General DiscussionATOD BEGINS!

AToD update: 4FC rolling over ICCUP on the back of a 16 min radiance on their spectre

Sniper crushed bloodseeker mid, even with two 3 man ganks to help the bloodseeker.

Drafting is pretty hard to be honest. Needs a lot of thinking.

I was surprised how hard sniper spanked BS mid. A pro sniper can hit you a lot more times without taking any creep agro...it pretty scary. ICCUP spent way to much time beating on PA and let Spectre free farm.

But giving away necro was probably the biggest mistake. When there are almost no nukes in the game necro's heal is huge in early teamfights. Its almost impossible to focus one hero down with just attacks.

4FC vs PGG+4 ..... 4FC's Blomberg pwning with nub carries again going 18-0-3 on riki in the first 18 min.

AtoD 3: The Retry vs HWA
Ursa+Wisp. I don't understand why they give one of the best supports and a good combo.

thats not all... bs in this mode is actually pretty decent, especially because with the team coordination he can "supoport" a bit, even without the farm... His solo lane presence here is huge too. The death prophet is actually a decent hero to have- aoe silence, very spammable nuke, fine pusher with ult... ATOD is all about the picking phase, and imo tr has lost it already there...

ATOD continues!

Mousesports bans Dusa, Skeleton King, SB, Wisp??!!?, Ursa
and gets stuck with Necro, Morph, Void, PA, Slar

ICCUP bans Meeps, BS, DP, Husk, Sniper,
and gets stuck with Spectre, Tree, PL, Zues, Clinkz

I think mouse has a huge advantage with 4 heros that can stun vs zero stuns for ICCUP, only trees root mini, and zues bolt mini. Massacre of nub heroes incoming? We will soon find out!

support PL stands around mid for 2 full min waiting to gank Necro, but no stuns!!! and so it totally fails leading to Mouz jumping out to an early 7-0 lead at 8 min. Every kill secured in part by a stun from roaming slardar.

16-1 at 14 min ICCUP finally gets on the board, but clearly they failed hard at drafting all those stuns for Mousesports.

...The slaughter ends at 16 min GG call 21-2 victory for the mice. Only buy backs from spectre and zues to port in cast their ults and die again got the two kills ICCUP managed.

Next up Mouz vs PGG+4 and in the meantime we learn that Sheever does not smoke weed.

The RerereTRY bans MeDusa, Spectre, Visage, DP
and gets stuck with AM, PA, Tree, Clinkz, Kotl

Mousesports bans BS, Meeps, OM, SB,...and again Wisp??
and gets stuck with Huskar, Necro, Skeleton King, Void, PL

I expect another easy win for Mouz since its still 3 heroes with real stuns vs no real stuns. In the words of Crystal Maiden...Let it Begin!!

The story of the early game is PGG's antimage crushing Huskar top 5-0 in the solo top battle, with the aid of constant heals from tree. Feed feed feed. Despite this the over score is 4-9 at 10 min.

Now when is the last time you were 7-0 on antimage with only tranquil boots for items? But who cares about feeding AM when one team has stuns and the other does not. First team fight at 14 min destroyes AM easily and his team and takes two towers with no heroes lost. One good chrono and they are all doomed.

"Late?" game we see that no matter how fed AM might be, what he has agies? still means nothing...PL is so vastly more powerful than AM its absurd. PL destroyes AM twice with only half his networth. PA and clinkz don't hold a candle to Faceless Void so...coming back from a huge deficite Mousesports rax over the top of KotL spam at 32 min and the score comes to 25-26... in short order PL is now the top networth hero, I think he added about 5k networth in 3 min.

At 36 min PL kill AM who buys back...PL kills him again. Both kills take less than 3 seconds.

Final score 30-30...and we see why AM has 40% win with pub drafts, he just can't carry at all without a proper supporting cast.

Empire bans dusa, chen, bs, lycan, lich
and gets stuck with Clinkz, Spectre, Sniper, Tree, Zues

Mousesports bans meepos, SB, ursa, riki, slar
and gets stuck with Huskar, PA, WD, Brood, Invoker

Looks like another win for Mousesports...zero real stuns vs 2 heroes with disables. Why do people keep giving them stuns? And HOW can Empire possibly stop brood with no aoe and no stuns?

Demonstrating far better use of tree and zues than the previous games, Empire hold their T1 mid with living armor for...ever? its still up at 27 min when Clinkz solos rosh. Empire up 31-19. Living armor counters broodlings so hard the spiders can't push at all. Mid tower has taken over 5k dmg at this point I'm sure...and is full health.

gg called at 32 min, final score 40-19 win for Empire. This makes me wonder if other teams could have done more if they had practice using living armor correctly as Empire's Twisted clearly does. So many saves, maledict so worthless this game.

HWA.Kingston bans meep, husk, drow, viper, morph
and gets stuck with PA, Zues, Axe, WD, Enigma

Empire bans Dusa, SB, Pugna, BS, Enchant
and gets stuck with Necro, Sniper, Skeleton King, Sniper, Void

Will Necro continue its winning streak to 4-0? Or will Axe and Enigma be the key to end the putrid power's pushes? HWA seems to have to closest thing to a normal draft we have seen yet in ATOD 3.

After a lot of back and forth early, PA is pulling ahead with BS crits on every attack...until void arrives with chrono and its a teamwipe at 14 min leading to several additional kills...even score on towers and 17-18 at 15 min.

Empire just rolls on to a 17 min GG at 20-18 having just got 12 unanswered kills and 4 towers. While PA's stupidly good luck early on crits turned to crap in the last few fights. Necrolyte is able to properly heal the team when PA does not get 3 crits in a row and moves to 4 wins no losses in the ATOD group stage. Will teams continue to give this hero away or shift to Ancient Apparition?