet and Tinker, but the principle is the same: that your random teammates must be assumed to be a liability, and that you have to treat Dota like a singleplayer strategy game where you have no direct control over four of your most important units.

My negative view of this system was grounded in the mistaken notion that I outlined above: that there is a single 'correct' kind of Dota, the type where two teams of five people fight to control the map by working together, and that chasing MMR by any means would ultimately distance you from the kinds of skills you should be learning. That this one-protect-four mentality is good for raising your MMR but only partially effective as practice for whatever comes next.

But that's okay, actually. I've come around to MMR a lot more by thinking of Dota as three different games divided up by the buttons on the menu. Unranked is where you go to experiment on the understanding that everybody else is likely to be experimenting too (or playing Pudge). Solo Ranked is where you go to play mother hen to four angry strangers, and Party Ranked is where you actually play Defence of the Ancients. Advanced players have access to a few more levels of play competitive matches, scrims, in-houses, and so on but those primary three are the ones that concern most of us.

Thinking about MMR usefully means being always aware of the context in which you're playing. Your solo MMR gives you a good sense of how well you're able to secure victory despite other people, while party MMR assesses your ability to play with them. Ultimately you'd want to be so good at both that the distinction fades, but chances are that's not where you are at right now.

Don't beat yourself up if your solo MMR isn't what you want: instead, figure out if the skills you'll need to 'fix' it are the ones that are the most important to you. If they are, lock Omniknight or Dazzle or Treant Protector or whoever and mother the hell out of your team. If they're not, feel free to ignore the next person that speaks down to you because of your rating. Listen to detailed advice when you can get it, ignore rage, and try to keep a clear head. Learning not to lose your shit when you drop 25 points is as big a victory as not losing those 25 points at all.

If a bad attitude and a lack of self awareness causes some players to wield MMR like a weapon, then the right attitude has the opposite effect. Your MMR is only as useful as you allow it to be.

To read more Three Lane Highway, click here. Chris will be covering this weekend's ESL One Frankfurt Dota 2 tournament from the event, so check back on Saturday and Sunday for a first-hand account of the action.