Season Summary:
This was a strange season, after the draft I thought that our squad was one of the strongest in PST. The regular season didn’t necessarily prove that, as we barely squeaked into playoffs at 8–8. I think we had a lot of issues earlier on. Our communication was subpar, our playstyle wasn’t working. Before playoffs, we managed to identify some of our major issues. After fixing them, we started playing more like that team I initially thought we could be. We had two great series against Doofgod and Travs in the playoffs. Unfortunately, we lost in the semis. I’m still pretty happy with how the season turned out, top 4 is a good result.
Favorite Moment:
When apex was 1 v 4 in a teamfight; Sleepy (midlaner) dies and says: “I’m buying back! I’m coming!” Things were not looking good, considering that it was a 1v4 far away from a place sleepy could get too quickly. And then, with his voice oozing confidence; Apex says:
“I don’t need you.”
He killed them all and we won the game 5 min later.
Player reviews/ratings:
An overview of each player; and then a rating on if I would draft them again
apex:
Apex is a god. Easily the best person I have ever played with. He was basically forced by me to be the main drafter/shotcaller; really the ingame captain. I appreciate that he accepted this, because some people probably wouldn’t. I think he recognized that if I did in game-captaining, our season would have been short and brutal. He had very rare moments of tilt, they lasted probably about 5 seconds max each. I actually hesitate to call it tilt… but when we all did something wrong/not what he told us to do he would make a remark with a somewhat angry/frustrated voice. Immediately after, he would be back to his calm/cool self. As a player you really couldn’t ask for a better carry. Pretty much all of our wins were on his back. He was down to scrim when he had time, and he also helped scouting the other team. Like everyone, he had some flaws. I think he maybe got a little too dive happy when pushing highground, and sometimes he would make ‘snap’ picks in a draft. As in, he would see a hero, and lock it in instantly without fully thinking it through. This only happened a few times, and not in playoffs. The best thing about apex is how much I learned from him. Directly and indirectly. After games/in draft he would explain his reasoning for stuff. If he plays RD2L next season, definitely a top pick you won’t regret.
9/10 on any carry
10/10 on the apex heroes
sleepy:
Sleepy’s interesting. I drafted him thinking that he might have been a little sandbagged. He was adjusted up to ancient 5 in the draft. On draft night, during introductions/inviting everyone to the server… sleepy sends this website into our team discussion channel: “here’s my account”. It wasn’t a link to a dotabuff. Nor opendota. Instead it was a page that contained links to about 20 different accounts. That, coupled with his mid or techies player statement, had me very worried about what I had just gotten myself into. These worries were for nothing, because sleepy is extremely PMA. Not a single moment of tilt the entire season. He’s a very inconsistent player. Which is strange, because at the same time he is a very stable mid laner. He really didn’t lose any lanes, even when he had bad matchups. He didn’t necessarily stomp that many lanes either. But stable is good, it’s exactly what I was looking for after drafting Apex. The problem with Sleepy is that some games he absolutely pops off. Others he just sorta chokes and feeds. There are probably explanations for that: hero matchups, role in the game etc.. The biggest culprit was the 100 ping he played with throughout the season. We also never picked any of Sleepy’s cheese heroes. He did a very good job stepping up on the comms about midway through the season. I mentioned that we needed more than just apex directing us about, especially in the early/midgame when he wanted to farm. Sleepy is actually super good at shotcalling. I think if we had put him on more comfortable heroes, he would have consistently performed higher than his rank. An additional note: sleepy has a lot of knowledge of the RD2L playerbase, which was a welcome surprise. Sleepy likely isn’t at the point where he can be a player that completely takes over a game, but he’s a good choice if you already have a ‘star’ carry.
7/10 with ping/non-comfort heroes
9/10 without ping/comfort heroes
businessman:
Businessman was an ideal round 3 offlane pick. He knew his role, and mostly didn’t mind sacrificing his game so that Apex/Sleepy could perform better. I think this was his first season playing RD2L, or possibly even in a league. He’s definitely one of those players that you pub with, and he just absolutely goes ham/carries you. But then he plays (for lack of a better word) worse in RD2L. I’m sure a lot of that is just the adjustment; I remember my first season being a little jarring how much communication there was, and the fact that I couldn’t just go do what I wanted. This is something that was noticeable earlier on, and much less so later. Another such thing is communication. Businessman could probably be considered a quiet guy. And that’s fine to some extent, but really not ideal for an RD2L setting. Basically in the beginning the only way to hear his voice was to directly ask him a question. About halfway through the season I mentioned that we would be a lot better if we started talking more etc.. And he really did make an effort. He still probably isn’t where he needs to be on that front, but the difference was night and day; at least in our lane. Speaking of lanes, he’s an extremely good laner. Despite my best efforts to lose all of our lanes, he managed to always come out of the laning stage ahead/only slightly behind the opposing carries. I think this was him at his most valuable. He lanes like a divine player. That didn’t necessarily carry over to the game itself. In teamfights/networth he was ancient. For a concise summary: He lanes a full medal above his rank and the rest of his game is played at/around his rank. He won’t be your win condition, but if you get him in the third round he’s probably pretty value.
6/10 without good communication
8/10 with good communication
endqwerty:
Qwerty was my 4th round pick support. He had traditionally played mostly 4, but because I’m absolutely terrible at the game he was forced into a 5 role. Traditionally was maybe too strong a word, he had played a lot of 5 too. But his best heroes were 4’s. Like businessman, qwerty was a first time RD2L player. I think he came into it with the right mindset/expectations. He listened well, and was a very calm presence on our team. Qwerty was really excellent at pressing his spells in fights. Much better than a legend player at least. His biggest weakness is warding. (I’m sure having a 4 that placed maybe two wards all season didn’t help) In a lot of our games, we didn’t have vision where it was needed, or we were getting dewarded very easily. (This is not all on him, because when I did happen to place a ward, it was anything but good)
His 5 pool had a noticeable lack of save heroes. Oracle/Venge type heroes were absent from his pool. He did start spamming Wyvern later on, we picked it once and he nailed some fight-saving curses. Qwerty didn’t have any major flaws/or issues that would prevent you from picking him. Even the warding thing, he isn’t bad at it; it’s just the only thing I could really think of. If he stays at his current legend 1 rank, I would probably call him a value pick in round 4. If he makes it back to his legend 4 draft rank; he’s a reliable support that is a great team guy.
7/10 with current hero pool/vision game
8/10 with more heroes/improved vision game
Final Thoughts on the team
Although this was a very solid season (it’s hard to complain about top 4) there will be a lingering ‘what-if’ feeling. I think that if we had figured things out earlier on it would have given us a lot more time/experience with that playstyle and could have pushed us over the edge. The major complaint I have is that not a single one of my teammates laughed at my jokes. Either all of them are completely devoid of humor, or I’m just not funny. I’m going with the former. We did not have a ‘fun’ atmosphere. And that’s not a bad thing, because I’m the type of guy that prizes winning over everything else. A bright spot is that this team was super PMA. Or at the very least there was no real tilting. I would have zero qualms running it back with this iteration of the the Thot’s. And that’s all you can really ask for.
To my teammates: Thanks for a great season boys.
