Preface: This is the first time in a couple of seasons that I did not captain, I was originally going to but decided against it. As per usual I am a core in the lowest division.
Draft: Unlike the preceding main season the pool was a lot more balanced with fewer core players who were ahead, and less mmr above the rest. Watching the draft was sight to behold as I witnessed some of the ballsiest taxing I have ever seen. That being an understatement with me somehow going for 60 coins. While I find my cost to be questionable Moyo still managed to put together a strong team with no apparent weaknesses.
Preseason: On the run-up to our first series we practiced in ranked and played several scrims, these seemed to go well and were vibing. Unfortunately we did not continue to practice together and mostly only played in the official games together.
Group stage: To put it bluntly our start to the groups was a fucking shit show, we started off with a series against DMWP who is as of the writing of this review already qualified to the final. After playing well together beforehand and suddenly getting demolished was a large knock to our confidence and definitely showed in the next series into Okami. Something clearly wasn’t working and we ended up with a team discussion from which we started flexing our 1,4 and 5 roles. The final team we faced in groups was the one we desperately wanted to beat as we had had enough of pandas ego and shit talking. Thankfully this is exactly what happened with us stomping lanes and pandas team nearly imploding after the game.
Playoffs: As per usual with teams I am on we started playoffs in the lower bracket. First series was against Mage who we had scrimmed against previously, using our knowledge from that scrim we went in with high hopes. We ended up taking the series 2–1 with the loss being from a breakdown of communications and (no offense Moyo) a scuffed draft. Our next series was against the other team we scrimmed, Tekys stack. I had a personal vendetta against this team as they had one of my best mates, fuck you friendlyguy. This game was nothing short of decisive with us taking the series 2–0, though I have a newfound respect for Teky mid. What ended up being our final series was one against Van Dam who was placed just above us in Madsen rankings. We really struggled this series with a razor pick making us think it was mid so we traded my kunkka off to offlane which ended up being a poor choice. We did take the second game back from them by taking wraith king from them but we just couldn’t clinch it in the final game with their elder titan, jakiro support duo making the game unplayable.
Player reviews
5: Pajazo: At times, especially during the early series I could find Pajazo somewhat irksome. He is stubborn and likes to get his point across. However in the games we won he more than had his needed impact with his grimstroke being key in several games. Would I choose to be on a team with Pajazo? No but I wouldn’t completely begrudge it too much either.
4: Ruski: Ruski like most people who actually play pos 4 in this divison(no not just pos 5 but richer) scares me. His hero pool is impactful and tends to tank a first phase ban. I practiced with ruski more than anyone else on the team as we’d met before we were drafted together. He always gave me the ganks I needed and made my mid more impactful.
3: Moyo (Captain): Before this mini I’d only ever played into moyo and for some reason would always play better against him(sorry bro). Moyos drafting and playstyle in the first couple of series left quite a bit to be desired, that being said, after those two series Moyo stepped the fuck up. I never want to be on the receiving end of his centaur. While he definitely could have been more commanding at times he was a pleasure to play with even when he was frustrated.
1: XYU: Like with Moyo I felt I that XYU didn’t have that much impact across the first few games. I cannot however place this fully on XYU, he was laning with someone who isn’t a pos 5 which is a problem that cannot be understated. When given the space to farm and get back into the game he was one of the most impactful on the team. While his hero pool was small he played well on those heroes and would step aside when his pool did not fit. A stand up dude who I would be happy to play with again.
2: Me, Owl, the 60 coin gamer: I played most of the season with my main hero pool banned which sucked a bit, thankfully I am comfortable playing quite a varied pool. Unlike normal I ended up playing a somewhat more sacrificial mid to make space for XYU or whoever was carrying each game and Moyo was often farm intensive. Thankfully with teams neglecting to ban DP this was accomplished somewhat easily. As far as I’m aware I made my impact known every game but need to work on how much I mald.
(still not worth 60 coins though)
