What a bunch of gay shit.

soda almost came out my nose after reading that, hah.

Alliance!

Still remember the epic Puck play by S4 from last years final.

I envy you. Alliance is maybe my 4th favourite team, but my top 2 are both likely to underperform, being C9 and Na'Vi.

I think I'll remember the last moments of G5 of TI3 finals for many years to come. More exciting than anything I watched in sports, that's for sure.

Na'Vi are my 2nd favourite.

Btw the price pool is just ridiculous. $4,799,303+ for 1st? That is some gay shit right hauer? :)

Well, at some level he's more right than he knows, since people bought what, 35.6 million of cosmetics ('gay shit') to elevate the whole prizepool?

Just speaks volumes how the microtransaction model is ideal for esports. Quakers should learn that and push for it in Deathmatch games, not brush it off like idiots.

lol he said sports

And I meant real sports.

Does carpio mean gay shit in hungarian?

Very funny. I dont get why some of you flame other games or people who like games other than quake.

I dont flame CS. That's heterosexual shit. moba schmoba is for schmuck´s tho.

I think Sujoy was at TI4 Quals EU Hub, no? I wonder if he will be watching :)

Yea he was there at 2GD's studio

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-07-...tournament

Direct link http://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti_noob

If I'm going to be watching any of it I'll be watching it here =)

If you watch anything, at least watch the finals, because the energy surrounding them will probably be enough to make it exciting for anyone. Even if they're long.

Newbie stream is such a good idea, by the way.

So true. Imagine playing a video game for 4,8m $. I would pass out for sure.

yeah i watch some of the international 3 and although I don't have a clue whats happening it's still interesting to see. reall nice production etc.

and with $5 million going to the 1st place team....

Sad they didn't make it 5+. This way still no dota millionaires...

considering how much they'll make from sponsors they'll prolly be millionaires, but yeah.. still not the same

also i think this money is split onto the other team's staff, like coaches analysts etc.

It's not over yet, the prizepool is still rising.

If Na'Vi, Alliance or iG win, there are.

Because they have less than 5 members?

i think hes referring to earlier wins that would generate their final to over a million dollar each

Yeah but that's not the point here, is it

well seeing as how it would make certain players millionares...

Yeah certain players. Exactly. But my point was that the tournament would make any team member of the winning team an instant millionaire.

Given that we don't know about sponsor money it is hard to judge wether any player is a millionaire so far or what price money anyone would need to become a millionaire.

it is 5+ now....

Other great moment from last year. Ogre magi finally picked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr96j-UdQOM

Loved it.

With all the cosplay on r/dota2 frontpage, this year will be greater in this respect too, I'm sure.

EG! 2EZ4RTZ

EG has a real shot at the title while I doubt neither navi nor alliance do this year.

I think Alliance has a good shot. As good as EG's, maybe.

I just think eg's play/drafting in the current meta is better than alliance's. Egm said in an interview that they haven't shown everything at esl one but somehow I'm still skeptic.
Any other western team might not be bad and do really good in the groupstage but somehow I don't see empire, fnatic or mouz take a bo3 vs the big 3 chinese teams and both vici and lgd gamind aren't to far behind either :O

I just think eg's play/drafting in the current meta is better than alliance's

You're right. TI is like a huge gameplay patch though, and with the metagame changes, I give the benefit of doubt to the experienced teams.

Chinese are indeed scary though :( I hope DK outperforms other chinese teams, but iG is the scariest out there right now, IMHO.

EG was completely outplayed at ESL. It was fucking 28:0 if I remember correctly? But that's iG we're talking about, they will still have a very good shot against the European teams.

Didn't iG drop DK in ESL group phase?

I wouldn't take the final between eg and ig too seriously because I think eg was just too tired and played miserably compared to the other games they had. Not to take anything away from iG tho!

Dk wasn't at esl one.

DK lost to DTclub in Chinese qualifiers.

Ah, I misread that.

Np. IMHO DK is overrated as the guy beneath me well explained. They have the biggest fan base probably but they had a good run but they can't keep it up if the other teams perform well.

However it's still Ti so surprises always possible

has DK missed a single finals so far?

TI finals? Or in general

in general. i know they failed to qualify for eslone

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Team_DK/Results

Interestingly enough they beat iG recently twice in finals.

But they never went to TI finals

this team DK was formed after TI3, with Burning the sole remaining member of the old DK. That's why it's so exciting - the team is all cream of the crop top tier stars, more so than even iG or newbee.

Well, I don't share his opinion then. But I guess we'll see ;)

22-0. I think DK is rather unstable. They probably can take it all, but with such a long tournament as TI, they're somewhat less likely to succeed than a team like iG. It's not anymore like a few months ago, when DK was wrecking everyone and iG was considering dropping Luo, and ChuaN was considering quitting.

https://twitter.com/iGChuaN/status/482251073403768833/photo/1

Yeah I'm talking it

Cheering for EG ofcourse although iG will make it I suppose. They played out of their minds at ESL one. Really sick to watch.

Btw do you remember the discussion we has with DHW prize money and what place gets what?

At TI4 the teams get at least20.000$. Even teams who drop out in group phase...

Both newbee and dk are stronger than ig :O

I haven't seen them play in a long time but it seems like DK profited from some teams being in a slump since 6.81 came out. I doubt DK will make it past top3 with current meta.

Newbee I have absolutely no idea. ^^

But it is safe to say that at least one Chinese team will Top3 for sure with the others closely behind.

The Western teams is a lot harder to predict.

7/8th are the big spike though, with 10x more for just one spot - 8th get $495,580+.

I'm really happy they took some of the prizemoney for first and distributed it around a bit. Healthier for the scene.

Yeah but 20000 just for turning up is a bit cheap IMHO. Although that's like grocery money for some teams that show up there...

It's not turning up, it's performing as a top16 team throughout the world, or qualifying as one. They definitely deserve it, and if there's any upsets, any team who ends up there is going to be really burned because they couldn't perform for TI's timeframe.

Yeah it's no invite only tourney so the ones who drop out played their way into the tournament most probably and deserve it. But still it feels weird

It is indeed quite a jump from the mindset of Quake, where we hope to have our several thousand dollars to keep the scene together.

It is unfair that we got the short end of the stick and Quake isn't up there somewhere.

1st DK
2nd/3rd nb/ig
4th-8th eg, alliance, navi, vici, arrow/lgd/rest

outside of the winning seats ii think the tournament is too close to call. i dont think DK will lose to eg, alliance, vici, lgd or arrow at this stage. navi has a chance to beat everybody but they dont like to win or something. chinese teams will have adapted to what eg is doing, so i think it will be difficult for them to place higher than 5th :/

I definitely wouldn't mind your scenario. About EG - it's a good point, and there's a good chance it will happen. I wouldn't mind it actually, it would prove that dota requires experience if this youngster team drops out :)

Na'Vi either ramps of for TI or no, and I'm somewhat leaning towards no, at least not enough, sadly.

I'm not so sure about DK though. They can shoot themselves in the foot.

na'vi has had a lot of time to get into the mindset, where i think we both can agree is the biggest weakness for them. about EG, i think they have a really strong team with some of the best talent in the game, but often just seem lost to me, even in games that they win.

DK is gonna be dependant on muchi and lanm to win. not because they are the best, but because they have a tendency to suck the most :D

Na'Vi usually does have the time, but in this TI the format is different, and a lot of people worry that it may not allow such teams like Na'Vi to ramp up. I hope you're right, though.

EG just does their thing, forever, and they're good at it, but if the metagame changes enough they may just break.

not quite sure what u mean when you're saying teams like navi doenst have time to "ramp up" =PP the thing is i had the same feeling about alliance in the later portion of their pre-TI and TI streak that i do about EG

Look at the new format for the early portion of the tournament:

Playoffs Phase Two (Round Robin): July 9th - 12th
The 16 teams all play against each other once across 4 days. The bottom placing 6 teams are eliminated from the tournament, the top 2 move to Upper Bracket of the Main Event without participating in the bracket stage of the playoffs.

Playoffs Phase Two - Day 1: July 9th
Playoffs Phase Two - Day 2: July 10th
Playoffs Phase Two - Day 3: July 11th
Playoffs Phase Two - Day 4: July 12th
Potential tiebreakers are resolved on Day 4.

Na'Vi could easily do poorly here and then have to meet veery srong oponents from the get-go in the elimination bracket.

i think its a very real possibilty that navi will do shit in this tournament, but i can never count them out either. ive thought of them as the best team since after ti3. they suck a lot of the time, but if they get this shit together they are the best to me =PPP

Oh I definitely agree with that.

DK is overrated m8. We've seen so many games where Mushi outfarmed everyone yet DK lost

i think they are the best team in the world, but they arent really far enough ahead of everyone else to make it noticably so. thing is with dk is that lanm is often taking a lot of space that is generally meant for muchi. but eh, if i had to bet i would still say dk is gonna win

Yeah maybe DK is better than I made them out to be. Maybe DK had some glory but only for a brief time periods however it is desperately close:

http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/rankings#team

also im gonna miss draskyl this time :(

At the analyst desk! I think he's like a top3 caster so I'm sad he's not on the stage too.

noticed, dno who these other characters are tho. only recognize sheever and draskyl :c

some hype guy and ryuu. Don't know either.

how comes dota2 isn't dominated by Koreans yet, and 2 other giant esport titles (sc,lol) are already - it's not a sarcastic question

south korea never had a strong dota scene, but they are getting there. few months ago they would lose to 3rd rate american squad D:

I'm not sure if South Korea played wc3 dota - if so, not in large numbers. Then LoL came along, and all the newbies flocked to it. Then it helped that Dota 2 wasn't released for a long time (a lot later than in west), and when it was, it probably didn't gain that many players.

The game is being marketed a lot and there are some huge tournaments, which even attracted a bunch of western players who moved there. But so far, it's not enough. They will catch up, and they caught up more by now than people expected, but it still won't be enough for a long time. Maybe TI5 they'll have serious contenders.

China is kind of the Korea to Dota 2, but the game is very popular in the west (a large portion of the 700k daily peak players) and it's just not as hard as starcraft - so there's not as much of an advantage to be gained from a large talentpool and hardcore practice as there is in sc.

Yeah Chinese dota Is incredibly famous. Like Korean BW

I can't quite recall any viewer numbers for ESL1 or TI3 but China is roughly 50% of the viewers

It's feels like you are describing LoL scene but 1.5 year ago. So yeah... just wait for Koreans I guess.:) But it would be really nice if they could keep the scene like this. Because in League it already would be a miracle if non-korean team won WC - a bit boring.

in lol it's like KR > CHINA > NA > EU

Even if the Korean strict model does take over, that would probably only mean bad things for the west. I don't know why china wouldn't match that, not with a n times larger fanbase and just as much rigor anyhow.

I think Korean teams structures are much better than Chineese. All of the schedules and stuff, maybe it would be different in Dota though.

It's the first region who is the best has the easiest way to keep up, because they have a lot of practice with each other. Like for example NA teams can't scrim vs Korean ones and they can't even watch those scrims, they can take their knowledge from official games only - that sucks. So maybe China could be the dominant force in Dota as they are now, but honestly I doubt that. They seem to have incredible palyer base in League too, yet they can't even take a map from Koreans in internationals... somehow

They're pretty organized ( http://i.imgur.com/QTvr17z.jpg ), but it may be that Korea is superior.

I don't think it's surprising that Korea isn't up there yet with how late they are and their playerbase. Even if it's a matter of time.

coz it's dominated by russians!

virtuspro too good

mid or feed!

Wildcard matches (VP vs MVP) and solomid championship (Dondo vs RTZ) start in two minutes!

our korean overlords have arived, it seems. Congrats MVP?

no ztn?

These guys have been playing a single map for maybe 15 years, I don't think you can complain.

True dedication the Russian quake scene can dream of

Inb4 QL 2.0 is MOBA with ztn as map

Well it isn't a shooter

doom 7 confirmed

whole chat spamming 'brazil stop feeding' :O

ig dk eg top 3 ez

ryuu $$$ jokes ass nikka

Hot_Bid best interviews ever
http://www.liquiddota.com/forum/ti4/461470-ti...by-hot_bid

The choices in life.



Edit 581354: Pictures are sooo hard. wtf.

Newbee vs LGD
Alliance vs iG
Fnatic vs DK
EG vs C9

all in 10 minutes! I wish I could watch all of them at the same time.

allianc :c

heheheh, I loved iG's draft. Three cores that are strong in lane, early and mid game to cover up almost carries for supports. The only problem is that it will ruin hundreds of pub games, but it was fun.

C9 was awesome, before the last pick I was thinking they need 1 more ranged rightclicker without important spells, maybe tanky, then they picked viper and executed the strat perfectly!

It's also cool that fnatic pulled off CK without wisp, even if I'm sad about DK.

I'll probably skip the next round of games to come back for the one after that. Go Na'Vi, C9 and DK!

ye thats what i never liked when dota moved over from wc3 to its own engine
the competitive scene got too easily reachable for everyone
and now you see doom every game

Very true. At first I thought that with time most newbies would learn that different picks work at newbie level, but then I realized that they just want to be dendi, they don't care about viability or team composition, and even in higher MMR they care just a bit.

5.5k mmr is like 30 heroes picked np

Alliance 0-3? wth?

yes ;( It's quite sad. They did meet very strong teams, so I maybe they're not absolutely fucked, but again, this format is very cutthroat. Nobody expected Alliance to be harmed by that.

Did they get figured out?

Very interesting format they use. I like it. Alliance can still come back.

C9 meanwhile doing fucking amazing! So proud.

Even more boring than soccer

FNATIC! OMG

Soo much crazy stuff last night. Can't wait for today! Hope DK and Alliance at least pull through.

Western teams need to ban ember spirit against the asians. Sick combos with pugna, sky and mirana :OOO

DK have been doing this for a while. And it's hella strong.

Alliance in trouble. :( They need to win all remaining 3 games to advance i think.

Depends, I think they can do with less if advancing last is okay. But seeing them fuck up vs LGD was sad.

Even bigger fuck up vs Vici. That was ridicoulus. :P

Didn't catch that game, what happened? Vici seems super strong in general, even if they've been playing vs weaker teams till now.

alliance tries to rosh before creeps, dies 5 and only continues to feed

Ah... Those are very exciting when they suceed though, Alliance roshan bait via bulldog suicide at dreamhack is the oldest episode from a game I remember.

yeah, all tho they werent in that bad a position after dying at roshan. just fuck-up after fuck-up in that game

So if LGD < C9, then Alliance, Fnatic and Empire have to win 1 game to go into tiebreakers. If not, then they have to win both. It's okayish chances, I believe in alliance. It's just that they play Na'Vi & EG.

Edit: Or at least the multicast panel explained it so. This flowchart says differently:

http://i.imgur.com/GCxneqD.png

It's upvoted on reddit and nobody's denying, so I take it to be true.

alliance still ratting it up D:

They are quite a unique brand of gameplay, and nobody plays it like them. Hope they can repeat that vs EG, even if EG have a way of getting the better end of the stick in passive games.

Alliance :( Really impressive play by EG though, overcoming the rats, forcing the fights.

Go Mouz!

Wreck that tiebreaker please

They're doing it!

If they can win early game with this AM & prophet vs that earlygame push thing from LGD, how can they lose.

Amazed that they lost that game...

Okay, if Mouz lose this, they deserve it. Either they're looking to earn their 322 dollars, or they litterally think they broke the metagame and figured out AM and prophet as a ganking squad mid-lategame. So next level it's sad.

Edit: I'm actually feeling sad for mouz fans as a c9 fan.

That performance from mouz was sad. Never seen such a shitty prophet on ti lvl. Somewhere Bulldog is crying ((

The weirdest thing is, earlygame he was amazing.

FNATIC :(((

pieliedie support blink bh was so next level. I'm definitely trying that out.

I was anxious to see meepo, it's a bit of a throw hero, but it's just that much more exciting when they win.

Titan is not your Orange on TI

NaVi playing in minutes guys! Wisp tiny toss trick pls.

http://gifsound.com/?gif=i.minus.com/iGdMD0pU...o&s=20

Europe owned hard this year. :(( Last hope Navi from LB.

Just watched a good interview by puppey:


It seems like they lack confidence, maybe don't have enough good strats prepared, don't have good picks for offlane or mid that would win games, don't communicate very well. Not very good.

And it sucks that it's them or C9 in the next round. C9 guys also like to give answers like "my team is retarded", Envy and others are not sleeping well, so it's not looking great for either team. I hope that whichever one moves on can fix their problems, both are capable, it's just that they're not there ATM.

ESPN covering TI4 on some of their channels. Man, I wish Quake got at least a portion of this.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/13929/

Main event starting. Huge crowd, though I'm skipping the VG game for QuakeCon. If it starts that is.

The audio from the booths will be available after TI. I'll be really excited to hear it along with the games.

https://twitter.com/DOTA2/status/489934268756275200

https://twitter.com/DOTA2/status/490149828769234944

Even tho I think it's awesome to have such a huge esport event, watching DOTA is as exciting to me as watching curling.

i understand fully why you think that, but once your a bit more invested in it you'll love it. ive been watching dota for something like 5 years, and there arent many games where i can positivly say that a game is over before the teams themselves =PP

yep

How well do you know the game?

Once you play a few hundred hours, understand all the heroes (not just literally, but how they change the game) and enough of the metagame, can predict the drafting phase, each draft's gameplan and when watching a team execute one, you know what they need to do and and what would mean a loss for them, that's when watching Dota becomes fun. It's sort of a 'how much you understand how each hero changes the game and what he can do' kind of a thing for the professional teams.

It becomes a game where the goals get stretched out by gold, XP and gametime, so games with unique picks and playstyles can get very exciting. The clashes of styles can be unpredictable and very fun. I think I'll remember the ending of TI3 finals for at least 10 years, and probably longer than any single episode from sports.

With that said, Quake, Starcraft and Fighting games are superior for competition, and if you don't have a rather time-consuming basic competence for understanding the game, Dota offers little more than emotional cheering for your favourite continent, team, player or hero, and not that much action to fuel it.

So I need to be a DOTA schoolar to enjoy the games? 146 hours played. Game can be fun to play but watching it bores me to death. Never played SC II (only some BW) but I love watching it. Can't stand spectating fighting games, it just makes me think I could be watching MMA instead.

strongest scurb mentality i have ever seen

If you'd watch while you enjoy playing, have an interest in a team's playstyle, know it a bit, know some behind the scenes drama and it was a big match (TI Finals with the crowd is great for a newbie even), you'd probably enjoy it. But to enjoy the game strategically, the way you feel the decisions and playstyles in quake, yeah, that's what it would take.

i think the only team who can reach a finals from the eu/us is eg, and i doubt they can win it =PPPPP oh well, gogo dk

C9 vs Na'Vi! Go europe!

ggwp Na'Vi, C9 and Na'Vi. They had my heart leaping multiple times, and any probably could have made through, but now that they're out I'm not sure I'll watch the finals live. Maybe I should wait to watch the finals with voice comm.

vici doing some exposing

Since Quakecon is over I'm trying to watch this tournament. EG vs VG right now. But it's very hard to watch, this game is complete garbage, fraud esports at its best

mega kill, triple kill blabla, absolutely pathetic, all they do is click a bit randomly on screen.

I have complained about Starcraft and CS in the past, but will definitely tone that down. this moba stuff is on a whole other level of rubbish.

2gd: "what will the teams have to do to win the next game?"
female expert: "VG have to try to get a hero that will mess EG up somehow"

So the winner will actually get over 5 million usd. Even #8th place finisher will get over 500K usd, I mean are you fkin shitting me?!

This game isn't skillbased, it's a ridiculous fraud of a game, give the money to charity to save starving children or something ffs.

It is indeed a sad world we live in

I have never played or watched DOTA and even to me you sound like ignorant twat.

well I have both played and watched dota, so there you go

espn2/3 are covering it, too!

you mad?

Better throw that money on crowd with Ventrilo logo on screen.

I don't understand any of this.

Well I did enjoy seeing those stupid american teenagers in the crowd get all salty when EG got wrecked by the Chinese

Quite suprising that you watch the games after your yolo rant above. Must be quite a fullfilling life you live))

Protip: You can use the edit button to choose which comment your comment is a reply to.

Edit: Protip to self: He doesn't need it.

What time does the final start?

look at the sideboard time left here http://www.reddit.com/r/dota2 so it's timezone neutral
It may only start after some introductions and stuff, though I think those are pretty good.

tweets at espn for showing dota 2. lol.

It's not saying much though.

2 worlds collide.

On a sidenote, I think the average ESPN viewer might have preferred some fullgibs Quake instead of watching weird fantasy characters punching each other.

that was fucking painful to watch :c

The games were going to be fast :)

Okay, you're right. This felt even faster than it was supposed to.

lol @ their reactions after winning 5 million

gg china

Tbh I did not follow this event. Just remotely, since the media coverage was strong. wp China.

- Comparison to Painkiller CPL World Tour?
- What did they do better in this event, in this game than back then?
- Also what could other eSport games, communities, managers, sponsors and competitions learn from this TI4 event with such a big prizepool?
- How legit was the course of this event?

Regarding the prizepool and payment model.

- Comparison to Painkiller CPL World Tour?

pk had 17 players, Dota 2 up to 900k concurrently. This event was basically working off of community's size, meanwhile CPL was running on fake promises and sponsorship deals by crooks, supporting a dead game.

- What did they do better in this event, in this game than back then?

I think I covered the game in the link. Tournament was run very smoothly, valve are too smart to fuck up. They may have bailed on CS, but now they see dirty esports cash. Other than that, the differences are streaming era vs GTV era, social media and viewership coming from the popularity of the game.

- Also what could other eSport games, communities, managers, sponsors and competitions learn from this TI4 event with such a big prizepool?

The first link covered the main point of the payment model, people will pay a shitton for stupid shit that doesn't even impact gameplay. There's points to be made for ladder matchmaking, chatrooms and team matchmaking, but ESR's been circlejerking on that for years by now.

The main point is, MOBAs are like sugar for casual players, even if not as large a portion watches pro matches.
The second point is that it's good when a company supports a game, both because microtransactions motivate them and because they understand that they'll be rewarded unlike id.

- How legit was the course of this event?

From organizational standpoint it had a few PICNIC moments on stream, but otherwise was run very smoothly. From a competitive and storyline standpoint, there's so much money that the storylines and the competition get better and better each year, it's very impressive. Fan favourites like EG, Na'Vi, C9, Alliance and DK made it quite far and the buzz is crazy. This is all despite what many consider a too harsh Bo1 groupstage and weird playoff format.

nice try, this game is still garbage and not esports

Very coherent post. Thanks!