Mineski vs Starsboba GEST February Grand Finals Replay Analysis

By Ken Japhet on May 18, 2012 in DotA

Let’s relive the action in the last February Gigabyte E-Sport Tournament between the two formidable teams, Mineski and Starsboba, as they battled it out on winning the tournament.

Draft

From Starsboba’s Ban choices, it was already obvious that the Viet team wanted to play a Push Strategy against Mineski banning 2 creep-wave wrecking heroes, Invoker and QoP. Eventually, Mineski see through their strategy banning the push tandem of Syllabear and Lich. Without hesitating, SB came up with another lineup picking Lycanthrope and Venomancer. Mineski then banned SB’s trademark hero Furion and counterpicking to Earthshaker. The Vietnam team seemed to be aware in the Philippine DotA scene banning DK and Puck in the pool, and picking another push-oriented hero, Rhasta.

Laning

Sentinel
Earthshaker Mski_wtz_PColor (Jungle)
Stone Giant Mski_Jay_PColor (Mid)
Shadow Demon Mski_RR_PColor (Bot)
Windrunner Mski_JuLzPColor (Top)
Slithereen Guard Mski_owa_PColor (Bot)
Scourge
Vengeful Spirit SB_Archie (Jungle)
Lycanthrope SB_Recca (Jungle)
Venomancer SB_David21 (Bot)
Shadow Shaman SB_Yuna (Top)
Clockwerk SB_Batteu (Mid)

Starsboba’s laning was perfect, putting Venomancer solo on the bottom lane to face Sentinel’s trilane; Rhasta on toplane and Lycan on jungle both guarded by Vengeful Spirit; and Clockwerk on midlane to prevent Mineski’s ganks.

Having Venomancer on a solo can ruin the enemy’s tri-power in dominating the lane. This what makes Venomancer’s Plague Ward special having enough HP and fast cooldown, enough to handle against a trilane and also being a free ward on the map.

But Mineski’s laning wasn’t bad at all, playing up a 2-1-2 phase, putting ES on toplane babysitting Windrunner. They have put an anti-jungling ward on scourge’s jungle on top to prevent Lycan on farming.

What really ruined Starsboba’s play was Mineski.Jay’s Tiny playing exceptionally which the later forced Clockwerk switching lanes with Venomancer. From that point on, Clockwerk’s change of lane didn’t worked out being tower-killed by the Eredar-Slardar combo at bottom lane. This forced Rhasta to help the bottom lane from being pushed. But even that didn’t worked out as the Eredar-Slardar combo were lucky enough on pulling out a stunt under Scourge’s towers.

On the other side of the map, Lady Luck seemed to be in Tiny’s side after pulling out a successful double kill on Venomancer and Vengeful Spirit when the later attempted on destroying the Mid tier 1 tower.

At 14th minute of the game, SB finally destroyed the tier 1 tower on bottom lane with the help of Rhasta and Lycan’s push power. But not until Tiny while on his invis, took the opportunity to surprise the retreating enemies after destroying their tower. As soon as Rhasta and VS where in range of Tiny’s Avalanche, a double kill transitioned converting it to a triple kill and eventually a successful show off of a Rampage during their chase near Scourge’s tier 2 tower to kill the enemies.

But the Vietnamese team didn’t lose their hope as they manage to make a comeback taking out a clash near the Roshan’s den where Mineski’s Tiny, Slardar, and SD were ganged off guard.

18 minutes of the game, Mineski wanted to force a big clash as they completed their initiator’s core items.

Slithereen Guard initiated a Blink-Crash near Scourge’s tier 2 mid tower but failed coz of Rhasta’s quick Shackle. Realizing that, Mineski made a fake retreat to enable their another invisible Tiny for a surprise execution. But Starsboba in their experience, saw it coming and made their Lycanthrope positioned in Mineski’s off guard back line to do a counter move against them. But what they didn’t expect is a Tossed Earthshaker which caught off 4 of Scourge’s heroes disabling them to make a pace for their Lycan in doing a counter.