Clarity League | Season 11 Team Reviews & Power Rankings — Division 2
Season 11 has turned out to be an odd one. Despite finally crossing the coveted five division threshold, this feat was surprisingly enabled by a host of returning veterans, rather than an obscene influx of newcomers. This is highlighted by the 35% first timer rate, a modest figure compared to a number of previous events, though — without checking, mind — I have the impression that the spread of this 35% is also a bit more balanced across the brackets. The chief implication of this is that you no longer have one division that consists almost purely of known quantities, and another where the familiar faces are in the minority.
What this means for the fledgling power ranker is that there are maybe more teams than ever where the final preseason assessment you can make boils down to “it’s the first timers who will make or break this team”. Such, too, is the case of Div 2.
I tend to dislike repeating that “this person is the decider” mantra, but I parrot it often nonetheless, because conceding uncertainty feels better than trying to make sweeping judgments about someone’s level of play purely from a Dotabuff profile.
So I’m not going to do that! This set of reviews and rankings will be purely about my initial, instinctive read on teams, and I’ll skip the step of spending time researching someone just for it to be wrong in the end anyway.
I’ll stick to my usual format; reviews first, rankings after.
nnaarrzz
nnaarrzz, Bambohitter, Matotimo, sickboy, williboy
The elephant in the room is very obviously the validity of Bambohitter being capable of playing at a 7k level. I’m going to assume the answer there is a resounding No when you average it out, on the supposition that it’s more of a consistency issue than one of raw potential to put in a 7k shift, which I don’t actually doubt he’s capable of.
nnaarrzz stands out as someone who, in past seasons, I’d have associated with core roles other than 1, but I feel quite confident that he’ll do well.
Mato is thus the presumed third core, and he’s admittedly an enigma; he’s been as high as 6k I want to say — in pre Glicko times to boot — and under many layers of rust there’s an immensely capable player there. I’m simply not certain how much of that remains should you scrape said rust off.
This leaves what I assume to be the support duo (though I wouldn’t discount the possibility of the 3/4/5 setup being different), which I frankly don’t have much to say about. This altogether puts the team at looking potentially either very dangerous, or potentially middling. Averages out to likely being above average.
Zarzuket
Gav, Scorpio, Zarzuket, Kaitaro, sparvel
I’ll point out to start that there’s a decent chance of Gav and Zarzuket’s roles being flipped here; I do think they both likely prefer 3 to 1, but given Zarzuket is the captain and drafter I’ll assume he picked around playing his own role.
This team is…fine. It’s okay. It has no major red flags. I just also don’t think that sets them up for a great shot at standing out. I could dance around the point with vague justifications, but this strikes me as your generic team, one you’re not scared of, but don’t go in against assuming you’ll stomp. It’s the baseline. It’s a 4th to 6th team. If this team was a background character in a Japanese cartoon, they would get to the end of the story, but you’d still forget about them 14 times over.
Jetamo
Ufo666, Neex, picapau, jetamo, Mat
Batto-chestto the jetamo Ufo synergy wow can you believe it!?
I’ll be brash and straightforward, I expect very little from this team, as it’s built on what I personally perceive as MMRs that aren’t particularly reflective of the level of play you should expect from some of the players, and little else to balance that out, with maybe the potential exception of their high MMR 5 player being some master shotcaller.
Rapdis
Burge, Rapdis, whonoobnow, Calli, Dredi
This is a really interesting stack with many familiar faces who are nevertheless difficult to evaluate. But I think they can do REALLY well!
Oh this isn’t Div 3?
Oh.
Hm.
Yeah I’m good I’ll pass
Staxxy
Olaf, Gunson, Staxxy, Major, Sunsh1ny
A fairly well-rounded stack, featuring a healthy mix of stalwart veterans and some new players, all wrapped up neatly with prior synergy and championship experience. I think that’s a very solid foundation.
I also think this is very much a test of how far the players that make up this team’s tricore have come. Doing well and making a dent here would go a long way in proving that the climbs of a player like Olaf or Gunson weren’t meaningless, and assert that they can make it work in a different kind of stack. Whether they’ll manage that, I’m genuinely not sure. I’d put it at coin flip odds.
Gladp
PK, Blade, Intergraphic, Gladp, Benji
Some potential role confusion aside, this is perhaps the team that I have the hardest time judging, largely due to not knowing much about what should make for a very intimidating tricore.
My gut tells me if the comms are anywhere near decent, this is a very strong team. If Gladp is comfortable away from mid (and that’s where I assume they’ll land, given the pointlessness otherwise of drafting 3 cores very set on their preference), I would expect a decent bit.
Jaasz
Jaasz, Frozen, dinozaur, Necroscope, BarryBeeDespair
This feels like the alternate facet of the Gladp team. Decent spread, some star power — but my concern here lays in their ability to channel individual skill into a cohesive unit, and knowing little about the communication of much of this team makes that hard to estimate. I’d expect them to be decent though.
Poppy
Sherez, Kk, Poppy, Gecko, Neox
A team I like — a lot. Because it’s more or less the team I would’ve drafted, +- some personal preference. That isn’t to say I would point to this team as my easy favorite pick, and I don’t actually expect them to be straight up dominant, but I think there’s such a storm of positive elements here that could allow for it.
You have significant league experience, you have players who have been higher MMR in the past (and justifiably so), you have players who regularly play with and against players better than themselves through inhouses and pubs, you have a guaranteed shotcalling foundation, a healthy mix of vocal players, strong characters to tell Sherez to SHUT THE FUCK UP. I’m super sold on just about everything about this stack, and the only risk in my eyes is the potential for individual underperformance to stifle their chances.
Yes yes okay enough review more ranking yum yum numbers
