Man this team was fun. I left our last series feeling a bit hollow because I’m gonna miss playing with them. No team is without problems but I can say I was looking forward to every Sunday. Before I get into the review and individual members… I wanna send a personal message to my teammates.
You guys rock man. As a first time captain… you guys made this season real easy for me. I wanna say thanks to all of you for the past two months… we didn’t finish with a win, but I’d lose to Itachi any-day with ya’ll. And more important than our results; I had fun pretty much every game we played. I also learned way more in this period than I ever have in DOTA. Thank you guys so much for making Toth’s Thots what it was.
fspoon (pos 5) (legend 1)
fspoon is a fucking treasure. I managed to get him in the last round of the draft, and in future seasons I suspect he won’t last that long. In the first few moments of meeting spoon; you’ll have a realization that this guy is more intelligent and more informed than you. (Seriously, pick any topic and I promise you spoon has you beat) He’s also the nicest DOTA player I’ve ever met. Must be that Canadian blood eh? For example, spoon is kinda a programming wiz. I was complaining about my troubles with a program for one of my classes after a series…. and spoon then spent the next 4 hours helping me with it. This happened more than once (4 times??). He also spent hours giving me advice on my future academic/career life. And if any of you enjoyed the Elo program I posted to blogboys, spoon was the principal guy behind that. I just took the credit.
On a more DOTA centric note, spoon was mega value for the legend 1 rank I drafted him at. Spoon is great at DOTA mentally: he does not tilt, and he understands the game. He is more mechanically weak than anything; which probably holds him back from higher ranks. I would say spoon was this team’s rock. He could work on his hero pool a bit, but he might be the best player drafted in the 4th round this season.
Words really can’t do justice to spoon. I have way more to say, but I have to move on or this would be the Spoon review. To future captains: if Spoon is available just take him. Simple as that. Because if you don’t… then I certainly will.
cali girl (pos 3) (ancient 1)
Cali was my lane partner and offlaner. Me and Cali pubbed a lot when our team was first formed, and I knew I had found the right lane partner for me. We’re kinda opposites: I’m overly agressive, and he can be a little passive sometimes. He held my aggressiveness in check when I was going too far, and I forced him to be less passive. This played off pretty well; we won a lot of lanes against higher mmr players that we probably were not expected to win. Cali was a pretty great teammate (that will be a running theme in this review). He had no toxicity and for the most part did not tilt. Was a pretty fun and funny guy to play with. Cali’s an interesting case, because when we would pub it felt like I was playing with a divine. In games I would say he regressed back to a little above his ancient medal. Overall a super solid player and person; great pick if you are looking for an offlaner in round 3.
big fella (pos 1) (divine 1)
Big Fella was my safelaner pick; and I drafted him for two reasons: on someone’s recommendation and that he was an RD2L veteran. As far as I’m aware Big Fella has traditionally played the 4 in leagues. But he had to step up and play carry or else the team would have been cursed with the Toth safelane. For the most part, he delivered. A large problem is that the signature Big Fella carries did not mesh well with our team’s playstyle, so he was forced on heroes that he maybe was not as comfortable on. Despite this, he still managed to carry us to wins in plenty of games. Another burden on Big Fella is that he was our primary drafter, which is a tough job when you have 4 players with small hero pools. Big Fella tilted exactly once (and it was in a scrim); and was almost wholly a positive presence the rest of the time. Overall I’d say that Big Fella performed pretty admirably throughout the course of the season.
gronaldo (pos 2) (immortal 1500)
Gronaldo was our best player, and one of the best players in PST. I drafted him #2 overall, so I was expecting this to be true. Gronaldo does a ton of things well. He was our in game shotcaller, and was mostly effective at getting us to move around the map and fight when and where he wanted. He has the most game knowledge of anyone I’ve ever played with (granted he’s also the highest mmr of anyone I’ve played with) so I was able to learn a lot from just listening to his explanations of why we did what we did. Despite appearances, (the offensive gg drama) Gronaldo was relatively untiltable. Even when we were in a lost game, Gronaldo was still keeping the same steady voice relaying our next move. I think a lot of people are going to expect him to be toxic, but nothing could be further from the truth. There are also a few heroes that Gronaldo is god tier on: Ember, Pango, Void Spirit. Once he realized that he could play and pick these heroes early on in a draft; we started winning games. I do think Gronaldo can work on a few things to make him an even better player. His hero pool could be bolstered a bit, his laning stage maybe needs some work (although he would probably perform better if we had ever once picked his hero after the opposing mid), and I think he needs more confidence in his capability to stomp games.
Toth’s Thots Final Thoughts
I’m pretty proud of how our team did this season. I’m a super competitive person, and in our first team meeting/discussion someone asked the question: “How tryhard are we going?”. To my great pleasure, everyone answered with their desire to win. This was awesome for me, because one of my concerns was if my team would be competitive or just be playing for fun. Obviously winning isn’t everything, and everyone’s primary goals for this league are having fun and getting better. But I really can’t have fun unless I’m winning, which is a huge flaw of mine. Fortunately, I had a team that won a lot. This team was super PMA, which made the winning easier. There were no big personalities to manage, no one had too high of an ego. I also think as players we meshed really well. Individually, none of us were more skilled than the other team (gronaldo is an exception); and we may have even been less so in some series. But our team coordination was pretty great, and that’s something I’m going to miss. Really I’m just gonna miss playing with these guys. It feels weird to not be after a ton of games and a few months. It was good while it lasted. GG’s.
