trackingdota2players

Again we are without actual professional games to talk about. But luckily I have figured out a loophole in my own system where if the players I talk about were even at one point pros then we’re in the clear. So we’re going to converse on a once pro player turned best analyst in the freaking scene.

Purge. That’s just him. But if you happened to get into a taxi cab where he was driving it for some reason then you would refer to him as Kevin Godek.

Kevin was part of a small team called Zephyr around TI4. They were just a bunch of college roommates who wanted to be a pro team so they decided to become one. The only problem was they didn’t do to well playing other American teams. So what did they do? Well they went to Korea where the competition is actually a lot easier even though you wouldn’t think that. In Korea they did very well! But unfortunately their dreams did not last forever as after TI4 Zephyr disbanded. Well luckily for Kevin his game knowledge and likable personality allowed him to be a streamer/analyst for other professional games.

The reason I want to talk about him though is not because of that but because of the videos he puts on youtube. Purge’s thing is all about teaching people the game of Dota 2 better than they already know it, no matter what level you are at. He puts out videos for beginners, and other videos for really high 3k players (me). No matter what level you are there’s a mechanic that Purge can teach you about.

I get kind of nostalgic talking about it because when I was first learning the game in high school the person I turned to to teach me all about it was Purge. If I wanted to learn a hero I would look up his guide on youtube then try to emulate it exactly. He is the man who taught me Dota 2 basically. Not only that but everyone in the scene knows how good his game knowledge is.

This video in particular.

Because he is so good at teaching you the game, and because he just makes you want to learn more is why Purge is one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

Okay this one will be a little different because SingSing is a different type of player. He was a pro player and did relatively well on Cloud9 back in the day. He’s played with RTZ, Envy, and Aui2000. Everyone in the scene knows him but not because he’s the highest level player. SingSing is a streamer and god do we love him.

SingSing. MasterSingSing. SingSongPingPong. MonkeyMolester69. BatSkater420. Those are just he ones I remember off the top of my head. Because if you saw him across the room at a classy dinner party you would call him WehSing Yuen.

A streamer is someone who plays Dota 2 and sends the footage to a website in this case called twitch. Then us plebs can watch that twitch stream and see Singx2 joking around because let’s be honest he doesn’t take many games seriously. People watch his stream because of it though and I am definitely in that group. I have seen him and his friends go from extreme try hard to a very fast 322. It’s just the way being a streamer works.

The reason I bring up Sing this time around is because the times between tournaments are the times he loves. No one has anything to watch so they watch Sing’s stream and it’s immensely entertaining. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been awake at 3am laughing so hard that I’m crying because of something he said. Let me illustrate.

Okay yes understanding this video and exactly why is makes me crack up laughing takes an understanding of some game mechanics. Mainly that a hook doesn’t stop simply because a Kotl recalls the Pudge. All you need to know is that the first time I saw that I was crying laughing.

So while he’s not a pro player any longer, or maybe he’s on Kaipi i’m not sure, the thing about SingSing is he makes you laugh. Everything he says is insensitive and offensive but that’s just the way we love it. That is why Sing is definitely one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

The Manilla Major is so close I can taste it. While we wait for these games to begin why don’t we talk about one of the nicest players in the scene. Really just a genuinely nice guy, or so says everyone who has ever played with him. He’s also one of the most dangerous Puck players in the world and has the made the most dramatic play in the history of Dota 2.

S4. Carl. That’s it friends. He has always been Carl. But if you sat next to him at the doctor’s office you’d call him Gustav Magnussen.

S4 is one of the best mid players in the world. That’s it. There’s no competition. He is one of the million Swedish players on Alliance, who has been doing very well recently. They got invited to Manilla directly! That’s how you know it’s real. Regardless there is a specific reason I love S4.

Imagine TI3. Game 5 of the GRAND FINALS. Na’Vi vs Alliance. El Classico. Alliance is making the most tremendous comeback in the history of the game but it isn’t sealed yet. Bulldog goes for the rat play top, a surprise attack. Dendi and Puppey go to tp back but S4 jaunts in and dream coils, canceling both tps and allowing the tops racks to be taken!

The crowd as I understand it lost their minds.

I know it’s tougher to see there but S4 won them the game without question.

There’s so many things you can talk about with this fantastic player, he’s done so much for the game itself but that right there is the critical play, the one thing you need to know about S4. This is why he is one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

Continuing nothing happening means continuing writer’s choice! So now I’ve decided that we’re going to do a pub star mid player double feature! Sorry for all the enthusiasm I didn’t mean to be so excited about it. What we’re going to do is talk about my main man Miracle.

Miracle. Simply Mr. 8k. But if you happened to meet him at your niece’s baby shower that you weren’t even going to go to you would call him Amer Barqawi.

He has very few nicknames because he is so new and also because he has such a reserved personality similarly to W33ha. 8k though isn’t a bad nickname to have so let me take a moment to explain it. Mmr stands for matchmaking rating and is basically the ranking system in Dota 2. The better the mmr the better the player. The average mmr is somewhere around 2000. I personally have double that at 4000 meaning I know what I’m doing. Most pro players have around 6000-7000. Miracle had 8200 mmr at a point. Let me say that again. He had over 8000 mmr points. Ladies and gentlemen that was once the highest in the world and has only been beaten by I think RTZ recently. That means that this kid who isn’t even on a pro team is the best player ever according to the system.

So yes once he got there a pro team picked him up very fast.

Team OG originally known as Monkey Business until the company that is OG decided to sponsor them because they are so incredibly good. Made up of Miracle, NoTail, Fly, MoonMeander, and Cr1t. It’s basically the team that NoTail and Fly formed around themselves made up of good underrated players on not so great teams after Secret kicked the two of them. And damn have they performed.

I like Miracle because he may be the only person in the world who could beat RTZ in a 1v1 Shadow Fiend. He’s exactly how I described W33ha, a playmaking mid. His team is godly too, they have barely been together long but OG already one a major and that’s nothing to laugh about.

I don’t honestly have a ton to say about him! Look what do you people want from me. The best parts of his career are ahead of him. For me I decided to write about him because he’s one of those people you know are going to be talked about for a long time. Miracle is an insane player and hopefully wherever he goes the man does well.

Here’s to Miracle becoming one of my favorite Dota 2 players!

-David Wintrode

 

Nothing is happening. All the pros are streaming. There hasn’t been a tournament in a month but frankly is feels like years. Everything has settled from the shuffle and the clear winner is Bulba. When there are no tournament winners to talk about the sad fact is that we then must talk about whoever I feel like blabbing about. Luckily for you folks I feel like talking about a very good and semi-controversial player.

W33ha. W33. R33fresher. W33po. But if you happened to spill your drink on him in a coffee shop after tripping over your friend’s dog you would call him Aliwi Omar.

So why does W33 have so few nicknames? Unlike Puppey it is simply because no one knows anything about this man. I mean we do we know he’s a kickass meepo player but beyond that what is there really? The thing is that any social media he uses W33ha barely touches. Any interviews about him never contain enough substance to let us know what we want about him so he remains mostly an enigma!

But here’s what we do know. He’s a Romanian pub star with a crazy high mmr and just generally  a fantastic player. He formed a team called MeePwn’ed with some other Romanian players and they did decently at a lower level. Then disaster strikes. He gets caught cheating in a  game. Frankly cheating in a video game is not easy to do but it involves making a custom lobby without anyone noticing and inviting the other team into it something that no one thought was suspicious for some reason. So he gets caught because he was playing a meepo game and had a crazy high Net Worth at 10 minutes which drew a little scrutiny. W33’s response to the allegations? Of course he cheated he was bored.

So they get punished and stuff but in the end he turns out the winner because Team Secret looks at him and says okay he cheated, but dammit he’s very very good. So now they pick up this Romanian dude who everyone knows has cheated before and no one is even sure if he’s a good high tier player.

Then they play a game with him. Everyone’s nervous. Is W33ha even good? How will he do?

Oh he’s good. W33 is crazy good. His niche is the meepo pick which not every other team can play. I remember watching those first games and texting all my friends that W33ha was legit. SO legit.

This is one of his first games with Secret. He runs Fnatic over.

He turns out to be one of the better mid players in the game. He’s very similar to how Miracle came out in that they were just pub stars with high mmr who got picked up by a professional team because he’s just that good.

So why do I have a personal crush on W33?

He’s a playmaker. A ganker. Literally a delight to watch at times because of how skilled he is. I’m not saying that people like Dendi or S4 aren’t skilled but W33, Sumail, and Miracle these guys are like the next generation of mid players and honestly a lot of them are filthy.

That is why W33ha is one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

Let’s pretend we don’t know that RTZ and Universe just left EG for Secret. Let’s pretend I wasn’t refreshing twitter that night desperately searching for the next bit of news on the matter. Let’s pretend I didn’t kind of wish that I could write all about that instead of a player. BUT this blog is about the players of Dota 2 and not the roster switching and general drama that surrounds the game. So we’re going to ignore all of that and instead focus on one of the players that I have been waiting to write about for a long time.

Eternal Envy. Jacky Lmao. EE-Sama. fEEd. But if you saw him walking in the park you would refer to him as Jacky Mao.

EE is one of the more interesting players to write about because very similarly to Swindle he does not give a hoot. He’ll tell it like it is 100% of the time, that’s just his personality. He’s dedicated, ambitious, and frankly a little strange but these are the things that make him great. So before we talk more about them let’s give some background.

In 2011 there was a small blog post made on a forum that I don’t think anyone reads anymore. In it the author declared that they were dropping out of college to pursue playing video games full time because that was his dream and he believed he could be the best at it in the world. Everyone in the comments told him he was making a mistake. He ignored them.

And thank God he did ignore them because it was later confirmed that Eternal Envy was the author of that blog post. True to his word he had dropped out of college and started playing Dota around the clock. He quickly formed the team No Tidehunter which was actually Alliance in disguise. He did end up getting kicked from that team because of differences on strategy so he moved on to Kaipi Gaming. After several iterations of this team they became known as Speed Gaming and went to a little tournament called MLG Columbus. Here is where RTZ, a close friend of EE’s, broke out and Jacky himself became a major name. Speed Gaming eventually became known as Cloud 9 which did very well. This was the patch of the Terrorblade which Envy loved. It was not to be however and that team did end up collapsing.

Now though we end up in recent times where Envy is a staple on team secret. Where they recently just kicked Misery and W33ha *cough cough* in exchange for RTZ and Universe. I’m not going to lie and say that I think it was a good decision, the team won a major I thought they were doing very well. But Jacky and Artour are close friends so they just want to play together I guess. Regardless the current roster looks like it is going to be Puppey, PieLieDie, EE, Universe, RTZ. That is a deadly lineup no matter who you ask.

Why is EE-sama so great though? One of my favorite reasons is because he’s so ballsy. If the game is looking like only a rapier can save it then you absolutely know that Envy is buying that rapier. It makes his games a delight to watch. Let’s not discount his incredible skill though. He may actually be the best Ember carry in the world. No one says that lightly.

Skip to around 3:50 in order to see the start of the rapier action. This is a good one.

Individual skill and honest personality aside Jacky is just one of those people you want to see do well. He works hard to win and you want to see it rewarded. That is why without a doubt he is one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

Quiet time. Theres not much happening. Teams are preparing for upcoming tournaments and everyone is generally relaxing after Shanghai. So this time I decided we were going to focus on player whose team did much better than anyone expected at the major. This team is Complexity and the player is SwindleMelonzz.

SwindleMelonzz. Swindle. Swindlezzzzzzzzz. But if you carpooled to school with him you would call him Kyle Freedman.

Puppey had very few nicknames because he is so respected. Why doesn’t Swindle have many nicknames? Well this is because he is so new to the scene. Like Peter Dager before him Kyle was a professional Heroes of Newearth player until around 2014 when he decided to switch to Dota. Since then he hasn’t made very many headlines, at least not until recently.

The current lineup is Chessie, Limmp, Swindlez, Zfreek, and Handsken. They’ve always been a decent team but it has not been until just this past major that everyone was collectively like wow these guys are kind of legit. It all started when Swindle himself showed up on the panel and starting throwing every other team under the bus. I mean that too, he started instantly rambling about how the Chinese didn’t look prepared for this tournament at all. This didn’t go over well with some other players, but Complexity put their money where Swindle’s mouth was and placed in front of every single Chinese team at the event.

So why focus on Swindle? Why Complexity? Because they’re on the rise right now. They did decently at DotaPit and they have drive. You can tell those guys want to get better and that they’re working to do it. I think that in the very near future they will be one of the top teams in the world if they aren’t considered to be already.

I don’t have a lot to say about them now. One day though we’ll all be talking about them, trust me. This is why I think SwindleMelonzz is soon going to be one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

 

 

 

 

There’s a tension in the air. Can you feel it? The Shanghai Major begins very very soon and most of the teams are already in China. Everyone is just waiting for what is undoubtedly going to be a stellar tournament. BUT nothing has happened yet so all we had to watch recently was MoonDuck’s captains draft tournament so we’re going to focus on the leader of the winning team EG.

PPD. PehPehDeh. PJSalt. The Salt King. Peturrrr. But if you got trapped in an elevator with him you would call him Peter Dager.

Peter is the captain of the American team EG. Easily one of the best teams in the world. He’s a very strong captain from an area which is known to be lacking good leaders, so this may be the reason that EG is one of the only really good NA teams.

So let’s learn more about him. Peter started his professional career in Heroes of Newearth where he made a name for himself. Eventually though he and Zai moved to playing Dota 2 because theres actually no money to be made in HoN. He played on a few minor teams and was earning a name for himself as a strong player and captain around the time of Ti3. After Ti3 his team disbanded and he formed the team SadBoys with Fear, Universe, Zai, and RTZ. This is basically the EG we know and love today. But they didn’t become EG until after they won the Electric Shock Therapy Cup and the organization decided these were their guys.

Peter has been on EG ever since while other players have rotated in and out around him. They’ve had their highs and lows but generally have been very successful. Most of this is because of Peter himself and how strong of a drafter he is. He’s actually known for being able to predict where your draft is going and counter it instantly. I’m not saying he’s never made a mistake in the drafting phase but when that does happen it is rare.

This is part of what won them Ti5 is that they knew where CDEC was going to take their picks in the finals, so they let them pick what they wanted then countered it. Because of that we had the amazing 6 million dollar echo slam in the final game. When I was watching the finals and saw that play I just started yelling as loud as I could. You know what I’m gonna embed that clip.

How amazing right? I couldn’t have done that. Nope never in a million years would I have had the heads up awareness to make that play.

He’s not just a great head coach though he also posts so much content for us viewers. He’s been posting things pretty much daily on his youtube channel recently and he’s never afraid to say what needs to be said on social media. That’s another thing about him, Peter is brutally honest. He never fails to share his opinion with everyone and it is rarely nice. He says it how it is and while it can occasionally be insulting PPD always stands by what he says.

He leads his team to victory. He single-handedly brought Treant Protector into competitive play. And he never fails to be a presence on social media. PPD is one of the best kinds of players because he’s great to watch in game and out. This is why he is one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

 

-David Wintrode

So theres really not much happening right now. MDL is over and the Shanghai major isn’t happening for a while. We’re in a lull of no major professional games happening. All the pros are practicing and streaming while us viewers just have to wring our hands and wait. In times like this I decided to focus on probably the best known Dota player out there because theres just nothing else right now.

Dendi. Dondo. Na’Ver Dender. Superman. Lepo. Anuxi. Dondo the SupaMida. But if you bumped into him at a bar you would call him Danil Ishutin.

How do I even begin to describe Dendi? At one point he was the best mid player in the game. Other players used to be scared of Dendi, especially of his Pudge. But he’s also incredibly good at every other mid hero with his favorites being SF, TA, and Puck. He’s a Ukranian player that was around since the original Dota 1. He won the very first TI and was in the finals of the next two with Na’Vi. This isn’t what a want to talk about with Danil though because if I was to talk about how great he is I would never stop and honestly  Na’Vi isn’t that great anymore.

No I want to talk about the effect Danil has had on the game in general. Specifically for players like me who were new to the professional scene and wanted to get into it. For these people Dendi is the first pro you hear about, and the first one you come to adore. He’s funny, he’s incredibly good, and you just want to see what he does next. He was the first celebrity, the first player that everyone knew and could bond over because they were trying to emulate him.

Let me be more clear. It was like my fourth game of Dota and someone on the enemy team was playing the hero Pudge. He missed a hook near me and my friend says to me “I guess he’s not Dendi.” This made no sense to me. I didn’t know what a Dendi was. So I asked and the response I got was “Oh he’s a pro player who is insanely good at Pudge, watch a youtube video of him later.” So I did. And oh my I was amazed. Did he ever miss a hook? Did he ever lose mid?

If you have the time to watch then check out this video. I stumbled across it a long time ago and it actually perfectly describes what Dendi’s Pudge is still capable of. When he plays the butcher it’s probably the scariest thing ever.

This is a phase that every new player goes just as every little kid wants to be their favorite football player when they grow up. Except the difference is that ESports in general are so new that you don’t get a choice of what player you want to emulate at first. You only choose Dendi. He is that guy. He can win any game.

The best part about him I’d say is that he loves his fans. He isn’t an Arteezy who doesn’t care about them, or a Bulldog who uses them as an outlet to be weird. Dendi genuinely loves his fans and does so many things just for them. He’s done so many funny interviews, streams, and just general antics in his games that are actually just fan service. How can you forget when he dressed up as Pudge at TI4?! Or when he hooked Puppey at the TI3 all star match?!

This is a different kind of blog from my other two because Dendi is a different type of player. Everyone knows him and loves him, regardless of what region of the world they’re from or what teams they like. Dendi is Dendi.

Now I know I’ve been sucking up to him a lot but for you out there that hate it when the people I like do well, Danil hasn’t been doing well recently. Na’Vi is not playing as well as they could right now. And you know that he could join any team in need of a mid player but he refuses to leave the team that lifted him up from nothing. This was admirable a year ago but now it just seems silly. I think he needs to move to a fresh team, because every other player that has made Na’Vi great has left as well. But thats just my opinion I’m sure theres plenty of other reasons that he stays.

If you play Dota at all then most likely Dendi is a name that you’ve heard of. He taught us how to own mid. He taught us to be fun in games. But most importantly he taught us to fear the butcher. This is why Dendi is own of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode