The BeyondTheSummit World Tour Dota 2 tournament kicked off on Monday night, with matches between Singapore’s Zenith and Malaysia’s Orange.Esports, and USA’s compLexity and Australia’s Absolute Legends.
The tournament is a winner-takes-all US$1,000 prize pool tournament featuring 16 of the world’s best teams from America, Europe and Asia.
Zenith vs. Orange.Esports
Kicking off the tournament was the Group A match between Zenith and Orange.
|Zenith’s Roster||Orange’s Roster|
Zenith – one of the Southeast Asian teams to be invited to the first International Dota 2 Championships under the team name Scythe.SG – has recently picked up long time DotA and Heroes of Newerth Swedish player Loda. As Zenith has once again been invited to the second season of The International, we wonder how far they would go this time with the roster change.
Orange, who only began to shine in regional tournaments in December 2011 , has also been invited to the second season of The International.
The final score for this match up could very well show who the favourites are in The International 2, should these two teams clash once more.
For some reason, iceiceice was allowed to do the picks and bans for the very first game. And for some other reason, Zenith burnt up all their extra time on the first ban and still did not ban anything. This apparently went on for all five bans, so what you see in the image or VODs are not photoshopped, glitches or video edits of any sort.
The lack of bans gave big heroes over to Orange, of which Nature’s Prophet and Lycanthrope are statistically the most banned heroes in international games. However, Zenith themselves managed to pick up a pretty decent line up which included Invoker, Dark Seer and Chaos Knight.
|(Zenith) Radiant||Dire (Orange)|
An early first blood was picked up by Zenith at 3:12 on the bottom lane with Leshrac sneaking up past the Dire ancients and hiding in the fog behind the bottom Tier 1 tower, waiting for Nature’s Prophet who eventually knew what was going on and tried to make a run for it. But it was too late — an accurate Split Earth, followed up with Diabolic Edic, Sun Strike from Invoker and Chaos Knight’s three-second stun almost consecutively after and a final right click by Chaos Knight claimed the first blood.
The game went on pretty much back and forth for a long while, with Orange‘s Lycanthrope and Nature’s Prophet continuously farming the top and bottom lane respectively and pushing it out as far as they could, which turned out to be pretty effective as Lycanthrope eventually managed to take out the Radiant’s top and bottom Tier 1 towers on his own.
As the game dragged on, Nature’s Prophet and Lycanthrope were soon beginning to be able to deal a decent amount of damage in the mid-game. It was, however, not enough to stand up against the high damage and disables of Zenith, who eventually decided that enough was enough and took the team fight straight to Orange‘s middle Tier 3 base. This move proved to be the finishing blow as the first melee barracks of the game went down.
From this point on, Zenith took over total control with a 35 minute Aegis of the Immortal on Chaos Knight and with one final push to the bottom lane, Orange‘s defense eventually broke and the GG was called at 44:14.
With hyhy back in the captain’s seat, Zenith decided to go for a heavy pushing line up while Orange went for a normal mid to late game carry line up.
|(Orange) Radiant||Dire (Zenith)|
|Queen of Pain||Pugna|
Venomancer started out by planting an Observer’s Ward, attempting to block off any Neutral creep camp pulls. However, he was spotted by Shadow Demon, and an engage at the bottom lane soon started with Disruption on Shadow Shaman, giving Orange enough time to get close to put up a good fight. A successful Thunder Clap and Split Earth followed by two right clicks from Brew Master rewarded Orange with the first blood.
Zenith, however, decided to retaliate immediately, with Undying casting Decay on Shadow Demon, managing to take him down after a few right clicks. Zenith continued to chase both the Leshrac and Brew Master, finally deciding to go after the Brew Master after Leshrac ran into range of the Tier 1 tower. With the Tombstone dropped, a summoned zombie was chasing the Brew Master while Venomous Gale helped to slow him down, giving the zombie the last right click onto the Brew Master.
Zenith played rather aggressively on the bottom lane, while their top and bottom lanes suffered against Orange‘s strong laning heroes. Zenith‘s aggressiveness finally stopped after Queen of Pain managed to land a triple kill in a team fight with the Sonic Wave and Scream of Pain and an awfully messy 5 on 5 team fight leaving only Pugna and Dark Seer as the sole survivors of the chaos.
Zenith‘s final attempt to tip the scales back in their favour by attempting Roshan was foiled as Queen of Pain stole the Aegis of the Immortal right under their noses with a team fight happening just outside of Roshan’s pit. The fight eventually led to Zenith being 4 man down, with Venomancer being the sole survivor.
At 16:50, iceiceice announed on All Chat that they have decided to forfeit this second game and asks to go for the last game.
This time, Zenith tried something baffling, picking a line up that focused heavily on team fights and ganking potential, instead of focusing on a late game carry. Orange, on the other hand, once again went for the safer option with a mid-late game carry line up.
The laning from this game consisted mainly of roaming and exchanging of lanes as Zenith decided to do the same thing they did in the first game with a pre-game Smoke of Deceit. This time, however, Dark Seer spotted Chaos Knight being slightly out of position and began moving in to engage. Chaos Knight was unaware that the entire Zenith team, excluding the Tidehunter, were in his Neutral creep fog. With Sand King’s stun onto Chaos Knight, followed up with a Kinetic Field placed just against the tree line, cornering Chaos Knight and forcing him to endure the beating which eventually resulted in the first blood for Zenith.
The game continued on being rather even with kills being evened out for a long while until Zenith decided to push the middle lane at the 19 minute mark, taking the Tier 2 tower and forcing the fight straight into Orange‘s base. An excellent team fight right beside the Dire’s Tier 3 tower by Zenith‘s heavy AOE damage took out 3 heroes from Orange and the middle barracks began to take some damage, only surviving after Leshrac’s heavy damage managed to take a double kill.
A second push by Zenith was once again successfully defended by Orange, with Leshrac being forced to make a buyback. On the third push, it was finally too much for Orange and the middle melee barracks finally went down followed by a couple of kills for Zenith. Zenith then went for the bottom lane and started pushing before the 30 minute mark to prevent the Bone Clinkz from getting big for the late game.
After diving past the Tier 3 tower, Zenith managed to wipe out 4 of Orange‘s team, taking the bottom Tier 3 tower and both barracks immediately afterwards. Zenith proved to be too much for Orange to take, with X calling the GG at 31:55.
Zenith comes out victorious 2-1!
compLexity vs. Absolute Legends
Next up was between compLexity and Absolute Legends in Group C.
|compLexity’s Roster||aL’s Roster|
Although neither compLexity nor Absolute Legends were invited to The International 2011, both teams have been invited to the second season of The International.
Absolute Legends, a team mixed with players from the Oceanic region (mainly Australians), have been slowly picking up their game since the start of this year. Even managing to defeat Na`Vi in an online competition a few months ago.
compLexity has also begun picking up their game since the start of this year, managing to come out on top of aL during The Premier League tournament earlier this year, placing second after Na`Vi.
Just like Zenith vs Orange, this match up could very well determine the favourites going into The International 2.
coL picked a safe global presence push with Tinker and team fight combo line up while allowing the Chaos Knight to farm up for the mid-late game. aL‘s line up however, looked like an early Roshan line with a safe mid-late game potential with the Ursa and also good team fight potential with the Enigma.
|(coL) Radiant||Dire (aL)|
An early 2:55 smoke gank to mid, starting off with Witch Doctor’s Paralyzing Cask then Skeleton King’s Hellfire Blast with Ursa’s Overpower and Fury Swipes and a last right click from Skeleton King gave aL the first blood.
coL took the early creep kill lead and experience lead against aL while constantly preventing Ursa and Skeleton King from attempting Roshan. 9:15, Ursa and Skeleton King begins Roshan once again. Despite managing to kill him, Chaos Knight strolled in and stole the Aegis of the Immortal from aL and died twice, giving 3 kills to aL including Tinker and Shadow Demon.
With a Tinker in the game, aL can expect a heavy global presence and fast lane pushes in the mid game. With coL constantly taking aL‘s towers and constantly applying pressure with the Tinker, aL eventually gave in after losing 4 heroes on a 16:45 engage on the top lane and losing key heroes on a 18:40 engage on the middle lane, costing aL two Tier 2 towers.
bLeek eventually called out the GG at 19:16.
coL again decided to pick up Tinker, Shadow Demon and Tidehunter, this time mixing it up with the ganking potential of Tiny and Mirana. aL decided to play a safer mid-late game with a support Rubick, also giving Godot his favourite Chen. It was odd, however, the Mirana pick up was being used as a support hero instead of the conventional mid-late game Mirana.
|(aL) Radiant||Dire (coL)|
|Queen of Pain||Tinker|
Just before the 1 minute mark, Chaos Knight throws out his Chaos Bolt, giving a 2 second stun onto Shadow Demon followed up by Rubick’s Levitation and lots of right click damage from Chaos Knight, Rubick, Chen and his Troll Warlord with skeleton minions. Shadow Demon survives long enough to cast Disruption on himself before attempting to make a run for it, only managing to move a few steps before being trapped by the Troll Warlord’s net, followed by 2 last right clicks for Chaos Knight, awarding him with the first blood.
Once again, coL‘s play with Tinker in the mid game proved to be too much for aL, even though for a short while it seemed like aL was back in the lead, TC’s Tiny eventually became farmed up, playing a build which did not involve any Blink Daggers and instead a carry Tiny build with Aghanim’s Scepter, Assault Cuirass, Drums of Endurance and Phase Boots.
A huge fight, decided by a successful ravage with Tiny’s high damage at the bottom lane gave coL the advantage, pushing straight into aL‘s base and damaging their Tier 3 tower. Another huge fight, with a Smoke of Deceit from coL to the top lane in an attempt to backstab Windrunner and Chaos Knight while at the same time saving Tinker, gave coL a further advantage, taking out aL‘s Chaos Knight, Windrunner and Queen of Pain.
With a second Aegis of the Immortal at the 39 minute mark to Tiny, and a huge team fight at the middle lane proved how far behind aL is, being unable to withstand Tiny’s heavy output damage and cleaves.
bLeek eventually calls the GG at 41:03, just before coL could push into the Radiant’s base from the bottom lane.
compLexity comes out victorious 2-0!
You can catch BeyondTheSummit World Tour games live at their http://www.twitch.tv/beyondthesummit channel.
You can also check out the schedules for upcoming games as well as the Groups at http://www.dotacommentaries.com/index.php/bts-wt/.