Large blog. Team review and more. Sections are bolded so those of us with the attention span of a goldfish can skim through and read only what we care about.
Team review
Team review in the order I drafted these players. I’ll talk about how they are as a teammate/person and a dota player.
King Pirate
As a teammate pirate was solid. Fellow Albertan. Brought great PMA when he was winning. Kinda silent when he was having a bad game. Provided moderate input to drafting. I would always ask him what he wanted because I have 0 clue midlane matchups. I’m not gonna grief my midlaner by picking for them, I’m gonna let that be on them.
As a dota player he has a real puddle problem. I picked him cause his player description said “Trying to be less of a scrub mid, please help”. I thought this was a pretty humble attitude and he’d be down to practice new heros in his pubs, which didn’t happen much. I think this is partly because he found a job shortly after the season started, because the first thing he said in the team discord was that he was currently NEET (Not Employed, in Education or in Training) and then like week 3 missed a series cause his job... Like congrats on the job buddy but maybe ld2l is more important here???
During the player draft Icould have picked George Saint Pierre instead… Even though we dumpstered GSP in semifinals and I can’t help but wonder if GSP’s pants would have been a little more dry against RSparrow in the grand finals. Or who knows maybe if I drafted GSP we wouldn’t have meshed and not even have even made it to the finals.
Rngesus
Don’t take it from me what it’s like to play with Braeden. Take it from pyro https://clips.twitch.tv/NiceBlazingRatVoteNay
As a dota player he is the best 4 in regular league. He suffers from the same puddle syndrome as King Pirate but at least it’s better to pick your 4 in the first phase than your 2. Throughout the group stage (7.27) our first phase must have been a nightmare to deal with. Rngesus on his clock or tiny was such a good play maker that even Shakespeare would be jealous. The Tiny nerfs in 7.28 really nerfed braeden and thus our team as a whole. We didn’t wanna pick tiny in 7.28 but Princess banned it over kunkka anyways. Thanks Princess and nice am bro.
Cats666
As a teammate cats was cooperative. But I’m note sure if she enjoyed playing with the rest of them team or if that was just her dota fatigue. Which brings me to my next point.
As a dota player Cats was superb, but then she got dota fatigue. At first she was fresh outta Dota University with a great mindset and good ideas about the game. Laning with her was glorious except the moments when my spinning juggernaut did not catch cookies correctly. She even subbed in mid when we were missing King Pirate and played well enough to win those series against Gotham and Heelys. She didn’t really have a puddle problem but her snap was so good I mostly just picked that for her anyways. She had nowhere to go but up, and was doing her recal when she just kinda stopped playing dota.
LadOfLads AKA Callum (formerly do it for the memes)
I know callum IRL and when he was left around for my 4th round pick I thought I’d bring him aboard this ship. As a person Callum has this special kind of charisma you can only experience for yourself.
As a dota player he also has this special kind of playstyle (feeding) you can only experience for yourself.
Callum is a terrible support so luck had it that I still needed an offlane by my 4th pick. I thought he’d be able to get on board with that, but he did not practice the role outside of officials. Because of this he ended up having somewhat of a puddle. He was also good enough at Underlord but hated playing it because he thinks it is boring. Callum wants to go up in rank but won’t pick the good heroes over the fun heroes to do it.
We all have the same problem as Callum.
We would all love to play fun, unorthodox, off-meta shit and have a blast while gaining mmr. But the opposite, surrendering to the meta, selling your soul, is not as quick and easy as it sounds either. Meta heroes not already in your puddle have a barrier to entry. Is it worth learning this hero if it’s just gonna get nerfed? When will it get nerfed? Can I learn it and abuse it in the window it’s good? Does it fit my playstyle? what is my playstyle? These are the question dota players ask themselves as -2 ticks away on the grey portraits on their picking screen.
Tristero
As a teammate this guy is awesome. This dude has a fun first attitude and is very jolly in comms. Watches the games he was on the side for and joins comms to chat afterwards. 10/10 but be ready for the Pizza Pause.
As a dota player this guy’s rank is what you get. Offlane was like his 3rd preference at draft but he was down to give it a go. He didn’t really practice 3 in his pubs but he didn’t play much dota anyways. He’s got a family and a job… a life you know? This man belongs in a dota beer league where he doesn't have to lane against Princess or Cael. A league where his stack feeds and throws and so does the other team. It’s already 60 minutes and the fun neutral items are dropping and Rosh is respawning to be taken for the second tme, the death timers are long and nobody saved for buyback so the ancient finally falls and everyone goes to the bar and has a beer afterwards. Beautiful isn’t it?
Luth
I didn’t mind being a captain this season. I did more research on the player draft than I did season 3. The main thing was actually giving a shit about scouting the the 4th and 5th round players (That’s how I discovered cats666 was actually 3rd round worthy) . And I think I drafted a really good team. This season I focused on picking people for their preferred role. Although this gets tricky once you have 4/5 roles filled. I’m not aware of a previous team that had their alternators play 3. So I’m also a bit proud that experiment made it all the way to grand finals.
I think I played pretty on par for my rank. The beginning of the season was definitely shaking off some rust for me. I hadn’t played carry in a while and I didn’t really have any practiced heroes in my arsenal so I kinda just played whatever fit the draft best. At first I lost some mmr but as the season went on I shook off the rust and gained the mmr back. My worst habit is following the stupid ass skill progressions in the build or dota + recommendation instead of adapting to the game. I’ll be like a level 5 jugger who’s used all his regen by now and I’m looking at my skills like why the fuck didn’t I put a point in feeling ward? I like having all the relevant items to the side of the abomination that is the shop grid view but the ape in me likes to click the shiny skill that Tort de Lini says to get, or dota + says 99%. I really want valve to add a setting to turn off skills suggestions when using a build or dota +. I made like 2 reddit threads asking for this but that didn’t work so I’m out of options at this point.
Thoughts on Dota in general
The dota fatigue is real. I can relate with Cats666. Gaining mmr in dota is a huge commitment. If you look at the people who gained mmr this season. notably Jackman, Cael. They played more games and started the season with momentum. I feel like I’ve shaken off the rust and am back to a place where I could climb, but I’ve lost most motivation to play, and being out of role queue tokens doesn't help that. I burned through like 40 throughout the season. But now when I’m not carry I’m like where am I? What Lane is this?
Even when I am excited about dota, it’s hard to play the amount that’s necessary to climb. There isn’t really something in my life I want to cut out in order to make room for more dota.
State of LD2L and drafting meta
Clare and Greg have clearly become less invested in the league. I think a new admin will keep the league going as is. But it would still be nice to get some improvements like fixing the bots and integrating coaches more.
Players well below their peak mmr
First lets define sandbagging. For those of you who don’t know, a sandbagger is someone who throws their mmr to have a lower draft value in leagues like LD2L or RD2L. I hope the admin’s would treat any intentional and overt sandbagging the same as a smurf. Think of sandbagging as making a faulty insurance claim. Imagine Cael or Jackman dropping back down to archon and signing up for season 10 like “heavens me, I appear to have lost all this mmr and I am indeed perplexed as to why… This just must not be my patch. X D” and then you find out they went 0–10 in their re-calibration games or some shit like that. I would hope that would be treated the same as a smurf signup by the admin(s).
But there are some proven ways to lose mmr that are not technically sandbagging! I don’t know if there’s a different term. But behold the following genuine Luth Rant
How to lose tons of mmr without being punished for sandbagging
Check out these 3 proven ways to lose mmr that are not considered maliciously and overtly sandbagging.
1. Dive into ranked upon returning from a break
This technique is not punishable because you get to say “I’m rusty ecks dee”. Why would you play unranked to re-familiarize yourself with dota? This is a prime time opportunity to lose some mmr. Don’t read the patch notes. Don’t watch any BSJ videos or pro matches to get caught up to speed on meta. Just rawdog dota after a couple months break.
2. Role Switching
What better way to lose mmr than practice an off role? Good at buying free wards and bad at hitting creeps? Better switch that up it’s time to start hitting creeps and pinging the wards. Again no lubrication! No unranked practice, no videos. Just waltz right in there with the bright eyed naive optimism of a white house intern.
3. Clowning in ranked
Even better than playing one off-role is to play all your off-roles and off-heroes! Why would you do your cavern crawling in unranked over the summer? Playing turbo to get that earth spirit win? WRONG! Play that shit in ranked and simultaneously lose a boat load of mmr and gain role queue tokens in time for the next LD2L season. If I cavern crawled like this I may not have been the second last pick captain. I’m telling you guys this is the new LD2L meta.
MMR is a reflection of your true skill. But you can manipulate your own market. Make it reflect your skill when it’s well below your potential.
Be careful because this strategy does require you to not go too low as to get drafted for an off-role or rotating position. You still wanna be at least a 3rd round pick.
Closing comments on natural sandbagging
I made this rant, because in the draft I avoided players who were below their peak and I realize now that was a mistake. (even though I drafted a very good team in the end). Most of the time these players aren't washed up, or stuck in their old ways, or perma-tilted, etc. It’s just life circumstances, or being bored and switching roles.
I always though it was easy to not lose a bunch of mmr. I’ve taken breaks and switched roles. Even in this blog i talked about how this season was shaking off rust in the carry position. But I learned dota outside of my ranked pubs, using pro tracker etc and i managed to not even drop a star that way. Even in the past I have generally avoided playing ranked if I thought I wasn’t going to play near my MMR because I didn’t want to cause my own low quality games or throw away my already not impressive badge. Because the downside is that you have to invest time in getting the mmr back. Even if your playing as good as your peak it’s still a big time investment to get the number back there. Still I am a bit surprised at how much mmr people manage to lose. It takes 33 more losses than wins to lose 1000 mmr solo queing. You think someone would get back into the swing of things before dropping that far, or stop and read/watch some guides to get caught up to speed.
Let’s take a look at a few players whose draft value was well below their peak:
Diva D https://www.dotabuff.com/players/72212620/activity
Orph3us https://www.dotabuff.com/players/64787992/activity
Killamoocow https://www.dotabuff.com/players/40055555/activity
Hollywood https://www.dotabuff.com/players/156404497/activity
All these players were below their mmr-career peaks at draft and have recovered a lot of mmr over the course of the season, placed very well and IMO played above their draft-value and closer to their potential (their peak).
So my message to captains is to identify players below their peak and fucking draft them, especially if their gonna be active for the upcoming season. Do not count them out as washed up or something like that.
Private accounts
I get it you wanna dodge overwolf. If the private account rule is not gonna be enforced at the very least the rules should be amended to something like this:
- Players should not be able to have a private accounts for their first season.
- Returning players with private account must accept friend request from opposing captains so those captains can scout them in client. If a player dodges the friend request they can be prevented from playing.
Although this requires the matchups to be out in a timely fashion so the captain can send the friend request to the private player well ahead of the match.
However if everyone just starts making their accounts private and captains have to add like 20 new people each season just to scout them that is going to be a pain in ass so I don’t really know. That’s why I’m not signing up to be an admin. I don’t want to make decisions, just criticize the people who do.
Theme
I like it when captains participate in the theme and put effort into their team names and images. I think we had some quality shit this season. But in order to get this level of participation I have to put effort into running some sort beauty pageant with a reward to be won. I’m happy to appoint a new theme master or let themes happen in a more organic way somehow. Perhaps we can start by shaming captains who keep the default names generated by the site.
