DotaStrategy.com - The Weekly Discussion

Counter_Force[X]

Warnings : 2

My idea of Hell is to be young again
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The Weekly Discussion - The Avant-Garde, Lanaya

Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:32 pm

Lanaya recently made a huge hit amongst the DotA populace after the notorious MYM vs TeG match where MYM|KuroKy pulled out a breathtaking, groundbreaking game using her, concluding the game in just 30 minutes with TeG conceding defeat after taking continuous, severe beatings by MYM's superior laning strategy and an overfed Templar.

http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/replays/24624-F4F SB MYM vs TeG

This made an amazingly huge impact onto the DotA scene; it was a game featuring innovation which led many people to believe in a huge trend change, while other provided ample result to explain the defiance to the Leaguer's convention. One of our Imperator, caspian explained his views by attributing it to his DPSgeddon prophecy, while another member, Phoenix.dss tried to defy it with his views. Whoever is correct is up to your own perception.

http://www.dotastrategy.com/blog/dota-664-tangible-signs-of-a-dpsgeddon/-Tangible signs of a DPSgeddon

So what actually was the mentality behind such amazing play? Was is true that Lanaya represents the new breed of superheroes? or was it luck?

To your information, Lanaya isn't an uncommon pick, except in the European DotA scene. An asian team, Cybertime had revolved most of their playstyles along this hero. Their captain, Ct^Mushi (carry, star player) had long used Lanaya and won several high profile matches with her, by using a standard armor debuff tactic involving of mostly Slardar, Vengeful Spirit, Tidehunter and Dazzle, whom solves her lack of finesse very well. In the case of the MYM vs TeG match, Slardar was the sidekick.

So let's analyze the replay; the drafts, the laning style, existing countermeasures and conclude why did the game turned up to that favor.

In that game, drafts were standard with minor peculiarity; a Doom ban by TeG that was kind of hazy, but probably to secure the safety of their Zeus pick. TeG performed a conservative standard lineup, with Chen, a jungler which was considered the weak pick as it was done after MYM picked CM and Lion, 2 roamers who could form amazingly aggressive lanes and are know to be threats to junglers. Many observer believed that this was the main cause dealing to TeG's swift loss instead of the Lanaya pick, which was a surprise, and TeG had no room to respond as she was a lastpick.

MYM utilized a powerful trilane strategy involving Lion, Rylai and Slardar that stood against a solo Viper. TeG did not anticipate that despite 2 previous games by MYM which testified the use of that strategy, and revolves around the same pick. This caused their Viper to take merciless beatings, dying 4 times in 4 minutes, allowing MaNia-'s Slardar and the trilane to achieve standard level up.

TeG also did not took any resolves until some time. Not to elaborate this, but Fnatic.Loda gave a view on the matter. In his statement, he said:

Quote:

Anyone else who thinks viper should have soloed mid vs Lanaya? Very Happy

Zeus vs triple lane is better than Viper vs tripple lane aswell, and just by sending sand king bottom early they would have much better lanes.

Potm solo top
Viper solo mid
SK Zeus bottom with chen in the forest

Had TeG done such resolution, the outcome won't probably be different, but KuroKy wouldn't be able to farm his swift dagger that concluded the game, allowing TeG to bring the game into greater depth, possibly to the standard 50-60 mins duration.

So what was the main cause? Or was it really a DPSgeddon? I would like to bring your attention to the next match ticker of MYM in F4F, MYM vs DTS|Chatrix. In that game, despite the recent successful breakthrough(is it?) by MYM using Lanaya, she did not at all get a mention; not a ban or pick. But instead, it came again in another F4F SB match, FnaticMSI vs nfinity, in which Fnatic did a continuous ban on Lanaya. Is it DPSgeddon? I don't think so.

Phoenix.dss in a statement said, that the recent change to Phase Boots , in which the armor bonus was removed and some other change had led to a very important draft revolution; armor is gold . Lanaya to his understanding, had this as an advantage; it's her prowess.

I would like to divert your attention now to the F4F SB finals(3rd match) which again, showed a different pick on MYM's draft; KuroKy took Ursa, another one of CT's powerhouse. In that game also, you can see FnaticMSI.Lolda and his Morphling(all time viable carry DPS) farming up to incredible extents, with Loda achieving 680 creep kills, but still lost the game. KuroKy also didn't achieved expectations; doing poorly early with his Ursa; a pick many observers believed to be similar as their previous Lanaya pick but did not delivered. If the DPSgeddon was true, the game shouldn't have stretched to that 80 minutes mark. Instead, what caspian said on reduction on blink-stun and ganking strategies being less and less obvious turned back; MYM won the game with sheer power of those.

http://www.dotastrategy.com/forum/ftopic25556.html-F4F SB Finals

UPDATES

stranger_mur wrote:
http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/replays/25114

Check out this replay of Cybertime Vs CD.
After loosing to CT previously, CD were ready for CT's lanaya/Slardar combo this time. by the way, replay length is about 20 mins

Credits to mur. So as you can see, the most practical and the most well known Lanaya team just lost their game against only a second-time opponent, in just 20 minutes.

So the early hypothesis we had on Lanaya wasn't fully true; 6.6x does favor the use of some DPS heroes but there is no evidence that DPSgeddon is coming. Rather, it's to be relegated to a team's specialty and the current metagame that favors heroes such as Lanaya. So for those who kept spamming Lanaya in their games recently, you might want to consider the fact that you have overlooked her potential all these before.

Best regards, CF[X].

Last edited by Counter_Force[X] on Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:44 am; edited 4 times in total

The Weekly Discussion - The Avant-Garde, Lanaya

The Weekly Discussion - The Avant-Garde, Lanaya

Re: Hero of the Week - Lanaya