Don’t expect this shit every week, because I probably won’t deliver
- MOCA (Prev: 1)
Unchanged from last week, MOCA team is by far the best team on paper this season. At the same time… I stood-in for them in a scrim and honestly that lowered my opinion somewhat. They are one of those teams with a lot of voices, and that probably caused game-plan execution issues. It seemed that the 3 cores were on very different pages at times. They also forced me to play Spirit Breaker in one of the games. Which, if it was an official, would be the worst drafting mistake in PST history. - Jotatoe (Prev: 2)
I mean wtf do you ban against us lol? We legit have 7 heroes we can first phase, have fun deciding between them! Goddamn it feels good to be with my spamming brethren. I’m legit gonna get Wind in 90% of our games, because of how toxic our puddles are. And yes, it feels so fucking good. Most of us are very capable at ‘judging’ our teams within the first few games of a season. As in, you know (at least deep down) how good or bad your team is very early on. This team’s floor is playoffs, ceiling is PST winners. Game 2 last night something just… clicked for us, and I know we’ll be hitting that ceiling. Shit-talk all you want, I can’t wait to be mega annoying in PST-general after we win. - CRAP (Prev: 3)
Not sure how everyone else feels about this team, but I think it’s easily top 3. My personal biggest knock on Luke (SteveyRuggles) is that he doesn’t shot-call as the highest MMR player, which is normally difficult to compensate for in RD2L. But he’s like, really fucking good otherwise. He even managed to carry the corpse of the Toth/Jabinskiz offlane to 7 wins a few seasons back (right after a year in which he didn’t play much DOTA). And now you pair him with CRAP? Sounds a little broken. For anyone new and unaware… CRAP is probably the ‘best’ PST captain in terms of ‘captain stuff’. Others might disagree, but his recent results speak for themselves. Vuvu was memeing about the Auction Draft switch to nerf CRAP, but there was honestly a grain of truth there. Seems like it didn’t work. - AR (Prev: 11)
With a closer look , and seeing other commentary on this team; I believe I ranked this team too low. I didn’t recognize any of the Divine tri-core, but they’re all RD2L vets and possibly somewhat rigged (not in the Ezpz way, in the ‘how the fuck did other captains allow this’ way). I’m still a little skeptical, especially because they have two heavy anchors to lug around… but a bunch of teams ahead of them in my initial ranks are getting dropped, and I want to cover my bases in case this team is actually S-tier. - Tyr (Prev: 5)
The name will soon be different, evidently Tyr himself has been MIA since the draft. But the team MMR is still there, and that MMR is quite nice. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see them in the upper tyr (sorry lol) of teams come end of season. Mostly because they just don’t have anyone that can flat outplay everyone else in games, they’re reliant on well-roundedness and being above average at every position. Which, sure, that will win them lanes and often win them games, but the lack of a ‘watch this’ player probably makes their ceiling 2nd Round of Playoffs. - Ultra (Prev: 9)
Still a tough one, but Ultra should probably be given some benefit of the doubt, considering there’s no true anchors on this team. Since there is a lack of yfu this season, he’s the best player in PST by a mile. And I really hate this expression, but it’s not even close. Biggest question mark is Dunk, generally Legend (and below) carries just don’t perform all that well in RD2L. Now I’m not saying Dunk is any different… but I will say I’ve heard that from others. Like, different in a good way. Or a bad way I guess, if you don’t want to see Ultra team succeed. It’s all about perspective, or whatever. Oh, also apparently Amane used to be Divine? And he’s the most based giga-chad I’ve ever interacted with in this weeby ass pony tolerating division of degeneracy? Pudge is a fucking S-tier offlaner, literally no copium. Sharingan definitely better than his Ancient 1 badge too. - Kisses (Prev: 19)
Itachi spent like 15 minutes questioning me about his teams ranking while queueing for a pub, so this is partially to ensure that doesn’t happen again, and partially because he made some valid arguments. According to him: they are currently 8–0 (with scrims), Kisses is a much better 4 player than his badge would suggest, Schuz0r has “moments of brilliance”, and Itachi himself is actually invested in playing DOTA at the moment (He even admitted that yeah, he should not have been adjusted, which means he’s definitely gonna tryhard. Unless they lose a lot or something idk).You obviously have to take anyone talking about their own team with a grain of salt, and whenever I do this next they could well be back in the bottom five. But whatever, I’ll throw Itachi a bone. He kinda deserves it, got flamed for posting good content, which definitely resonated with me. How many times does it need to be said, don’t fucking flame the people who spend their valuable personal time making shit they’re passionate about for everyone’s enjoyment. Because they’ll lose that passion! And then yall will be back in PST-general reeeing ‘where content???’. Anyway. - Vuvu (Prev: 6)
I really want this team to be bad. Why? Because then I get to huff the mega copium that Vuvu/Ping were the problems, and not me. I really was planning on dropping them super low, on the off chance that my ramblings could like, manifest in reality and make them bad. Maybe I don’t even need a miracle like that? Because they got curb-stomped in a game by Treeli, which, yikes lol. But at the same time this team just should be good. Right?? They have the MMR. Only explanation if not is Vuvu’s supernatural ability to miss playoffs (not even flame, actual facts: I think he’s double digit consecutive playoff dodges). Gotta feel for Hanmingzy and Mantis, but wcyd. Sometimes you just gotta tank a Vuvu season. I would know. - Mooshack (Prev: 7)
They got 2–0ed, but I’m not gonna drop them a whole lot. A very strong tri-core. Mooshack is one of those captains who’s super invested, which means they’ll have thorough scouting and draft planning. The Mooshack/Fallen/Doof tri-core is actually good. Doof in particular is much better if he has other cores he can rely on, less so if he’s supposed to be carrying the game. Chark usually plays above his badge, definitely one of the better button-pressing legends in PST. Woh as well. They also 2–0'ed my team in a scrim. Massive caveats being that Jotatoe was extremely sick (like, puking) and I hadn’t slept in 36 hours. Also Burra was tilted at my play and went no-comms. Hard to blame her tho, lol. Maybe I’m hitting the copium, but honestly who cares, no one except Mooshack team will even read this, because no one reads anything other than their own section. Next time I suggest not getting bodied in ticketed games. - Yop (Prev: 10)
I might as well just copy and paste the Mooshack segment here. Yes, they got 2–0ed. Yes, I scrimmed this team (although it was 1–1). Yes, etc. After their series last night, I talked to Leak about what went wrong and it appears they have some shot-calling issues. Not in the actual calls, because Yop/Leak are more than capable of making good calls at the right times. But more so the others actually listening to those calls. I can confidently say that ‘wrangling the apes’ is a mega important part of winning in RD2L. And it takes a particular brand of shot-caller. If you’re too nice, or if your calls tend to sound more like suggestions or persuasion… the apes will not listen. They’ll say ok. Sure. Alright. Yep, sounds good. They hear, and will even affirm… but they will not actually follow the directions. Successful wrangling requires firmness/sternness/meanness/whatever other adjectives you want to use. I know this, because I’m an ape, and it’s 100% necessary. It’s part of why Burra is currently one of my favorite teammates ever, because she yells at me whenever I’m about to fuck up (Like that’s not even a meme… I’d rather someone go ‘What the fuck are you doing, you dumb fucking shittard, please learn how to fucking play DOTA’, than not say anything and watch me fuck up). I don’t think Yop/Leak have enough Burra in them, which is why I worry for this team. I’ve played a lot of games with both of them, and I’m 90% sure they are too nice to do it. - Clare (Prev: 4)
It’s Reggie’s Dota 2 League no longer. That is to say, Reggie got banned, as you are probably well aware of. But Reggie was the biggest reason I had rated this team so high, because he was a Divine player masquerading as a low Legend. Without him… this team is just middling to me. They also got 2–0ed, so it was easy for me to drop them. They’re not bad necessarily, but without Reggie it’s hard to justify even top 10, much less top 4. - Pearberr (Prev: 15)
In the post-draft ranks, this team suffered from being one of the first I looked at. It was unimpressive, especially because I’m fairly certain MOCA was directly prior. It’s still somewhat unimpressive, but less so in retrospect. They also got a 2–0 last night, so this team is doing something right. My best guess is fringe playoffs, but I’m also an idiot. Well, maybe not. Because I’m generally really solid with season projections, seriously that’s not a cope… check my record. But every season there’s a few teams who I’m exceptionally wrong about. So don’t feel discouraged if I rank you low! You could be one of them! I could be mega wrong, and then you get to laugh at me in Discord! - TCSlayer (Prev: 18)
I don’t want to deviate from my previous placement of this team too much. Like them getting a 2–0 really doesn’t change my opinion. They are still heavily frontloaded with Simple/BBA and then 3 sub-archons. I can’t see that team construction working in RD2L. But hey, they did win. Gotta give them some upwards movement, I suppose. - Bsvhsvj (Previous: 20)
Ngl I was absolutely fucking around putting them dead last previously. That doesn’t mean I think they’re good, because like… they aren't. Ripley will have Axe banned every game, so his in-series value is much closer to his current badge. Eli isn’t good enough to carry this team to wins, even if he’s back to playing his cringey cheese heroes. From my experiences with Tree, he’s definitely a more ‘passive’ type of player/shotcaller. Only makes low risk plays, focus more on map movements/outfarming, etc. That probably works with certain rosters, but the players that can excel with that playstyle are not present in Treeli. With all that being said. They fucking worked Vuvu, at least in the only ticketed game. Like actually how can two admins just not ticket a game? So maybe they’re better than what I’m thinking, but it also could just be typical Vuvu feels the need to feed and throw a game. He gets like that, sometimes. - Steven (Prev: 12)
Original thoughts still apply. I think they have big role issues. Maybe Steven/USS are good enough that they can adapt to core quickly, and pick up more wins as the season goes on. Their MMR’s really aren't that bad, too. It’s just role concerns. This is a team that could quickly climb up the ranks if they figure that shit out. - Jmcconnell (Prev: 14)
This was our matchup from last night. They had FlyingNightmare standin for Flesh Canoe, so maybe they look completely different with him back playing/drafting. But I wasn’t super impressed, at least with the FN stand-in version. Their 3 player is probably slightly better than his badge. I would say their carry is slightly worse. Mason is Mason, he’s a great 4. Heelys is Heelys. This team will lose sidelanes in most of their games, unless they manage to get toxic lane dominating heroes (i.e. Viper, Razor), which is a feasible option. Game 1 they were pretty ahead, but had some pretty questionable decisions/buybacks. Maybe our draft was just better, hard to tell. Jotatoe came back for G2, and well… It was one of the hardest stomps I’ve ever been apart of in RD2L. They just lost lanes, and had no clue what to do afterwards. To be fair, they forgot to ban techies, which is an extremely disruptive hero. And they felt forced to First Phase the FN Huskar, but weirdly let us take Viper for Jotatoe. I’d attribute the stomp more to the draft than the actual game. They’ll probably end up better than some teams currently above them, but for now they get the ‘we just lost to Toth’ power rankings treatment. - Narte (Prev: N/A)
Narte was on the intentionally rigged Ezpz team, and admins were pretty sure he had no part in it. Well, mostly sure. Regardless, he volunteered to step up and captain/find three new players instead of taking the season off. Props to Narte! The admins got him (and Darth Pikachu): Deadprez (Divine 2), Kden (Ancient 1), and Aerial Bliss (Ancient 1) to replace his ex-perma-banned teammates. Unfortunately, this new iteration is not nearly as rigged as the last. They’re similar to the Tyr team, but with worse badge/role combos. There’s definitely potential here, and they might figure it out. Kden is better than his badge. Deadprez/Darth Pikachu are good players. But the lack of a high MMR teammate is going to keep them low in PST standings, and therefore these ranks. - Wicked_Sick (Prev: 13)
I kinda forgot about this team until just now, so that’s part of the reason for this placement. Although honestly I might have moved them down here even if I remembered. Maybe not. They had to play broken MOCA team. Although… their Immortal Mid (BlimpK) did not impress, in my extremely thorough and systematic DOTABUFF analysis. I guess MOCA had TA both games. Idk. Might move them up later. Might not? Wicked_Sick carry has always been somewhat of a yikes, you probably don’t want an Archon 2 as your win condition. Seems sorta bad. - Veetoo (Prev: 16)
I was pretty low on this team from the post-draft, and last night’s series only reinforces that thinking. It seems like Quad_Buck popped off on them, but if high MMR mids are their kryptonite, I have upsetting news. Quad_Buck is very arguably not even in the top 5 of PST mid players. In no particular order: Ultra, Itachi, Simple, Luke, AR, Jotatoe, MOCA, Quad_Buck, Flesh Canoe… My point is I think they’ll be in for a long season. Maybe it’s not fair to say their weakness is good opposing midlaners, and therefore they suck, but I have class soon, and I gotta wrap this up. Sorry lol. - Miyushi (Prev: 17)
Ok well I know I just apologized for it… but I might do it again. Not might, I am. Miyushi team mid is Archon 5. Pretty sure the average of the PST mids this season is greater than Divine 3. I don’t think this team will win many games. Hey maybe this person is mega sandbagged. Hope so for Miyu team sake. Predict and Zombies are good core players though, if mid can play at even an Ancient badge this team could get some wins.
